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“Sweetheart, they are all yours,” he reassured her. “I do not have much taste for chocolate.”

“Why? Chocolate must be man’s finest invention!”

“What about the wheel? The printing press?” he challenged her with a teasing grin.

“Well, those are important, too, I suppose,” she huffed. “But not as nearly as pleasurable as eating a box of chocolates, I assure you.”

“Oh, I assure you that just looking at you enjoying them brings me great pleasure indeed…”

Phoebe rolled her eyes at him. “Spoken like a true rake.”

She popped another piece of chocolate in her mouth and smiled in satisfaction as the tanginess of summer-ripe peaches mingled with the dark decadence.

“You, Your Grace, have a silver tongue.”

“Which could be put to better use pleasuring you, sweetheart,” he coaxed with an impenitent grin. “Imagine all the things I could do to you…”

He could not mean that?—

As her thoughts spun in scandalous chaos, she felt the familiar ache blooming between her legs. Felt every single one of her senses heightened, becoming keenly aware of him as he looked at her likeshewas the chocolate.

How could a man arouse her so easily with mere words alone?

It was madness. Total insanity.

And she was reveling in every moment of it.

“This… this is…” she stammered. “This is not…”

“This is not what, Duchess?” he purred.

Her eyes dropped to the finger he used to trace the rim of his teacup, and her chest seemed to swell with the breath trapped within it. That simple gesture seemed much too intimate, hinting at all the wicked, devastating things his touch would bring.

If she would let him.

Say yes,his eyes seemed to tell her.Say yes and we can dispense with tea and chocolates and niceties.

Say yes and we can throw pretense out the window.

Say yes and…

Her heart twinged in her chest, aching.

“This is not proper etiquette,” she finished weakly.

None of it was—not their verbal exchanges or the way he seemed to undress her with his eyes and his words.

And then what?

To hell with etiquette.

He was crazed with lust. Aroused beyond belief.

There was nothing he wanted more than to slide his aching cock into her sweet channel.

Even justthinkingabout it had him suppressing a groan.

And here she was, lecturing him onetiquetteof all things.