Imogen closed her eyes to summon strength, but found her reserves depleted. “I know you’re still angry.” She sighed. “But I simply don’t have the strength to listen while you—”
“You will listen to me, woman, and you will listen well.” His tone brooked no argument, his eyes glinting with a warning to rival the sparks from Hephaestus’s hammer as he tempered Zeus’s thunderbolts. “You are going to marry me, Imogen, and this is why.” He ticked the reasons with the touch of his index finger to that of his alloy ones. “Firstly, because I want you to, and I happen to be a very powerful duke who is in the habit of getting what he wants. Secondary, because you will find it easier to attain more of your philanthropic objectives as a duchess rather than merely a countess.”
“M-merely a countess?” Had those words ever been spoken before? Had he just … proposed marriage? Surely that couldn’t be right.
“I’m not finished,” he said curtly.
She made an astonished sound somewhere between a squeak and a groan. Was it possible she was still dreaming? That she was having some strange and ill reaction to the chloroform? Surely that had to be the case, as it sounded like he was agreeing to her charity work, offering his title as support.
“Tertiary.” He sent her a quelling look. “After the events of last night—no, strike that—due to your terrifying and infuriating tendency over the past few years to attract various enemies and obsessed lunatics—not to mention your affinity to find yourself in dangerous situations—it only makes sense that we reside together so I no longer have to rush all the way next door in order to continue to save your life. Which is, apparently, my new vocation and takes up entirely too much of my time. And in conclusion because—”
“Because you love me?” Imogen asked, gasping in a breath tinged with that very thing she’d thought had abandoned her.
Hope.
His lashes lowered over his eyes, as his gaze slid elsewhere to avoid hers. “Of course I love you,” he told her bedpost, worrying at something imaginary in the woodwork with distracted, anxious fingers. “I informed you and your entire household of that only a million times last night when I thought…” His sentence trailed away as Imogen watched his throat work as though to swallow shards of glass.
“Cole,” she murmured gently. “Look at me.”
“I can’t.” He stood staring at her bedpost, waging a silent, desperate struggle with his greatest opponent. Himself. “I can’t fucking survive something like that again,” he finally admitted in a suspiciously husky voice. “I’d return to prison before I ever saw you in danger like that. It was the singular worst experience of my life.”
Imogen glanced at his prosthetic, the whole of it visible as his shirtsleeves had been rolled up at some point during his vigil over her. He couldn’t mean that.
Although … Could it be she’d not dreamt of him lying next to her? That he’d really been there?
“I mean it.” His voice allowed no question.
Her breath left her in a rush, half gasp, half sob, as Imogen lifted her arms to beckon him to her.
Suddenly he was there. Her covers were gone and he replaced them, clutching her to him as he took her offered mouth with ferocious gentility. Clinging to him, she relished the heat building inside of her, answering the scorching flames he licked into her mouth with a demanding tongue. She tasted love on him, love and fear and earnest need.
Desire fanned through her, at once tensing and releasing her muscles. She turned into a puddle beneath him, her legs falling open, her body making way for his weight.
“Good sweet God,” he groaned. “I’m going to taste you everywhere.”
He cradled each side of her face like a monk at prayer, one hand warm flesh, and the other cold steel. So much like the dichotomy of this man.
His lips fanned over hers with skillful, drugging pulls. His tongue made wicked swirls inside of her mouth, exploring with unapologetic languor. The groan was that of a damned soul finding sanctuary. His tongue, a sword of silk, penetrated and retreated in a rhythm that flooded Imogen’s loins with passion.
Abruptly, she pulled away. “Where is everyone?”
His brow furrowed with confounded indignation, lips wet and hard above her as he processed her words between panting breaths of mounting lust. “You interrupted what was possibly the best kiss in the history of the empire to ask such a question,” he said tightly.
She loved this arrogant, grumpy beast with all her heart. “I’m about to make love to you, Your Grace, and I don’t want to be interrupted.”
The temperature in his eyes flared from molten to volatile. “Your mother forced everyone to go to church to pray for you.” He touched his nose to hers with sweet affection that caused her heart to double in size, simultaneously slipping a hand to wander perilously close to her breasts. “Lovely woman, your mother.”
“Bless her pious heart,” Imogen agreed, then arched her body against his, silently pleading for him to resume her ravishment.
He lit her blood on fire with his next kiss, then knelt up and over her to grapple with his shirt, his frantic hand less dexterous than it had been before.
“Here, let me.” Imogen batted his hand away, unfastening his shirt and pulling it down wide, breathtaking shoulders. “I suppose dressing and undressing you will be one of my many wifely duties,” she said, discarding the garment to the floor before spanning her hands over the familiar width of his chest.
“I have a valet,” he argued haughtily, then stilled, ceasing to even breathe, though his heart thundered beneath her palm. “Did you say wife?” His voice was laced with a hesitancy she’d never before heard from him.
She nodded, her throat full of emotion. “I love you too,” she managed.
Struck similarly mute, his eyes shone with something more powerful than heat, more eternal than lust. More selfless than need.
Gently, slowly, he slid the bodice of her nightgown off her shoulders, and she helped him ease it away from her.
His hot gaze roamed her like an impatient surveyor would an uncharted land, as though he couldn’t decide where to explore first. He settled for the arch of her throat, barraging her with an assault of kisses as they both worked to free him of the rest of his garments.
Ripples of warmth sang along her skin when his lips reached her breasts, taking her nipples into his mouth and stroking them into taut and tender peaks. She made a soft sound underscored with desire, her fingers digging into the hard power of his shoulders. She’d not known she’d been pushing him lower until he complied, the tense muscles rippling as he descended her body, marking the journey with his tongue.
Oh Lord, perhaps she wasn’t ready for this just yet. To say “I love you” was one thing, to … to let him do what he … well, that was quite another.
“Oh…” She lost her breath as he imprisoned her thighs open, not preparing her at all before the flat of his tongue spread her sex apart.
Imogen gasped, and bucked, knowing the moisture he trailed against her intimate flesh wasn’t only from his mouth, but from her body.
An appreciative moan vibrated against her, sending echoes of pleasure to her every extremity. Another unhurried lick cleaved her world in two, though he stopped the moment before he reached the quivering pearl of her clitoris. He circled it instead, stopping to nibble here, to tease there, tormenting her with skillful evasion.