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

by Julie Anne Long

And with awe he saw her lose her battle with that smile. It fought first with one corner of her mouth, then the other, and then it broke all over her like a sunrise. The very shape of her face changed. Or rather, she came into focus at last in that moment; she’d simply been awaiting illumination from within.

Her neck was long. Her collarbone had that smooth pristine temptation of a bank of new-fallen snow. It was interrupted only by a drop of a blue stone on a chain that pointed directly at quite confident cleavage, as if the owner knew full well it was splendid and was accustomed to exposing it.

So he was a clever man, a watchful man, a powerful man, but a man with unexpectedly human vulnerabilities.

He found himself waiting breathlessly for it to have its way with her; he wanted to see her smile beneath the chandelier light; he wanted to see her aglow again. She did smile. And when she did, he became all at once aware of small things, separate, all at once, the way a rising sun lights on objects one by one, illuminating them.

How could anyone think this was a quiet girl? Her stillness and calm were deceptive. She disturbed him the way the approach of a distant storm did; she enervated him.

He inhaled, and exhaled an almost long-suffering sigh. And he began in a patient, almost leisurely fashion, in a voice fashioned from dark velvet, a voice that stroked over her senses until they were lulled, to lecture directly to her as if she was a girl in the schoolroom.

“A proper kiss, Miss Eversea, should turn you inside out. It should . . . touch places in you that you didn’t know existed, set them ablaze, until your entire being is hungry and wild. It should . . . hold a moment, I want to explain this as clearly as possible . . .” He tipped his head back and paused to consider, as though he were envisioning this and wanted to relate every detail correctly. “It should slice right down through you like a cutlass with a pleasure so devastating it’s very nearly pain.”

“It should make you do battle for control of your senses and your will. It should make you want to do things you’d never dreamed you’d want to do, and in that moment all of those things will make perfect sense. And it should herald, or at least promise, the most intense physical pleasure you’ve ever known, regardless of whether that promise is ever, ever fulfilled. It should, in fact . . .” he paused for effect “. . . haunt you for the rest of your life.”

“Very clever people often assume no one else is as clever as they are. Which isn’t very clever of them, when you think about it.”

When one is satisfied with how the world appears, there is no need to look any deeper or farther. Peeking below the surface of things, one often discovers things one would rather not see, whether it is worms tilled up by the plow or wads of dust beneath a bed.

And she came to him. She was so close her breath landed softly on his chin. She looked up at him. Their gazes fused. “What did you think would happen, Miss Eversea, if you ever encountered me alone in the dark?” he murmured. And then he eased her head back with a final tug on her hair, and brought his mouth down to hers.

Genevieve Eversea—her heat, her scent, her generosity and kindness, her devastating sensuality, entered his bloodstream. Beneath his hand, the lush, lithe give of her body just barely brushing against his chest, the hum of that passion she kept so tamped, burned through him. The invader becoming the invaded—that was the third option. He was hers now.

He could taste the wildness in her, the wildness he’d sensed the way one could taste an approaching storm in a breeze. It felt infinite; it shocked him. He knew she struggled against it, was buffeted by it, but for the moment was utterly in command of it. As she was in command of herself at all times.

A slow, awestruck, disbelieving smile took over her face. Stunned pleasure shone from her eyes. And he was certain her heart was racing with the sheer delight of being in the presence of the thing. Because his heart was racing at simply watching her love it. She turned to look at him as if he himself had painted it. Her radiance rendered him absolutely silent. He could only bask.

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 would ask nothing else from life if he would be allowed to protect and cherish her for the rest of his.

Because poetry was a barrier against raw emotions. It distilled them into bearable music, allowed one to accommodate them a little at a time.

Haven’t you ever wanted something so badly you can’t imagine your life without it, but you can imagine the devastation and pity that will follow if you spill your heart and she has to tell you, oh so kindly—because she’s kind—that she doesn’t love you in that way?”

couldn’t see it because you are my heart, damn you! And how can I see my own heart if it’s beating in my own chest?” She was practically raging at him.

He didn’t blink. But then she realized she’d somehow set him . . . softly ablaze. Emotion burned from him, and his eyes . . . she would never forget his eyes in this moment. His hands remained at his sides. Which is when she noticed they were trembling. God help her, that’s when she felt tears begin to burn at the back of her eyes. One got away. And she brushed her hand roughly against it. And the man who never cleared his throat . . . cleared his throat. And his voice, in truth, wasn’t a good deal louder than hers. “Then it’s just as well that I love you, Genevieve.