“Yes. Love is madness. I’m not in love with you yet, Ophelia, but only because I haven’t had enough time.”

It was that moment that Ophelia realized that the Duke of Lindow—a man clearly used to getting exactly what he wanted, when he wanted it, a man whom the world had blessed with beauty, power, and wealth—was truly at her feet.

Metaphorically, because he was sitting beside her and kissing her again. This time, when his mouth brushed hers, her lips parted.

Her breath stopped, and her hands rose of their own volition, flattening themselves against his chest. Through layers of silk his chest felt warm and hard. In that moment when she gasped for breath, his tongue slid into her mouth and an inarticulate male sound, a growl or a rumble, came from his chest.

Ophelia shouldn’t . . . She couldn’t help it. Her tongue met his, curiously. She hadn’t felt desire in well over two years, but it came back to her in a rush, tingling through her veins, growing hotter and hotter.

The kiss didn’t end. She and Peter had kissed each other; of course they had. But not like this. Peter had never devoured her, never kissed her as if time had stopped. The duke’s kiss was a decadent kiss, unhurried, hungry, sensual.

Her heart began thudding in her chest, and under her fingers, the duke’s heart was thudding too. She had the sense they could kiss all night and he wouldn’t complain.

This was a get-to-know-you kiss, which was such a disgraceful thought that Ophelia shook off the erotic haze that had lured her into kissing him back and started to draw away.

“Please?” he asked. His voice rumbled from his chest, soft and dark. His hands shaped her waist and slid up her back. His hands were so large that it felt as if they covered her like a blanket.

Ophelia lost her breath again. She opened her lips and fell back into their kiss, letting it melt her, letting feelings that she’d forgotten unfurl in her body, touching her here and there with fire.

Her breasts woke up, as if she were still nursing. She wrenched her mind away from that thought. It wasn’t just her breasts. Her skin was prickling to life all over, her neck, her legs, her . . .

Everything.

She didn’t even think about what came next, not that there was a “next,” obviously. There was just this kiss, a kiss with a stranger, that was somehow ravenous and affectionate.

That thought shocked her and she pulled away again, sharply.

He let her go instantly, his hands falling away and leaving her back cool and uncaressed. She met his gaze and saw the same surprise in his eyes that she felt. But there was a faint smugness as well.

Confidence.