For a moment Gregory did not move, but she knew that he heard her. His breath sucked raggedly into him, and his eyes turned positively liquid as he gazed at her. “Lucy,” he said, his voice husky and deep and rough and a hundred other things that turned her bones to milk.
His lips found the hollow where her jaw met her neck. “Lucy,” he murmured.
She wanted to say something in return, but she could not. It had taken all she had just to ask for his kiss.
“I love you,” he whispered, trailing the words along her neck to her collarbone. “I love you. I love you.”
They were the most painful, wonderful, horrible, magnificent words he could have said. She wanted to cry—with happiness and sorrow.
Pleasure and pain.
And she understood—for the first time in her life—she understood the prickly joy of complete selfishness. She shouldn’t be doing this. She knew she shouldn’t, and she knew he probably thought that this meant that she would find a way out of her commitment to Haselby.
She was lying to him. As surely as if she’d said the words.
But she could not help herself.
This was her moment. Her one moment to hold bliss in her hands. And it would have to last a lifetime.
Emboldened by the fire within her, she pressed her hands roughly to his cheeks, pulling his mouth against hers for a torrid kiss. She had no idea what she was doing—she was sure there must be rules to all this, but she did not care. She just wanted to kiss him. She couldn’t stop herself.
One of his hands moved to her hips, burning through the thin fabric of her nightgown. Then it stole around to her bottom, squeezing and cupping, and there was no more space between them. She felt herself sliding down, and then they were on the bed, and she was on her back, his body pressed against hers, the heat and the weight of it exquisitely male.
She felt like a woman.
She felt like a goddess.
She felt like she could wrap herself around him and never let go.
“Gregory,” she whispered, finding her voice as she twined her fingers in his hair.
He stilled, and she knew he was waiting for her to say more.
“I love you,” she said, because it was true, and because she needed something to be true. Tomorrow he would hate her. Tomorrow she would betray him, but in this, at least, she would not lie.
“I want you,” she said, when he lifted his head to gaze into her eyes. He stared at her long and hard, and she knew that he was giving her one last chance to back out.
“I want you,” she said again, because she wanted him beyond words. She wanted him to kiss her, to take her, and to forget that she was not whispering words of love.
“Lu—”
She placed a finger to his mouth. And she whispered, “I want to be yours.” And then she added, “Tonight.”
His body shuddered, his breath moving audibly over his lips. He groaned something, maybe her name, and then his mouth met hers in a kiss that gave and took and burned and consumed until Lucy could not help but move underneath him. Her hands slid to his neck, then inside his coat, her fingers desperately seeking heat and skin. With a roughly mumbled curse, he rose up, still straddling her, and yanked off the coat and cravat.
She stared at him with wide eyes. He was removing his shirt, not slowly or with finesse, but with a frantic speed that underscored his desire.
He was not in control. She might not be in control, but neither was he. He was as much a slave to this fire as she was.
He tossed his shirt aside, and she gasped at the sight of him, the light sprinkling of hair across his chest, the muscles that sculpted and stretched under his skin.
He was beautiful. She hadn’t realized a man could be beautiful, but it was the only word that could possibly describe him. She lifted one hand and gingerly placed it against his skin. His blood leaped and pulsed beneath, and she nearly pulled away.
“No,” he said, covering her hand with his own. He wrapped his fingers around hers and then took her to his heart.
He looked into her eyes.
She could not look away.