“Are you angry with me because of this morning?”
Anna eyed him impatiently, knowing it was not Rufus she was annoyed with, but herself. This morning she had allowed herself to forget who she was for a few pleasurable moments of being held in his arms. A pleasure she had paid for by suffering numerous questions from Mrs Faulkner as they’d arranged the flowers together, the elderly woman at last accepting that Anna had merely been comforting the duke, who had been overcome with emotion after visiting his family crypt.
“You did not have to come here this evening, Anna,” Rufus spoke quietly. “You could have used any number of excuses not to accompany your brother.”
Anna knew that.
But that part of her, which was wilful as well as impetuous, the part of her that so longed for adventure and excitement, had refused to allow her to do so.
Because she had wanted to see Rufus again. To know if her legs would once again become weak just at the sight of him. If her body would become aroused just by being near him...
A single glance at Rufus in his evening clothes and Anna had known without a doubt that she did indeed feel all of those things towards Rufus.
Achingly.
Futilely.
She was a parson’s daughter, and Rufus Drake was a sophisticated London gentleman, not to mention a duke, and at least ten years older than she.
“Anna?” He frowned as he stood up to stand next to her chair, his eyes holding hers captive.
Her heart raced. “What are you doing?”
“I believe you are well aware of what I want, what I have wanted since the moment you arrived here this evening.” His eyes gleamed with desire. “What we both want.”
It was indeed a desire, a need, that Anna echoed. With all her heart.
She swallowed. “But we should not.”
“I must, Anna.”
He bent to swing her up into his arms and carried her over to a chaise in front of the window, laying her down upon it before joining her, the heat of his body pressed close against her own, a pleasure Anna had never thought to know with him again.
“You have no idea how much I have longed, hungered, to hold you in my arms, to be with you like this again, Anna,” he murmured throatily as his head lowered and his lips captured hers.
If his hunger was even half as much as her own was for him to hold her, and make love to her, then Anna did know.
Chapter Six
It was as if the past six days had never been, as if they were simply continuing where they had left off that day by the pond, as Rufus’s hot, marauding tongue swept confidently between Anna’s parted lips, plundering, claiming, demanding that she respond in kind. A demand that Anna gave into willingly.
He gave a low groan of satisfaction as he felt the shy stroke of Anna’s tongue alongside his own, her hands moving up from his chest and over his shoulders before her fingers became entangled in the dark silky hair curling at his nape. He felt himself once again lost to satisfying his addiction to her unique taste.
He moaned as his lips moved to her cheek, the length of her throat, the creamy tops of her breasts. “I have hungered for this again since the day I met you, Anna. For the taste of you. For you,” he murmured urgently, knowing he spoke the truth, and that he had thought of little else, and no one else, since the two of them had first met six days ago.
“Rufus?”
“Yes, I am Rufus!” he urged fiercely. “Not Northamptonshire. Not a duke. With you I am only Rufus,” he insisted urgently.
She looked up at him searchingly. “What is it you want from me?” she finally murmured softly.
“Everything!” he assured her heatedly, his gaze feverish. “I’ve longed to be with you again, to touch you again,” he murmured achingly. “Will you allow me?” His hands were against the buttons at the back of her gown.
Anna swallowed before answering, knowing she should say no, that she would regret this madness tomorrow. That she would have time to regret it for the rest of her life.
But it was a regret she knew would be all the deeper if she now went against the dictates of her heart. She needed this memory with Rufus in order to make the rest of her life bearable without him.
“Yes,” she breathed shyly.