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Unable to help himself, Hugo’s hands traveled from her hips to her back, where he felt the rigidness of her spine.

“What are you doing?” She whispered.

“Your body,” he murmured, caressing a massaging hand up her spine, “It is always so tense.”

“Because you will not let me go,” she insisted.

“No,” he answered quickly, already feeling some of her tension fading under his touch, “I see it always. I saw it the day we met. The day I found you with Lord Fellon at the gallery before I approached. You hold yourself rigid, as if you cannot relax, no matter where you are or who you are with.”

“Except for me,” he rasped, his voice growing thick as he felt his arousal begin to bloom. “Yousinkinto me, Seraphina, and that feeling is…addicting.”

“I think of our kiss in the gallery,” he went on, “Often. Of how your body relaxed into mine. How you melted into my arms and how it satisfied a craving I did not even realize I had. And I want it again.”

“Your Grace, you must stop, please,” Seraphina whispered, beginning to tremble under his touch. “You cannot talk to me like this.”

“Because you do not want it?” He asked, challenging her, “Or because you have the same craving I do?”

The moment Hugo asked, he also let her go. And though it was not a push by any means, Seraphina felt as if she had been expelled away from the warmth and light and directly into the cold and darkness. Her body shook in retaliation, and she felt herself sway as Hugo finally took several steps back.

Immediately she felt her body grow painfully rigid again, and in silent wonder she realized what he had said was true. She was tense without his touch, and only relaxed once she was encompassed by it. How long had she lived that way?

“What did you do to me?” She breathed, placing a trembling hand on her stomach as she looked up at him from beneath her brow.

“I stopped it,” he replied quietly.

“Stopped what?” she asked, agitated.

“The need to feel perfect.”

His gaze, gentle yet domineering, locked on hers, and he took a slow step toward her.

“I know what you feel because I have gone through it,” he spoke, his deep voice lulling her, “Your body knows. It understands that you do not have to be perfect, not with me. It can relax. It can breathe. Because I see you for what you are and there is no need to pretend otherwise.”

Hugo took another step forward and this time, Seraphina found her moving toward him, and not away. Almost as if a thread had tied them together, and was pulling them back toward one another.

“You feel something for me, Seraphina,” he went on as he took another step, “It might not be love but it issomething.Stop pretending that you don’t.”

“And what is it that you think I feel for you?” she breathed, taking another small step toward him without realizing it.

Closing the space between them, Hugo brought his hand up to her cheek, the caress of his fingertips making her instantly dizzy and short of breath.

“I think your body craves me,” he rasped, letting his lip just barely graze across hers.

Feeling her resolve weaken, Seraphina whimpered, and looked up imploringly into his deep green eyes.

“And you?” She asked, reaching a tentative hand toward his chest. “Do you crave me?”

Hugo’s smile spread slowly, handsomely over his face as he let out a deep chuckle.

“You have no idea,” he replied, his hand trailing down to wrap around her throat, “But I would love to show you.”

Seraphina felt her knees grow weak and her entire body grow warm as he brushed the softest kiss across her lips.

“Let me show you?”

He was not begging, she realized, though his tone was as soft as his kiss. No, he was putting the decision in her hands.

Suddenly Seraphina realized she had a choice. She knew she would not be marrying him. Even if the thought grew more appealing by the day, her parents still would not allow it. But she was about to be married to someone else. Whoever it was, he could not make her feel as Hugo did in this moment. This, she realized, was perhaps her only chance to feel such passion.