Page 97 of The Scottish Duke's Deal

“I wouldn’t bet on it.”

They reached the landing. Ramsay didn’t move to leave.

Eleanor turned to him, eyes catching the warm lamplight. Her voice lowered, but there was nothing shy in it.

“Would you like to come in?”

His heart punched against his ribs.

She wasn’t coquettish. There was no demure flutter of lashes or strategic shift of the shoulder. She was simply looking at him, steady, waiting for him.

And Ramsay—a brute, a man who had known violence and cold and nothing else for so long—felt warmth surge in his throat like hunger.

“Yes,” he said.

She opened the door and stepped inside. He followed.

The room smelled faintly of rosewater. Her dressing table shimmered with cut-glass bottles. Her gloves lay abandoned on the arm of the chair. Ramsay didn’t look at the bed, yet.

She turned toward him, hands loosening the pearl clasp at her neck.

“You can help,” she murmured.

His fingers found the row of buttons down her back, small and stubborn. He worked them loose slowly, deliberately, breath tightening with each inch of skin revealed.

“Eleanor,” he said, his voice hoarse.

She turned her head, just enough to meet his gaze over her shoulder. “Yes?”

“If you ask me to stop?—”

“I won’t.”

The last button gave. He let the fabric slip from her shoulders, catching it at her elbows, easing it down like an offering.

She stepped out of the gown, barefoot now, in her chemise and turned to face him. She didn’t cover herself. Didn’t flinch.

He stepped forward, slid his hand around her waist, and pulled her into him.

The kiss was slow. Not cautious—no, there was nothing cautious left between them—but reverent. As if he were trying to memorize the taste of her. As if kissing her meant something, and God help him, it did.

Her hands found the lapels of his coat. She tugged gently, urging him closer. Ramsay groaned low in his throat and let himself fall into the soft, warm, utterly maddening sensation of her.

She smelled like lavender and clean linen. Her skin was warm silk beneath his palms.

He kissed her again. Harder.

She arched against him, and he caught her with both arms, lifting her off the ground with ease and walking her back toward the bed.

“Wait,” she gasped, breathless.

He stopped. “What is it?”

“I—” She laughed a little. “You’re still wearing half your wardrobe.”

“I can fix that.”

He set her down, hands already moving to his coat.