One Dance with a Duke (Stud Club #1)(26)

Lacing her fingers behind his collar, she pitched forward. Her br**sts met the welcome resistance of his hard chest. And he rewarded her by sliding his hands from her shoulders, to the small of her back, over the swell of her hips and all the way down to her bottom, which he cupped firmly in both hands. He pulled, bringing her hips flush against his. Pleasure, sharp and intense, burst through her.

He moaned. “Amelia.”

Here was a gesture she couldn’t reciprocate. For she didn’t recall his Christian name, and to call him “Morland” seemed just wrong. She certainly couldn’t call him “Your Grace”—not with his hands on her backside.

Then his tongue was in her mouth again, and she couldn’t have called him anything at all.

After some time—it might have been minutes, or hours or eons, for all Amelia knew; this kiss had rendered her quite insensible to such frivolous things as the passage of time—he gently pulled away. Shamelessly she chased him, pulling his face down and pressing one last kiss to the corner of his lips.

He laughed—a breathless, husky, arousing laugh.

“So,” he said, “not a chore, I think.”

“No.”

He regarded her closely. One eyebrow quirked. “That wasn’t your answer, was it?”

“No,” she said hastily. “Or … I don’t know. My answer to what?”

“I’m confused.”

“So am I.”

She slid her hands from his neck and clutched them together in front of her. Oh, what a miscalculation this had been. She’d asked for the kiss. She’d hoped it might be enjoyable. She hadn’t expected it to alter her understanding of the world. How was she supposed to tell him, No, no, a thousand times no. Take your insulting proposal and begone, when every corpuscle in her body was screaming, Yes, yes! Please, Your Grace, may I have some more?

“Perhaps we should begin again.” He covered her knotted fingers with his. “Lady Amelia, will you do me the honor, et cetera.”

“Did you just say ‘et cetera’ in a proposal of marriage?”

“No, I believe I said ‘et cetera’ in reprising my proposal of marriage. Have you arrived at an answer yet? I think you’re stalling again.”

“I’m not stalling.”

He drummed his fingers on the tops of hers, making it quite clear to them both that she was, indeed, stalling.

“We don’t get along at all,” she said desperately.

“That’s not true. We’ve been getting along quite well for several minutes now.”

Yes, they had. They had.

Knowing herself to be a very poor liar, Amelia opted for honesty. “I’m infatuated with you, I cannot deny it. Physically speaking, you’re a very attractive man. But I don’t like you, the vast majority of the time. So far as I can gather, you behave abominably in public and are only marginally better in private. I only find you remotely tolerable when you’re kissing me.”

He gave her a chastening look. “Even from that stinting description, we’d have a better foundation for marriage than many couples.”

“Yes, but it’s still nowhere near the marriage I’d dreamed of having.”

“Well.” The duke released her hands and stepped back. “It would seem you have a choice. Will it be the dreams? Or me?”

“No woman should have to make such a choice.”

But she knew that women did, all the time. Every moment of every day, somewhere a woman surrendered her blissful fantasies to the cruel reality of the world. Years ago, she’d managed to delay the inevitable, but now Amelia knew in her bones—her day, her moment had come. It was her turn to lay down those fantasies of romantic love and grab what she could: security, the opportunity to help her brothers, and something undeniably tempting—the chance to explore physical passion. As for love … well, there would be children. And Amelia would love those children as no mother had ever loved. No mother except her own, of course.

She knew what she ought to do; what she would do.

Still, she could not say the words.

“Don’t make the choice, then,” he said. “Come here.”

It was not a request, but a command. And she complied, gratefully. His confidence drew her forward, as though he pulled her to him with a string. She stopped, just inches from him, staring up into his handsome face.

“Kiss me.”

Another command. Another so easily obeyed, because it was exactly what she wanted to do. He bent his head, and she pressed a warm, unhurried kiss to his lips. She would know a lifetime of these kisses. She would know what it was, to see this formidable man unclothed and vulnerable, to feel the weight of his naked body stretched out over hers.

The kiss ended.

“Now,” he said, “say yes.”

She would be a duchess. She would be mistress of six houses. She would be married from St. George’s in Hanover Square, in front of all London, wearing a gown of the divinely embroidered and obscenely expensive ivory brocade she’d seen last week in Bond Street. She would serve white cake at the wedding breakfast, with three different fillings and rolled gum icing cut in the shape of blossoms—orchids, not roses. Because everyone had roses. She would have real orchids in her bouquet, and she would visit the hothouse this very week to order them.