What I Did for a Duke (Pennyroyal Green, #5)

by Julie Anne Long

She was reluctantly intrigued and drawn to him and confused by why she was. It’s because I’m a grown man, Miss Eversea. Not a boy.

“A real man would have kissed you on the mouth, Miss Eversea. ‘Gentleman’ or no. And it’s a very good mouth you have.”

“The roses. Remind me of you. They’re precisely the sort of flowers you ought to have.”

She held on to him, and he to her, until their breathing steadied. She stroked his hair, realizing this was the first time she’d ever seen him truly peaceful, and wondering why his peace was hers.

Controlling yourself isn’t going to control the world around you.”

But here was the thing he feared: he wanted to talk to her every day. He wanted to make love to her every night. He wanted to know every curve and angle of her body, every hollow, every freckle, every scar. He’d never known a more clawing hunger for a woman’s body, and it shocked him, and he was clever enough to know it had only a little to do with her body. An incinerating, honest passion, the equal of his, was only the expression of who she truly was. He wanted to know all of her thoughts. He wanted to tell her . . . well, most of his. He would ask nothing else from life if he would be allowed to protect and cherish her for the rest of his.

He wished for access to all the world’s languages at once, for then he would have a better word for how he felt and what she was. But he relived again the feel of her falling apart in his arms, the feel of her body welcoming his into it, and how he felt like a simpleton, entirely new and blessed, and he knew beautiful would have to do. How about that? He’d been mastered at his own game. He was man enough to admit it. Men truly were simpletons.