One Dance with a Duke (Stud Club #1)(64)

Breathing hard, she turned her back to the door and melted against it with relief.

Bang.

She jumped. He pounded the door again, and then again.

“Let me in there,” he demanded, his voice muffled by the thick wood.

She swallowed hard. “No.”

“What’s to keep me from walking around and entering the other way?”

“I’ve locked that door, too,” she lied, rattling the keys on her chatelaine.

More muffled curses. Then the loud crash of something breaking against the wall.

She hugged herself tight, trying to stop trembling. Suddenly, the door panel shifted against her back, as if he’d leaned his weight on the other side.

And everything went quiet.

On the outside, at least. Inside Amelia, a whole symphony was playing. Her pulse drummed furiously in her ears. A phantom violist played frantic melodies on the taut strings of her nerves. And in her heart, a chorus of thousands sang. Hallelujah, hosanna, glory be to God on high!

Spencer wanted her. He really, truly, desperately wanted her. Her, Amelia. She wasn’t “just” a wife to him, a mother for his heirs. He’d said it himself, he could have married “just anyone” years ago. She was reason enough for a duke to debase himself by crawling through the seediest districts of London. Reason enough for the most horse-mad gentleman she’d ever known to risk the health of a valuable, favored mount.

She had pretty eyes. And delectable ears. She touched her fingers to her own earlobes, absurdly wishing she had some way to taste them and judge for herself.

He’d called her an artist. She had a remarkable brain, he’d said. He enjoyed arguing with her. He’d thought of her all day.

Oh, my. Oh my God.

She’d waited her whole life to feel this way. Really, truly wanted. Not just nice to have around, or vaguely lusted after, but desired for both her body and her mind. Joy shouted from every corpuscle of her body—and she needed to be alone with it for just a little while longer, or …

Or she would fall in love with him so hard, so fast, she would crash straight through the floor.

“Amelia?” His voice was very near, and rough with fatigue. She pressed her ear to the door to make it out. He said, “I hope you didn’t like that china shepherdess.”

She smiled a wide, secret smile. Quintessential Spencer apology.

“I’m bloody tired,” he said, sounding defeated. “I’m going to sleep in your bed now.”

The door didn’t move. So she knew, neither had he.

Turning her head, Amelia spoke softly—at a volume he could only hear if he was pressing his own ear to the door and listening very hard. “Is your hand all right?”

Moments passed.

“I think so.”

“I’ll have a look at it in the morning.”

“On second thought, it may be broken.”

Smiling again, she ceased leaning against the door and stood under her own power. With a little rattle, the panel shifted as he removed his weight from the other side. She slid back the latch and pushed open the door to find him waiting for her.

“Let me see,” she said, extending an arm.

He laid his wounded hand in hers, palm up. His breathing was a slow, seductive rasp as she made her examination. His skin was dry and warm and a little roughened with wear, but each finger wiggled easily. She noted no swelling or blood.

“It’s fine,” she said.

“I know.”

They stood there in silence, just touching. Both staring at his hand, as if she were a gypsy fortune-teller, peering into his palm to divine the future.

He said quietly, “I’m not a murderer, Amelia. I know I’ve flattened a man in front of you and behaved like a brute since the night we met. But with God as my witness, I hadn’t raised my hand in violence for fourteen years before our wedding day. I don’t know what the devil you’ve done to me, but you make me lose control. You make me laugh. You make me chatty. You make me hard with a word, or even a look—and there’s damn near nothing I wouldn’t do right now to get inside you. But don’t run from me as if I were a villain, and don’t ever lock me out. I didn’t kill Leo, I swear it.”

She lifted her head, and their gazes tangled. He didn’t even try to mask the vulnerability in his eyes. At last, this was something he needed from her. She was a nurturer, and he didn’t want to be nurtured. She was a care-giver, and he didn’t wish to be looked after. But she had a trusting soul, and he needed this—someone to believe in him.

It just wasn’t in her to refuse.

“I know. Oh, Spencer, I know you didn’t.” She lifted his hand, dropping a kiss in the center of his palm before pressing it to her cheek. “In my heart, I never believed you did.”

He sucked in a shaky breath. “Then why—”

“I was afraid. Of getting hurt in other ways. To be truthful, I still am.”

His thumb stroked her cheek. “I would never hurt you.”

“I don’t think you can promise me that.” She squeezed his bruised fingers. “But it makes things a bit more equal, to know that I can hurt you, too.”

His gaze fell to her lips. He said simply, without any trace of irony, “You are killing me.”

He moved through the doorway, taking her into his arms in one swift motion. Together they fell to the bed, and his lips found hers. With no preliminary, he pried her jaw wide, probing her mouth with deep, unrelenting sweeps of his tongue. She clung to him, surrendering to the wild passion of the kiss, her only goal to take from him as much as she gave.