She had listened to his ugliest secrets with kindness and affection, without judgment or pity. Her hand laying over his heart as he spoke, as if she sought to heal him. And indeed, she had been a balm to a deep, angry wound.
He drew her toward him, carefully cradling her body to his. She exhaled a soft moan against his mouth. His cock jerked to attention at the sound as lust hammered in his ears. He wanted this. He wanted her.
This woman who was to become his wife.
Who had not yet agreed to such.
He had meant to seduce her, to bring them both to the brink where their bodies were near an explosion of pleasure, and then ask her. Except now, he didn’t want to coerce her into anything. He wanted to be honest with her from the start.
He parted his lips to speak when her tongue tentatively swept into his mouth, rendering him mute.
God, she was sweet. And bold. Absolute perfection.
His hand eased back to cradle her head, to deepen their kiss further while his other hand skimmed down her ribs. With a little whimper of excitement, she pushed her bosom forward, the points of her nipples evident through the fabric.
A groan escaped his chest as he circled his thumb over the nub. She gasped, her knees buckling, so she leaned more fully against him. His body acted without thought as his pelvis fitted to hers, the force of his arousal straining against her softness.
Her head fell back with an audible exhale, and then she was kissing him once more. The light pressing of lips quickly gave way to hungry possession of one another’s mouths, the intensity building.
This couldn’t go any further. Not without knowing she would wed him.
“Marry me.” He said between kisses.
She hesitated and leaned back to regard him, her lips reddened from the frenzy of their passion. “To save your sister.”
Kendal blinked as his thoughts took half a moment to readjust. He’d forgotten his predicament, the need to save Marguerite. In those intimate kisses between himself and Sophia, he had thought only of her reputation and his own refusal to take her without the promise they would wed.
“For you,” he replied.
“To save my reputation.” A look of hurt flashed in her eyes.
“To have you.” He pulled her more closely to him once more, his gaze fixed on hers with earnestness. “I didn’t want to wed before because I feared…” Anxiety nipped at him. Was he really going to share this?
She watched him with her wide blue eyes, her cheeks flushed with desire.
Yes.
Yes, he was.
“I feared what type of woman I might marry.” He lifted a hand to her impossibly soft face to trail down her cheek. “I didn’t want a woman who masked who they were, who pretended to like me, who would end up…”
Well, in for a penny, in for a pound and all that.
“Who would end up like my mother.” His touch whispered over her jawline. “But I realize that you are completely different in the most wonderfully unexpected ways.”
A shy smile touched her lips. “Then you want to marry me for me?”
He nodded. “That’s it exactly.”
“Even though I am stubborn?” She grinned up at him, apparently already knowing his answer.
“Dare I say in spite of it?”
She laughed, a sound of pure delight that touched his soul in a place he’d previously thought to be unreachable.
“Then, yes.” She beamed at him with the brilliance of a thousand suns. “Yes, I’ll marry you.”
Kendal had never really considered marriage. Nor would he ever have expected the elation coursing through him at Sophia’s agreement to wed him would be so fulfilling.
“And here I thought you meant to seduce me into it.” She gave him a coy smile.
“I planned to,” he admitted, ignoring her mock huff of indignation. “But there has been enough duplicity.”
She reached for him, taking his face in both her hands and pressing a chaste kiss onto his lips, one of tenderness rather than lust. “Thank you.”
“And I…” Kendal hedged.
“And you…?” She asked with his face still in her slender hands.
“I never have…” Good God. Did this have to be so wholly uncomfortable?
Her brows lifted.
“I have never been intimate with a woman.” He cleared his throat as though it might eliminate the awkwardness that threatened to choke him. “Not completely. Like I mean to be with you.”
He braced himself for the reaction that she might have to his admission, considering his age and reputation.
But there was no laughter or mirth of any kind.
Her fingers stroked down his face delicately. “You’re not like her,” she said softly.
In that one moment, he realized she understood exactly. Without him having to explain how much he feared succumbing to the same pull of desire that had dragged his mother’s life into one of reprehensible debauchery.
Sophia knew him, and she accepted him.
“Love me, Kendal.” She rose on her tiptoes and closed her eyes as her lips neared his. “Love me.”
He drew her toward him with the intention of doing just that and making her entirely his.
This.
Over the course of several years, Sophia had put off agreeing to be courted by men because she’d been waiting for exactly this. An alluring man, one with an edge of danger, but whose heart was gold. A real person. Not someone on their best behavior to win her affections.
Sophia melted against Kendal’s strong body as his mouth closed over hers. Her heart pounded in her chest, her pulse racing.
Finally, she would sate her curiosity about the mystery of what went on between a man and a woman. Perhaps it might even allay that throbbing need that had developed between her thighs in recent days.
Anticipation left her fingers trembling with nervousness and excitement.
His tongue grazed hers, and her nipples drew tight against her chemise. As if sensing her reaction to him, his hand skimmed up her torso and caught one breast in the heat of his palm, his finger once more finding the taut tip.
She moaned into his mouth. “I like that.”
He eased back long enough to wink at her in a roguish sort of way that made her pulse stutter before lowering his head toward her once more. His mouth trailed down her neck and whispered over the black neckline of her gown where it stopped primly at her throat.
His finger tugged lightly, pulling it down as he ran his tongue over the exposed hollow of her throat. A wild, delicious thrill shivered through her. He smoothed his hands down her back and caught her bottom as his lips continued to roam over her neck, this time up, toward the base of her ear.
Their hips met, and again, the thick column of his excitement pressed against her. Without thinking, she arched toward him, anchoring him more firmly against her.
He groaned near her ear in a pleasant wash of warm breath on her skin. His touch slid up her back, a sensual trail to the buttons at the nape of her neck.
One by one, he popped them free, those dastardly little black thread Dorset buttons had been an ordeal to contend with over the duration of her travels without a maid. He worked through them with ease as his kisses moved in a restless trail over the column of her throat. Soft lips, sucking kisses, the rasping scrape of his whiskers over her sensitive skin.
She scarcely noticed when her gown gaped open at the back and began to slide down her shoulders. Until his lips wandered to where the austere black collar fell away to reveal her white chemise.