The Day of the Duchess (Scandal & Scoundrel, #3)

by Sarah MacLean

So Seraphina did what she could, reaching for her dress, scooting back across the floor with it clutched to her. “We cannot go further.” He did not move from where he sat, bare from the waist up, one arm resting on a bent leg, clad in dark, soft buckskin. “I did not ask to go further.” “But you wish to.” “I’m a grown man, Sera, and I have waited for this—for you—for years. Of course I wish to.” His gaze was hot and honest. “But I shall wait for you. Until you are ready.” She hated the words. Hated the way they tempted her. The way they whispered a promise that he understood. Of course, he couldn’t. “I shall never be ready.” “Perhaps not. But perhaps you will. And when you are, I shall be here.” He said it as though he had nothing to do but languish here, in his underwater lair, waiting for her to wander in and ask him to make love to her. And something about that, about the certainty in his words, as though he would wait for her forever, unsettled her more than anything else could. “That particular act has never served us well,” she said quietly. “Or do you not remember?” She hated the words, loathed that she gave voice—even in a vague, small way—to their past. To the child they had not planned. That he had not wanted. And to all the others they would never have.