And then he waited. For the longest moment she made no reaction, just stood there like a tragic statue. Every now and then she would blink, but beyond that, nothing. And then finally—
“Why?”
Why? He didn’t understand. “Why is he—”
“No,” she said forcefully. “Why did you tell me? Why would you say it?”
“I told you—”
“No, you didn’t do it to be kind. Why did you tell me? Was it just to be cruel? To make me feel the way you feel, because Hermione married my brother and not you?”
“No!” The word burst out of him, and he was holding her, his hands wrapped around her upper arms. “No, Lucy,” he said again. “I would never. I want you to be happy. I want . . .”
Her. He wanted her, and he didn’t know how to say it. Not then, not when she was looking at him as if he’d broken her heart.
“I could have been happy with him,” she whispered.
“No. No, you couldn’t. You don’t understand, he—”
“Yes, I could,” she cried out. “Maybe I wouldn’t have loved him, but I could have been happy. It was what I expected. Do you understand, it was what I was prepared for. And you . . . you . . .” She wrenched herself away, turning until he could no longer see her face. “You ruined it.”
“How?”
She raised her eyes to his, and the look in them was so stark, so deep, he could not breathe. And she said, “Because you made me want you instead.”
His heart slammed in his chest. “Lucy,” he said, because he could not say anything else. “Lucy.”
“I don’t know what to do,” she confessed.
“Kiss me.” He took her face in his hands. “Just kiss me.”
This time, when he kissed her, it was different. She was the same woman in his arms, but he was not the same man. His need for her was deeper, more elemental.
He loved her.
He kissed her with everything he had, every breath, every last beat of his heart. His lips found her cheek, her brow, her ears, and all the while, he whispered her name like a prayer—
Lucy Lucy Lucy.
He wanted her. He needed her.
She was like air.
Food.
Water.
His mouth moved to her neck, then down to the lacy edge of her bodice. Her skin burned hot beneath him, and as his fingers slid the gown from one of her shoulders, she gasped—
But she did not stop him.
“Gregory,” she whispered, her fi
ngers digging into his hair as his lips moved along her collarbone. “Gregory, oh my G—Gregory.”
His hand moved reverently over the curve of her shoulder. Her skin glowed pale and milky smooth in the candlelight, and he was struck by an intense sense of possession. Of pride.
No other man had seen her thus, and he prayed that no other man ever would.