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It had been an intensely erotic kiss, one that had stripped away any façade or belief of him being the cold and aloof Duke of St. Albans. It had instead revealed a man possessed of the deepest of sexual passions. The physical evidence of which had been evident in the throbbing length of his arousal as it pressed insistently into Lily’s abdomen.
She would not previously have believed St. Albans to be capable of feeling such a depth of emotions, and she doubted others in Society would have thought it possible either.
Most especially not toward someone like Lily, so much younger than him and not dazzlingly beautiful as so many of the other ladies in Society were.
But there had been no mistaking the hunger in Gabriel’s kiss. Or, despite Lily’s lack of experience in such matters, the evidence of Gabriel’s aroused and heated cock.
A very long and very thickly aroused and heated cock.
Lily felt a quivering down the length of her spine just imagining touching that throbbing length.
Her thighs clenched together merely thinking of that heat pushing and then thrusting deep inside her moist and welcoming channel.
Dear God, she was now aroused again only from thinking about it!
Her breasts were swollen, the nipples plump and aching, and between her thighs was once again both hot and wet.
“Why are you sitting here daydreaming when you should be dressing for the Chelseas’ ball this evening?” a familiar waspish voice demanded.
Lily turned to look at her mother standing in the open doorway.
The countess was still beautiful, with her fair hair and blue eyes, but it was a beauty tempered by dissatisfaction with her lot in life.
Lily wondered if her mother had ever known, even at the beginning of her marriage to the earl, a fraction of the passion Gabriel had awakened in Lily earlier today.
Somehow, Lily doubted it.
Even if there had been an initial affection between her mother and father, it no longer existed all these years of marriage later. Perhaps it had when the children—two sons and two daughters—had been young. But Lily very much doubted it had survived her mother knowing of the many mistresses the earl had taken over the years. Indeed, Lily knew that it had not, and that for her mother, at least, their marriage was now one of duty and tolerance only.
Which was exactly why Lily balked at ever entering into such an arrangement herself and had gone so far as to make an agreement on the subject with five of her close friends.
An agreement Gabriel Lord had no doubt thought to shatter earlier with his passionate kisses.
Lily had no intention of being so easily swayed from her purpose. Indeed, she was filled with fresh resolve on the matter as she rose to her feet. “I shall do so now,” she assured her mother with a warm smile.
There was no reason for her to think Gabriel would be at the ball this evening. In fact, as it was well-known in Society how much the duke hated attending social events, the opposite was more likely to be true.
Chloe had an elderly great-aunt who, although she didn’t live in the St. Albans household, always acted as chaperone when Chloe attended social engagements without her father.
No doubt that would be the case at this evening’s ball too.
It was.
Worse, Lily learned from Chloe, it was St. Albans’s intention to leave London the following morning, accompanied by his secretary, the duke having business needing his attention in the country.
Chloe had obviously been displeased with her father for leaving when the Season had barely begun. Even more so when he had not stated when he would return.
Lily’s emotions were less straightforward.
On the one hand, she was relieved she would not have to face the duke again so soon after the two of them had kissed.
On the other, she ached to see and be with him again. To be kissed by him again. To domorethan kiss.
She doubted Gabriel would feel that same hunger. Obviously, he did not, if he intended to leave London on business with no word, even to his daughter, of when he would return.
CHAPTER FIVE
One week later