Heat flooded her face, her body. She nodded, unable to speak, and his hands slid up her thighs, warm and sure. When he parted her legs, she gasped, her fingers gripping the edge of the settee.
“You are so beautiful,” he murmured, his breath warm against her skin, and the reverence in his voice made her eyes sting.
Then his mouth was on her, and she forgot how to breathe. Forgot everything except the wicked heat of his tongue, the clever pressure of his fingers.
His tongue moved against her with devastating attention, learning every sensitive place, every sound she made. He knew exactly where to touch her, how to make her body sing, and when his fingers joined his mouth, sliding inside her with expert care, she cried out.
“Anthony,” she gasped, her head falling back. “Please?—”
“Say my name again,” he commanded, his voice muffled against her, vibrating through her in the most devastating way. “I want to hear it when you are spent. I want to know that you are mine.”
She obeyed, helpless, his name spilling from her lips as the pleasure built and built until it was unbearable.
“Anthony!” She cried.
When the pleasure crested, when she shattered, she cried out his name again like a prayer. He stayed with her through it, his mouth and hands gentle now, coaxing every last tremor from her body until she was boneless and breathless and utterly undone.
When she could think again, when the world had stopped spinning, he was sitting beside her, watching her with an expression of such satisfaction, such masculine pride, that it made her blush.
She reached for him, her hand sliding down his chest toward the fall of his breeches, wanting to give him the same pleasure, but he caught her wrist gently.
“Not tonight,” he said, his voice strained, tight with the effort of restraint.
“But you—” She looked at him, at the visible evidence of his arousal. “Anthony, I want to?—”
“I know.I want you,” he said, his thumb brushing over her pulse, feeling the rapid flutter beneath her skin. “God, Caroline, I want you so badly I can barely think. I have wanted you since the night you walked into my house with that infernal list. But when I take you, it will be as my wife. I will not ruin you. Not when you have agreed to marry me. Not when I can give you everything properly.”
She stared at him, her heart swelling with a love too large to bother trying to contain. “You are impossible.”
“I know.” He smiled and kissed her forehead. “But you will have to tolerate it. You said yes.”
She laughed, breathless and dazed, and let him help her stand on trembling legs. He fixed her skirts with care, his fingers lingering on the fabric, then pulled her cloak around her shoulders as though she were something precious.
“I will take you home,” he said, his voice soft. “And tomorrow, I will speak to Lewis. I will ask for your hand properly.”
“He will be furious,” she said, though the thought did not frighten her the way it once would have.
“He will survive.” Anthony cupped her face, his thumb brushing her cheek with infinite tenderness. “I am not afraid of him. Not anymore. Not when I have you. Not when you have said yes.”
The ride back to Grayston House was quiet, but it was the comfortable quiet of two people who had said everything that needed saying. Caroline sat with her hand in Anthony’s, her head resting against his shoulder, and felt something settle in her chest. Something that felt remarkably like peace.
When the carriage stopped a discreet distance from the house, Anthony helped her down and walked her to the garden gate. The windows of Grayston House glowed warm in the darkness, and she could see Lewis’s study lamp still burning.
“He is still awake,” she said.
“He will have questions tomorrow.” Anthony pulled her close, his arms wrapping around her in a way that felt like a promise. “But we will face them together.”
“Together,” she echoed, and the word felt right. Solid. Real.
He kissed her then, slow and deep, and when he pulled away, his eyes were dark with emotion. “Sleep well, my love. Tomorrow, everything changes.”
She watched him walk back to the carriage, watched it pull away into the night, and then she slipped through the garden gate and into the house. The hallway was dark and silent; everyone long since retired to bed. She climbed the stairs to her room, her heart still racing, her body still humming with the memory of his touch.
She did not sleep for a long time. She lay in her bed, staring at the ceiling, and thinking about tomorrow. About Anthony walking into Lewis’s study and asking for her hand. About the life that was waiting for her on the other side of that conversation.
She was not afraid.
For the first time in her life, she knew exactly what she wanted, and she was not going to let anyone—not even Lewis—take it away from her.