Page 104 of Last Comes Fate

My shoulders slumped. “Just listen.” I read the section out loud, then looked up, expecting a remark. Maybe an elaboration. Something more than the blank look I was facing.

Xavier just shrugged again. “It sounds like he convinced himself not to describe how my father had knocked up Mum, then thought otherwise at the end. Also, sounds like Dad and I had more in common than he let on.”

I frowned. “How do you mean?”

“‘Yet another scandal,’ didn’t he say? You don’t want to know how many times I was toldnotto embarrass the family. God, I wish I’d have known about this back then. Way to be a fucking hypocrite, Dad.”

I sat back in my chair, somewhat disappointed with his cavalier attitude. Or maybe it was the fact that he’d undone my suspicions with a single guess.

Xavier seemed to sense my disappointment, so he set aside the ledger and flicked his finger at me. “Come here, let’s have a look.”

I joined him at the desk, only to be pulled unceremoniously into his lap. Henry’s journal was plucked from my hand and tossed to the floor before I was thoroughly ravished.

“Put that away,” he said, burying his face in my neck. “It will keep. You won’t.”

“Ah!” I squealed as his long nose found its way down my shirt. “I was looking at that!”

“And now you’re looking atme.”

He swiveled around, then heaved me up so I was sitting on his desk. Immediately, my mouth was captured by a kiss that made all thoughts of journals, pregnancies, dukes, and scandals evaporate completely. My hands slid into the silky softness of Xavier’s hair while I lingered in his musk, enveloped in his taste.

Lord, the man could kiss. And he really was all mine.

After nearly every thought in my head had been completely obliterated, Xavier sat back in his chair and surveyed me, looking rather like a king peering over an expanse of kingdom he had just conquered.

“Wouldn’t you know it?” he said with a devilish cock of his head. “I’m a bit famished.”

I bit my lip. “Haven’t you had enough? You only kept me up all night. And the night before. And the night before that. I haven’t gotten up before noon for days.”

He responded by peeling off my leggings and underwear and tossing them to the floor beside the journal.

“There’s never enough Francesca,” he rumbled before delivering another soul-searing kiss. “I’m addicted now, you see.Anda newlywed. Every few hours, I need my hit of sweet new bride. Right here on my ancestors’ furniture.”

I giggled but did nothing to stop him as he undid the top buttons of my shirt—which happened to be one of his, since most of my shirts were suddenly too small—and settled his mouth on one breast while sliding a hand up and over my clit.

“Oh!” I gasped as one long finger slid inside me.

Xavier’s teeth bit lightly before he released my nipple and kissed me instead.

“Lie back,” he ordered, pushing me down until I did as he said and lay splayed completely across the enormous mahogany surface. He spread my legs farther, then lifted them over his shoulders and pulled my hips to the edge, like he was about to attend to a feast.

Which, apparently, he was.

“Touch yourself,” he ordered, pulling my hands to my breasts. “Pinch them a bit and pull. I know you like that.”

I found myself obeying once again, using one hand to toy with my bared nipple and the other to take a handful of his hair while he bent to his work.

“Oh!” I gasped as his tongue slid over that most sensitive spot—more sensitive now than ever due to the raging hormones of my second trimester.

Seriously, two swipes and I was ten seconds to heaven.

My head met the desk with a thump as Xavier went to work, proving to me yet again just how muchtastethe man really had.

“I know he said that, but honestly, Gibson, it will just take a moment!”

My eyes flew open at the sound of an extremely proper, petulant, and extremely unwelcome voice in the hall. The door creaked open, and I opened my eyes just in time to see a flash of round gray eyes, fair skin, and feather-soft blond hair.

Imogene Douglas’s shocked face peeked through the door and, to my surprise, didn’t immediately move.

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