An Offer From a Gentleman (Bridgertons, #3)

by Julia Quinn

He’d nearly closed the gap between them when he heard a low rumble of whispers rippling across the ballroom behind him. He knew he ought to keep going and get this duty-dance over with, but God help him, his curiosity got the best of him and he turned around. And found himself facing what had to be the most breathtaking woman he’d ever seen. He couldn’t even tell if she was beautiful. Her hair was a rather ordinary dark blond, and with her mask tied securely around her head he couldn’t even see half of her face. But there was something about her that held him mesmerized. It was her smile, the shape of her eyes, the way she held herself and looked about the ballroom as if she’d never seen a more glorious sight than the silly members of the ton all dressed up in ridiculous costumes. Her beauty came from within. She shimmered. She glowed. She was utterly radiant, and Benedict suddenly realized that it was because she looked so damned happy. Happy to be where she was, happy to be who she was.

Oooo he's in loveee ;)

She took a step forward, and he knew his life had been changed forever.

For a few hours, at least, Sophie could pretend that this gentleman could be her gentleman, and that from this moment on, her life would be changed forever.

He touched the corner of her mouth. “You keep smiling,” he murmured. “I like to smile.” His hand found her waist, and he pulled her toward him. The distance between their bodies remained respectable, but the increasing nearness robbed her of breath. “I like to watch you smile,” he said. His words were low and seductive, but there was something oddly hoarse about his voice, and Sophie could almost let herself believe that he really meant it, that she wasn’t merely that evening’s conquest.

STOPPP THAT'S SO CUTEEE ;D

He took her hands and brought them to his lips, gently kissing each one in turn. “Then we shall begin right now,” he vowed. “And tomorrow you shall be transformed.” “Tonight I am transformed,” she whispered. “Tomorrow I shall disappear.” Benedict drew her close and dropped the softest, most fleeting of kisses onto her brow. “Then we must pack a lifetime into this very night.”

Omg he's such a gentleman ;D

He stared at her for an agonizingly long moment, then murmured, “I won’t speak. I won’t say a word.” And then, before she even had a second to breathe, his lips were on hers, exquisitely gentle and achingly tender. With deliberate slowness, he brushed his lips back and forth across hers, the bare hint of friction sending shivers and tingles spiraling through her body. He touched her lips and she felt it in her toes. It was a singularly odd—and singularly wonderful—sensation.

SCREAMINGGGG

“I want—” His voice dropped to a whisper, and his eyes looked vaguely surprised, as if he couldn’t quite believe the truth of his own words. “I want your future. I want every little piece of you.”

Benedict let out a low and rather viciously uttered curse. With all the ladies his mother had trotted out before him—and there had been many—he’d never once felt the same soul-searing connection that had burned between him and the lady in silver. From the moment he’d seen her—no, from the moment before he’d seen her, when he’d only just felt her presence, the air had been alive, crackling with tension and excitement. And he’d been alive, too—alive in a way he hadn’t felt for years, as if everything were suddenly new and sparkling and full of passion and dreams.

They said eyes were the windows to the soul. If he’d truly found the woman of his dreams, the one with whom he could finally imagine a family and a future, then by God he ought to know the color of her eyes. It wasn’t going to be easy to find her. It was never easy to find someone who didn’t want to be found, and she’d made it more than clear that her identity was a secret.

Benedict felt his first glimmer of hope. He would find her. He would find her, and he would make her his. It was as simple as that.

Benedict shrugged and started to say something utterly flip, like “It was worth a try,” but as he watched her face, her cheeks turning delightfully pink, her eyes cast down to her lap, the strangest thing happened. He realized he wanted her. He really, really wanted her. He wasn’t certain why this so surprised him. Of course he wanted her. He was as red-blooded as any man, and one couldn’t spend a protracted amount of time around a woman as gamine and adorable as Sophie without wanting her. Hell, he wanted half the women he met, in a purely low-intensity, non-urgent sort of way. But in that moment, with this woman, it became urgent.

“Benedict?” she whispered, forgetting that she still called him Mr. Bridgerton. He smiled. It was a small, knowing sort of smile, one that sent chills right down her spine to another area altogether. “I like when you say my name,” he said. “I didn’t mean to,” she admitted. He touched a finger to her lips. “Shhh,” he admonished. “Don’t tell me that. Don’t you know that’s not what a man wishes to hear?” “I don’t have much experience with men,” she said. “Now that’s what a man wishes to hear.”

“So pretty,” he said softly, “like a storybook fairy. Sometimes I think you couldn’t possibly be real.”

“I think I have to kiss you,” he said, looking as if he couldn’t quite believe his own words. “It’s rather like breathing. One doesn’t have much choice in the matter.”

Really kissed her, with fierce lips and probing tongue, and all the passion and desire a woman could ever want. He made her feel beautiful, precious, priceless. He treated her like a woman, not some serving wench, and until that very moment, she hadn’t realized just how much she missed being treated like a person. Gentry and aristocrats didn’t see their servants, they tried not to hear them, and when they were forced to converse, they kept it as short and perfunctory as possible. But when Benedict kissed her, she felt real.

In that moment, Benedict knew that he had to have her. There was a connection between them, a strange, inexplicable bond that he’d felt only one other time in his life, with the mystery lady from the masquerade. And while she was gone, vanished into thin air, Sophie was very real. He was tired of mirages. He wanted someone he could see, someone he could touch.

“I want you to come back to London with me,” he whispered, the words tumbling forth before he had a chance to consider them. “Come back and live with me.”

STOPPP WHY IS THIS SO CUTEEE

“Be mine,” he said, his voice thick and urgent. “Be mine right now. Be mine forever. I’ll give you anything you want. All I want in return is you.”

“I want you,” he said roughly, his lips finding the hollow at the base of her throat. “I want you right now. I want you here.” “Benedict—” “I want you in my bed,” he growled. “I want you tomorrow. And I want you the next day.” She was wicked, and she was weak, and she gave in to the moment, arching her neck to allow him greater access. His lips felt so good against her skin, sending shivers and tingles to the very center of her being. He made her long for him, long for all the things she couldn’t have, and curse the things she could.

“I can’t help it,” he said with a shrug. “I find myself completely unwilling to let you go.”

“And you sound like the heroine of a very poorly written novel,” he replied. “What did you say you were reading this morning?”

STOPPP IM DYINGGG :'D

“I can live with you hating me,” he said to the closed door. “I just can’t live without you.”

It amazed her how easily he could infuriate her. She loved him desperately—she’d long since given up lying to herself about that—and yet he could make her entire body shake with anger with one little quip.

Benedict took her hand and raised it to his lips. “I wish you would share your secrets with me.”

Why is he so sweet :')

He grabbed her hand and pulled her body against his, so she could see for herself just how hard he was. “I burn for you,” he said, his lips touching her ear. “Every night, I lie in bed, thinking of you, wondering why the hell you’re here with my mother, of all people, and not with me.”

She said his name, but her voice was laced with longing, and he knew that she was not indifferent to him. She might not fully understand what it meant to want a man, but she wanted him all the same.

He captured her mouth with his, swearing to himself as he did so that if she said no, if she made any sort of indication that she didn’t want this, he’d stop. It’d be the hardest thing he’d ever done, but he would do it.

He seized the moment, tasting her, drinking her, breathing her. He was no longer quite so confident that he would be able to convince her to become his mistress, and it was suddenly imperative that this kiss be more than just a kiss. It might have to last him a lifetime.

He kissed her with renewed vigor, pushing away the niggling voice in his head, telling him that he’d been here, done this before. Two years earlier he’d danced with a woman, kissed her, and she’d told him that he’d have to pack a lifetime into a single kiss. He’d been overconfident then; he hadn’t believed her. And he’d lost her, maybe lost everything. He certainly hadn’t met anyone since with whom he could even imagine building a life. Until Sophie. Unlike the lady in silver, she wasn’t someone he could hope to marry, but also unlike the lady in silver, she was here. And he wasn’t going to let her get away. She was here, with him, and she felt like heaven. The soft scent of her hair, the slight taste of salt on her skin—she was, he thought, born to rest in the shelter of his arms. And he was born to hold her. “Come home with me,” he whispered in her ear. She said nothing, but he felt her stiffen.

“Come home with me,” he repeated. “I can’t,” she said, the breath of each word whispering ...

“Excellent,” he murmured. “Now then, I’m going to leave. And you have only one task while I go. You will stay right here, and you will keep smiling. Because it breaks my heart to see any other expression on your face.”

“Much of who you are comes from your family,” she said, the words tumbling forth in a rush. “That much is true. You can’t grow up with such love and loyalty and not become a better person because of it. But deep within you, in your heart, in your very soul, is the man you were born to be. You, not someone’s son, not someone’s brother. Just you.”

And then his heart skipped a beat, because all of a sudden everything felt right. He loved her. He didn’t know how it had happened, only that it was true.

It wasn’t just that she was convenient. There had been lots of convenient women. Sophie was different. She made him laugh. She made him want to make her laugh. And when he was with her—Well, when he was with her he wanted her like hell, but during those few moments when his body managed to keep itself in check … He was content.

It was strange, to find a woman who could make him happy just with her mere presence. He didn’t even have to see her, or hear her voice, or even smell her scent. He just had to know that she was...

He stared down at her, trying to prolong the moment, to hold on to these few moments of complete perfection. Something softened in her eyes, and the color seemed to melt right then and there, from a shiny, glowing emerald to a soft and lilting moss. Her lips parted and softened, a...

He needed her next to him, below him, on top of him. He needed her in him, around him, a part of him. He needed her the way he needed air. And, he thought in that last rational moment b...

“They say that a smart person learns from her mistakes,” she interrupted, her voice forcefully ending his protest. “But a truly smart person learns from other people’s mistakes.” She pulled away, then turned to face him. “I’d like to think I’m a truly smart person. Please don’t take that away from me.”

“You are my son,” she said simply. “I would give my life for you.”

And then somehow it became clear. As he watched his mother’s face, finally realizing—no, finally understanding—the depth of his parents’ love for one another, it all became clear. Love. He loved Sophie. That was all that should have mattered.

But it took his heart less than a second to know that a quiet life with Sophie was by far preferable to a public life without her.

Did it matter that she was the woman from the masquerade? She’d lied to him about her identity, but he knew her soul. When they kissed, when they laughed, when they simply sat and talked—she had never feigned a moment. The woman who could make his heart sing with a simple smile, the woman who could fill him with contentment just through the simple act of sitting by him while he sketched—that was the real Sophie. And he loved her.

Benedict disengaged his arm from Sophie’s waist with a murmur of, “Don’t move a muscle,” then walked quickly to his mother’s side. “Have I told you lately,” he whispered in her ear, “how much I love you?” “No,” she said with a jaunty smile, “but I know, anyway.” “Have I mentioned that you’re the best of mothers?” “No, but I know that, too.” “Good.” He leaned down and dropped a kiss on her cheek. “Thank you. It’s a privilege to be your son.”

“No, I’m sorry,” Benedict replied, sitting beside her and taking her hands in his. “No, I’m—” She suddenly smiled. “This is very silly.” “I love you,” he said. Her lips parted. “I want to marry you,” he said. She stopped breathing. “And I don’t care about your parents or my mother’s bargain with Lady Penwood to make you respectable.” He stared down at her, his dark eyes meltingly in love. “I would have married you no matter what.”

Benedict squeezed her hands. “We couldn’t have lived in London, I know, but we don’t need to live in London. When I thought about what it was in life I really needed—not what I wanted, but what I needed—the only thing that kept coming up was you.”

“There are so many reasons I love you,” he said, each word emerging with careful precision.

“But one of the things I love best,” he continued, “is the fact that you know yourself. You know who you are, and what you value. You have principles, Sophie, and you stick by them.” He took her hand and brought it to his lips. “That is so rare.”

Her eyes were filling with tears, and all he wanted to do was hold her, but he knew he had to finish. So many words had been welling up inside of him, and they all had to be said. “And,” he said, his voice dropping in volume, “you took the time to see me. To know me. Benedict. Not Mr. Bridgerton, not ‘Number Two.’ Benedict.”

He kissed her again, this time with a bit more urgency. “You’re so beautiful,” he murmured. “Everything I ever dreamed of.”

“In my heart,” he vowed, settling her against the quilts and pillows, “you are my wife.”