Romancing the Duke (Castles Ever After #1)(75)

He caught her by the waist and steered her into the nearest room—which happened to be the newly refurnished, never yet used ducal chamber.

He kicked the door shut behind them.

“You did dream up all those outlandish stories, after all. So it’s clear that you can imagine quite a lot of things.” As he spoke, he backed her toward the bed. “So perhaps you can put yourself in my place, as I sat there—first in the vicarage, then the inn, then that sticky tavern—slowly coming to the certain realization that the author of these tales was not Sir Henry Goodnight. It was, and always had been, you.”

The edge of the mattress hit her in the back of the knees, and she fell backward onto the bed. He fell with her, caging her with his limbs and using his weight to pin her to the mattress.

“So, tell me.” His voice was as dark and hollow as a cave. “Can you possibly imagine how I felt? Can you put a name to that intense emotion that filled my chest so completely, it pained my ribs?”

“Anger,” she guessed, feeling faint.

He shook his head. “Wrong.”

“Rage? Betrayal?”

“Wrong, and wrong again.” He touched her lips, tracing their shape with his thumb. “It was pride. Oh, my Izzy. I was so damned proud of you, I thought my heart would burst.”

Her heart stopped beating altogether.

“Proud of . . .” She cleared a lump from her throat. “What do you mean? How could you be proud of me?”

“Stop that nonsense. Don’t pretend anymore, not with me.” He swiped away her tear. “I was proud because you wrote it. You wrote all of it.”

“Yes, and that means it’s all my fault. My work is to blame for Lady Emily’s elopement. Your injuries and blindness. The fact that you’re now on the brink of losing everything. It’s my fault, all of it.”

“Then all I can say is . . .” He inhaled and exhaled slowly. “Bless you. Thank you.”

“You can’t mean those things.”

“But I do. If you had not taught that silly, flighty Emily Riverdale to dream of love, I would have had no chance of believing in it, myself. I would not have come here. I would not have met you. Even if I had, I would have been too arrogant and hardheaded to ever let you close.”

He dropped his head, burying his face in her neck. “Izzy, I owe you everything. You are my heart. My very life. If you leave me . . . ”

His voice broke. Her heart swelled.

She slid her arms around his neck and hugged him tight. “If you’ll only let me hold you, I won’t ever let you go.”

They kissed deeply, sweetly. And slowly. As though now they had all the time in the world.

“I’m so sorry for earlier,” he said. “The stupid things I said. I was a bastard.”

“I won’t argue.”

“I ruined all your work. Worse, I destroyed all the plans I’d been making.”

Her brow wrinkled. “What plans had you been making?”

“Well, to begin with . . .” He rose up on his elbows. “I’d been planning to seduce you in this bed tonight.”

Izzy swallowed. “Has that plan altered?”

Please say no. Please say no.

“Yes, it has.” He rose up and straddled her waist. “I don’t think seduction is called for. I think you’re overdue for a ravishing.”

A thrill shot through her.

Yes.

This was just what part of her craved—for him to take control. Just this once. She’d been the responsible person in the Goodnight household since the age of ten. All those years of feverishly scribbling stories, working to keep bread on the table and oil in the lamps. Then the constant tension of keeping the truth to herself—always counting her statements in any conversation, clenching her fists and holding her tongue. Making sure no one got close enough to guess. Because she needed to guard not only their family income but the dreams and hopes of thousands.

And all the while, she’d been yearning for someone to take care of her. She’d dreamed of this. A man strong enough to protect her, bold enough to see her for who she truly was. Willing to claim her for his own.

She was long overdue for a ravishing. A lifetime overdue.

But it couldn’t happen tonight.

When he laced his hands with hers and pushed her back against the bed, she protested. “No.”

He frowned. “No?”

“Not like this. I can’t let you ravish me.”

She took advantage of his surprise, turning and flipping their positions on the bed so that she lay sprawled atop him.

“Tonight,” she vowed, “I’m going to ravish you.”

Ravish him?

Ransom made a halfhearted attempt at demurring. He muttered a few incoherent words of protest. But his body betrayed him.

“I know you want it,” she whispered, hiking her skirts to straddle his hips.

And he did. He wanted this badly indeed.

She couldn’t know what it meant to him, to be pushed back against the bed, divested of all his clothing, and then . . . just touched. Caressed. And best of all, kissed. Kissed everywhere. With no reciprocation or compensation expected. Nothing up for barter or exchange. Just the outpouring of her sweetness, her passion. Her beautiful heart.

She kissed him everywhere. Everywhere.