The Wallflower Wager (Girl Meets Duke, #3)

by Tessa Dare

As a person who wanted to like everyone, it hurt to know that not everyone liked her in return.

She’d always been a romantic. She cheered on her friends’ unlikely matches. She believed in destiny, soul mates, love at first sight. Penny didn’t want any of those things from Gabriel Duke. She wanted to tear off his clothes and look at him—all of him—the way she had last night. It had been too dark in the room, and she hadn’t found the courage to stare. When would she see a man so very big, wearing so very little, again?

This kiss could not be mistaken for an accidental collision of mouths. Oh, no. He kissed with purpose. His lips had ideas. His tongue had plans.

“I’m listening to exactly one person in this room,” Gabriel said evenly. “It isn’t you. The lady can speak for herself.” Oh. Penny’s heart fluttered in her chest.

“For the good of us both, you have to cease gazing at me.” “Then you have to cease wooing me.” “Wooing you.” He grimaced, as if the words were a pickled lemon on his tongue. “I don’t woo.” “You do too woo.” She lowered her voice to match his gruff timbre. “‘I need you,’ ‘I’m not letting you go.’ A woman can’t help but go soft inside. Those sorts of declarations are unbearably romantic.”

Draped in bedsheets, she’d been a Grecian goddess. An aloof deity meant to be worshipped, adored, even feared—but never embraced. Seeing her swimming in the billowing waves of his shirt, however, with her fair hair hanging loose about her shoulders . . . ? The intimacy of it shook him to his core. She looked not only desirable, but necessary. A part of him. The better part, of course. The part where his redeeming qualities might be hiding, if indeed he possessed any.

“Fine. Penny. There. Are you happy, Penny? How many times do you wish to hear it, Penny? Damn it, Penny. I’ve been craving this the whole cursed day, Penny. I’m going mad with lust, Penny. Penny, Penny, Pen—” She lowered her hips to his. “Christ.”

“That’s it,” he murmured, rocking beneath her. “Just like that. It’s good?” She nodded, too drunk on sensation to be missish or shy. “So good.”

She had a big, beautiful man at her mercy, and she wasn’t going to relinquish control. Oh, she was under no illusions that she had him physically overpowered. He could have flipped their places at any instant. She hadn’t taken the reins. He’d given her the reins. And that made it all the better.

Her friends had been waiting. All of them. The duchess one, the freckled one, the pregnant one, the scarred duke one, and the aggravatingly charming one. Five individuals who would defy even the closest observer to find a trait they all held in common. Except, of course, for one important quality: They all cared about Penny.

“Unmannerly scut!” Ashbury shouted. “Thou reeky, burly-boned gudgeon.” Gabe had no idea how to respond to that. “He curses in Shakespeare,” Chase explained. “It’s annoying, I know. You get used to it.”

“How can I dance when no one has asked me?” “How can anyone ask you when you’ve installed yourself in the shrubbery? You’re being a wallflower.” “No, I’m not. There aren’t any walls.” “A shrubflower, then.”

God, she was lovely in moonlight. She was lovely in sunlight, for that matter, and in the pouring rain. Gabe suspected that even in total darkness, she would be radiant. Because though her features were exquisite, and her lips the pinkish hue of rose petals, her most beautiful feature by far was her heart.

“I want you, Gabriel.” Such a simple phrase, and yet it summed up the yearning of a lifetime. All these years of anger and striving, and he’d longed for nothing more than this: to be wanted.

The past, the future . . . none of it mattered. There was only this moment, this man. This one heartbeat, and then the next, stringing together to make this life. A life that belonged to her. At last.

“For weeks, you’ve been insisting you haven’t the slightest idea what it means to give a creature a loving home. ‘I’m too ruthless, Penny. I’m only motivated by self-interest, Penny. I’m a bad, bad man, Penny.’ And all this time, you’ve been running an orphanage? I could kick you.”

Ashbury braced his hands on his hips. “She’s been too free with her favors, eh? The scarlet strumpet.” “Watch yourself,” Gabe snapped. “Marigold’s not that kind of goat.” “Yes, let’s not shame the poor girl,” Chase added. “Perhaps it was star-crossed love.”

She poked him in the ribs. “You are terrible, and I love you.” He reached for her, cradling her cheek in his hand. “Hearing those words was a first.” “I know,” she whispered. “But it won’t be a last.”

The Duke of Ruin died here today, in her arms. And Gabe wasn’t entirely certain who he’d be going forward, but he knew one thing. He would be her husband and protector. And he would never allow anyone to hurt her again.

The thing of it is, I was afraid. I’m afraid no one will believe you married me for love, because I find it so difficult to believe it myself. It seems impossible that you could love me. But then it once seemed impossible that I could love anyone, and now I love you with a ferocity I can’t describe.

“Can’t there be some other way? Why must it be a duel?” He gave her a wry smile. “I swore you’d marry nothing less than a gentleman. Dueling is the gentleman’s way.” She rolled her eyes. “I don’t want a dead gentleman. I’d prefer a living bastard, thank you. And what about George? You have a goat now, and he’s depending on you. If nothing else, think of your kid.” “Penny.” He touched her cheek. His eyes brimmed with tenderness. “I’m only thinking of you. If I don’t defend you, I’m not worthy of you. Not in the world’s eyes, nor in my own.”

A sharp pang of surprise caught her heart. He’d been telling the truth. It wasn’t a shilling after all. It was a penny. A bright, newly minted penny. One he’d been keeping tucked in his breast pocket. Right next to his heart.

“I have every luxury a man could desire. Hundreds of thousands of pounds in my accounts. I worked like hell to build a fortune, and yet . . .” His thumb met her cheek with a reverent caress. “Now I’d sell my soul for a Penny.”

“I love you,” he said. “You may never teach that damned parrot to say it, but you taught me. You’ll never hear the end of it now, pretty girl. I love you.” Kiss. “I love you.” Kiss. “I love you.”