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“Well, I will tell you this. The Duke of Sherborne was one of the few gentlemen who remained friends with my father after the scandal. I think that speaks well of his char acter. And if you are nervous about your dinner with him, perhaps an evening at the opera...” As soon as he opened his mouth to object to escorting her to the opera for all the reasons he already mentioned, she pressed a finger to his lips.

“Not to attend with me. But the Earl of Dovermere has a box beside Lady Broadbent’s.

He was also a friend to my father, and his daughter was a friend to me in our first Season. I could ask for an invitation.”

“It just so happens that Dovermere has already issued an invitation. It sits among the mountain atop my desk—a mountain I

have no intention of scaling.”

“You are such a curmudgeon when you want to be,” she groused, crossing her arms beneath her breasts. “You’ve relied on David

and Nan, Roly and Mr. Pitt, and a number of others who’ve kept your secret. I don’t understand why you’re so determined to

stay away from me for an entire fortnight when it might benefit your standing with the courts if they see that you desire

to settle down with a wife.”

His shoulders relaxed marginally on an exhale. “So that’s what all this is about.”

“It just doesn’t make sense that, after tonight, you wouldn’t want to see me.”

Not want to see her? He wanted her with an intensity that frightened him. He didn’t know what to do with the feelings storming

his defenses as if with a thousand battering rams and a legion of trebuchets hurling boulders.

She was his, damn it all! His to kiss. His to pleasure. His to protect. But how could he keep her safe while society still

thought of him as an ape and buffoon?

Pulling her onto his lap, he lowered his forehead to hers. “I’m asking you to trust me until I establish my reputation. A

fortnight of indifference should keep you safe from”—Redcliffe, he thought—“wagging tongues.”

“I don’t care about any of that. All I want is you, just as you are.”

She was asking him to try, to give his trust to a man he didn’t know. To put his fate in someone else’s hands. But he couldn’t.

Althea pressed her lips to his, soft, beseeching. The warmth of her kiss lingered long after she eased back, as if she’d left

a hot ember in his mouth. He swallowed it down, feeling it scorch a path along the tissue of his throat to the center of his

chest, setting fire to the toughened walls that surrounded his heart.

He feared that it wouldn’t stop until every layer burned away and left him exposed. Vulnerable in a way he hadn’t been in

a very long time. And with a man like Redcliffe standing in the way of everything Jasper wanted, he couldn’t afford to be

vulnerable.

“It has to be this way,” he said.

She sighed. “And it won’t bother you at all to see me with Summerhayes?”

Actually, it was killing him. But admitting to that would hardly help the situation. After tonight both his life, and hers,

depended upon him making a favorable impression.

He crooked a finger beneath her chin. “Just don’t run off to Gretna Green with him, hmm?”

She pursed her lips as if thinking about it. Then the imp looked up at him through the veil of those sooty lashes. “I won’t...

However, if I’m not going to see you for all that time, then I want something in return.”

“I would give you anything,” he said without hesitation.

She grinned, her teeth sinking into her bottom lip. “Then I want to explore.”

“What do you mean?” He eyed her warily.

Instead of responding, she wiggled down his body, lowering the coverlet inch by inch, pressing kisses long the way.

“I don’t think that’s a good—” His words stalled when she unleashed her weapon, beaming up at him. “You’re not playing fair.”

Staring holes through the ceiling, he ordered his body not to respond. Nothing would come of her exploration. He certainly

wasn’t a cad who would use her delicate flesh again so soon.

“You’re ticklish,” she declared with bright triumph as if she’d discovered a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow when his

stomach twitched beneath the tingling caress of her fingertip.

“Apparently.”

“And you have a good deal of hair. But it’s very soft. I like the way it feels against my skin,” she said as she dusted her

lips along the trail beneath his navel.

He gripped fistfuls of the coverlet. I am a statue , he said to himself. I will not respond and lose all control because I am a statue.

“Aww, just look at him. He’s like a little bird in a nest. Not at all frightful.”

Jasper made the mistake of glancing down to see her admiring his flaccid cock, which wasn’t going to remain that way for long

with her lips an enticing breath away.

“And you called him a monster. Shame on you,” she chided, clucking her tongue. Then she turned her full crooning attention

back to his cock. “Don’t listen to him. You’re absolutely adorable.”

Then she pressed a tender kiss to the head.

“Now you’ve done it,” he groaned when his flesh bobbed up as if to kiss her back. He quickly lost his battle in restraint.

“Oh!” she said with a start as his flesh began to unfurl. She watched with engrossed fascination, then swallowed audibly.

“Well, he is a rather... large fellow, is he not?”

“Just give me a minute, so that I can think of... something else.”

She blinked up at him. “Why would you want to do that?”

“So that I’m not like this when I take you home.” He gestured broadly to his turgid flesh and wished she wasn’t so close. “Perhaps you should move to the other side of the bed.”

She shook her head. “After.”

“After what?” he asked warily, already regretting the question when a slow, impish grin curved her lips.

“After I’ve tasted you.”