“I shall know if you are lying.”
She met his gaze. “I shan’t lie. Not in this.”
In all other things, but not here. Not with him.
She took a deep breath. “Shall we go to my bed?” It was a heartbeat away, behind a nearby door. Large and plush and made for him. She would be lying if she said she had not spent many a night in that very bed, thinking of this man, of this moment. Of the way he might touch her one day. Of the way he might want her one day.
And that day had come.
He shook his head, his fingers playing at the tip of her breast, sending a thrill through her. “I don’t want you anywhere he’s had you.”
Chase.
She shook her head. “You don’t have to worry.”
She saw the storm cross his face at the words. She wished him to know the truth. “I have not . . . with anyone . . .”
He held up a hand, staying the words. “Don’t.”
He did not believe her. “Duncan—” she began, letting the words sound her urgency.
He did not let her finish, instead pulling her to the edge of the desk. “Here.”
She looked down at the oak. “Here? On the desk?”
“On his desk.”
She heard the slight emphasis on the pronoun, barely there. Barely noticeable if one did not expect it. She also heard the frustration in the words, instantly understanding its roots—he thought there was no place in the club where she and Chase hadn’t done this.
And so he took ownership of this place, where he believed Chase was king.
He wanted her here.
And, God help her, she wanted him just as much.
More.
She nodded. “Here.”
He watched her for a long moment, and she saw the myriad of emotions chase through him: anger, frustration, desire.
Pain.
She reached for him, wanting to stop it, but he resisted, pulling away from her touch, instead moving to lift one of her feet in his enormous hands. “I want you here,” he said, gruffly, unlacing her boot. “I want you naked,” he said, punctuating the slide of the boot from her foot as he set it on the arm of a chair perched nearby and set to work on the second. “And I want you mine.”
Mine.
The word curled through her on a flood of desire, robbing her of breath. When had anyone ever wanted her like this? When had anyone ever honestly desired to claim her? Yes, men wanted her body when she dressed in her bold silks and satins and paraded through the casino as Anna, but this was different. He wanted her—Georgiana—in a way no one ever had. Not even the man she had given herself to all those years ago.
But the way he spoke that word—Mine—it was not a request. It was, instead, a gruff promise. A claiming. A possession.
And she found she wanted to be possessed.
Very much.
The thought was punctuated by the slide of her second boot, removed with a single, firm tug and tossed to the floor as Duncan returned his hands to her stockinged feet. He took her ankles in his hands, lifting her legs, parting them, stepping between them. She instinctively wrapped herself around him, pulling him closer until they met, hard and hot, where they each wanted the other. She threw her head back as he pressed into her, and he wrapped one strong arm around her waist, holding her weight, keeping her arched and open to him.
“Say it,” he growled, meeting her eyes, his free hand coming up to palm one aching breast. “Say it, and I’ll give you everything you want.”
She did not have to ask what he meant. She knew. Knew, also, that it would not be a lie. Somehow in this mad world, in this mad time, she had come to adore this man. She had come to belong to him. And it was beautiful.
But it could never last.
But nothing beautiful lasted—was that not the lesson she had learned all those years ago, wrapped in warm arms and crisp hay? Love was fleeting and ephemeral, the desperate dream of a na?ve, innocent girl.
And so she would give herself to this, and then walk away and live the life she intended.
But first, freedom.
First, him.
“I am yours,” she confessed.
He rewarded her with a deep, wonderful growl and a long, devastating kiss that ended with him pulling her to the edge of the desk and setting his hands to the fall of her breeches, working at the buttons with intent skill, unfastening them one after the other until the trousers loosened and he slid them down her legs, taking her stockings with him.
“My lady,” he said, Stepping back, watching her with vivid concentration. She could not meet his gaze, too keenly aware of what she must look like—shirt hanging open, loose around her shoulders, the last vestige of her clothing.
Too keenly aware of her past, of the lies she’d built around her about this act. Of the fact that she’d only ever done this once before.
“Look at me.” The words were full of command, and she should have hated them, but she didn’t. Her gaze snapped to his, recognizing the power in him.
Wanting it.