When you’re ready, I’ll be waiting. Don’t make me wait too long, darling.”
She flopped onto her back, let out a long, gusty sigh. She couldn’t marry a man simply because she had let passion overwhelm her good sense. She didn’t know him, not really—and her judgment was irreparably compromised, besides.
She had loved Adrian, after all, and he had proved faithless. She didn’t think she would ever be able to trust like that again. It simply wasn’t possible.
She didn’t want to marry at all. Did she?
If she did—if she did marry him, she would be secure. She would be free of the restrictions society placed on unmarried women. She would have a husband who, even if he did not love her, would certainly be courteous and kind. A husband who would ensure that she found pleasure in their marriage bed.
A husband who would give her babies, who could give her the close, happy family she had always wanted. The sort of family she’d had when she’d been a child. Maybe he wouldn’t love her, but surely he liked her. Maybe having a husband she liked, and who liked her, would be better than love. At least then she couldn’t be hurt.
After all, if she never gave him her heart, he could never break it.

Chapter Fourteen

“You’re falling in love with her,” Nick accused as he sipped his champagne.
“I most certainly am not,” James replied sourly, jerking round to pin Nick with a glare. “What are you doing here? Your duty’s done for the moment.” He flicked his hand in a dismissive gesture. “You might as well shove off; if you keep showing up at these things, the ambitious mamas are going to get ideas and start casting their little darlings at your head.”
Nick shrugged, but a knowing grin lurked at the corners of his mouth. “I can handle them,” he said. “I’m more interested in how your, er…courtship is going.” He shoved a couple of tiny sandwiches onto a plate. “Because from where I’m standing, it would appear that you have far more interest in her than she has in you. And you look extremely interested.”
“I’m not.” He was. “I’m making certain Kirkland hasn’t gotten any ideas into his head, keeping a watch out for him.” He was trying to entice Jilly to look his way, to see if he could read her thoughts on her face. He’d yet to approach her this evening, but the moment he had entered the ballroom his eyes had unerringly found her, tucked away in a corner, chattering animatedly with her friend Lady Ravenhurst.
“You know Lady Ravenhurst wouldn’t have invited Kirkland to her ball,” Nick said coolly as he bit into a sandwich. “Try again. This time, try being honest.”
“Not being invited rarely stops the truly dedicated.” And that was true enough. Kirkland was bound to show his face again sooner or later. And he wouldn’t leave Jilly to weather that on her own.
“You’ve not been down to the club all week,” Nick observed. “Does she have you on that short a leash already?”
“Of course not,” he bit off. “I’ve been…otherwise occupied.” The club had simply lost its appeal. He found more pleasure in escorting Jilly to her engagements than he had ever found in the turn of a card. That was grating indeed—he had never planned to actually enjoy her company.
He had never planned to feel the sort of raw desire for her that he had suffered of late. He had never expected her to be so abandoned in his arms, so passionate—he regretted only that he hadn’t seen her face as she reached her peak, that he had had to stifle her cry. But she had trembled in his arms afterward, and it had been so sweet to hold her, to feel the mist of perspiration on her skin, to know that she had been swept away by his caresses.
He wanted her in the light, in privacy—he wanted to watch desire sweep over her features, hear the noises she made in the heights of rapture. He wanted to feel her soft, strong legs clamped around his hips instead of his thigh. He wanted to stake his claim on her in the most primal way possible, to plunge himself inside her hot velvet depths and spill himself inside her.
And he would.