“Would you wish to be known as a cuckold?”
He shook his head. “But I don’t have to worry about that.”
She started to look just a little unnerved—but also excited—as he closed the distance between them. “Not if you keep me happy.”
“Why, Hyacinth Bridgerton, is that a threat?”
Her expression turned coy. “Perhaps.”
He was only a step away now. “I can see that I have my work cut out for me.”
Her chin lifted, and her chest began to rise and fall more rapidly. “I’m not a particularly easy woman.”
He found her hand and lifted her fingers to his mouth. “I do enjoy a challenge.”
“Then it’s a good thing you’re—”
He took one of her fingers and slid it into his mouth, and she gasped.
“—marrying me,” she somehow finished.
He moved to another finger. “Mmm-hmm.”
“I—Ah—I—Ah—”
“You do like to talk,” he said with a chuckle.
“What do you—Oh!—”
He smiled to himself as he moved to the inside of her wrist.
“—mean by that?” But there wasn’t much punch left in her question. She was quite literally melting against the wall, and he felt like king of the world.
“Oh, nothing much,” he murmured, tugging her close so that he could move his lips to the side of her throat. “Just that I’m looking forward to actually marrying you so that you can make as much noise as you’d like.”
He couldn’t see her face—he was much too busy attending to the neckline of her dress, which clearly had to be brought down—but he knew she blushed. He felt the heat beneath her skin.
“Gareth,” she said in feeble protest. “We should stop.”
“You don’t mean that,” he said, sliding his hand under the hem of her skirt once it became clear that the bodice wasn’t going to budge.
“No?
?—she sighed—“not really.”
He smiled. “Good.”
She let out a moan as his fingers tickled up her leg, and then she must have grasped onto one last shred of sanity, because she said, “But we can’t…oh.”
“No, we can’t,” he agreed. The desk wouldn’t be comfortable, there was no room on the floor, and heaven only knew if Phelps had shut the outer door to his bedroom. He pulled back and gave her a devilish smile. “But we can do other things.”
Her eyes opened wide. “What other things?” she asked, sounding delightfully suspicious.
He wound his fingers in hers and then pulled both her hands over her head. “Do you trust me?”
“No,” she said, “but I don’t care.”
Still holding her hands aloft, he leaned her against the door and came in for a kiss. She tasted like tea, and like…