Slowly, he let her slip down his body.
“I will tell you something, Jack,” he said, pressing his hands to her hips.
“Yes?” she whispered.
“I have wanted you from the moment you pitched yourself into my chambers through the window. I have hungered for you since you challenged me. Since you knelt on my floor, met my gaze, and held me accountable for the ruin of your dreams. Promise me something?”
“I will try.”
“Do not change.”
Those words… If she had allowed herself to believe, it might have sounded as if they were spoken with love.
But she wouldn’t delude herself by looking for things that were not there.
Men were very strange creatures.
How could anyone be so physically close and not feel as she did? But it seemed that gentlemen did not have the same sorts of folly or silly thinking that many ladies did.
She’d never understand it. She could barely understand the emotions coursing through her own heart and soul. She wouldn’t attempt to understand his.
“I considered what it might be like to be your duchess, you know.”
He blinked. “You did?”
She smiled slowly. “Doesn’t every lady, for a brief moment, imagine themselves as the Duchess of Stone? I rejected the idea immediately, of course.”
A low rumble of a laugh slipped past his lips. “It does surprise me that you had considered it. You seemed so very…”
“What?” she asked, turning to him.
“Determined not to be married. It seemed to be your last recourse.”
Her brow furrowed as she contemplated him. “Have you never fantasized about being married?”
“Only in nightmares,” he replied.
She coughed, shocked by his blunt reply.
“You and I will not be a nightmare,” he rushed. “After all, we are friends.”
Friends.
She supposed that was better than being complete strangers in a marriage. Or worse. What if Drexel had succeeded in ruining her as he wished?
That fate would have been unbearable.
Yes, she was lucky beyond words. She had to remember that.
She cocked her head to the side. “Do you usually kiss your friends so passionately?”
He laughed. “No, not usually, but you are a special case.”
“Am I?” she couldn’t help but tease.
“Yes, Jack. I think that you are special in almost every regard.”
And yet he did not love her.