Never Fall for Your Fiancee
- Автор: Heath Virginia
- Год: 2021
- Язык: английский
- Год: St. Martin's Publishing Group
- Жанр: Исторические любовные романы
Электронная книга - «Never Fall for Your Fiancee». Краткое содержание книги:
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Virginia Heath's fun characters and situations will have you laughing out loud! Don't miss this wonderful read! - Sabrina Jeffries, *New York Times* bestselling author**
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The first in a new historical rom-com series, a handsome earl hires a fake fiancée to keep his matchmaking mother at bay, but hilarity ensues when love threatens to complicate everything.**
“You asked me outright … last week … on the beach!”
She could see his mouth was slack as he stared at her in total silence. When he finally spoke, it was tentative, as if he was choosing his words carefully.
“I might not have said it articulately last week, because I was still in a state of shock about the strength of my feelings, but I know I never asked you to debase yourself. I certainly never said the word ‘mistress’!”
“It was implied.”
“It most certainly wasn’t. I bared my soul to you. I offered myself to you. Warts and all!”
“Offered yourself? You said you were not in a position to offer marriage—just yourself!”
“For enough time as it took for me to be certain I could make a decent go of it! I can’t ask you to shackle yourself to me until I can be sure I won’t behave like my father and his father before him. I said that. I know I did.”
“You most certainly did not say that!”
He was silent again, apparently bemused.
“Then blasted Payne was right and I really did make a mess of it.” He sat back on his heels, and she felt his warm breath on her face as he huffed out a sigh. “Untangling myself from another unsavory entanglement … I never picked up on it. You said it twice and I never picked up on it. What a fool I am.… You think you are the unsavory entanglement.”
Minerva was beginning to think she might have got the wrong end of the stick. “You are an earl…”
“I am an idiot.” His palm came to rest on her cheek. “A blithering idiot! For a man who supposedly has a way with words, I’ve certainly made a complicated situation nonsensical if you think I only want you as my mistress.”
“You don’t?”
“I just want you, Minerva.” His thumb found one of her tears in the darkness and brushed it away. “All of you and everything that entails. Forever … I love you.”
“You … love me?”
“Don’t sound so surprised.… You are inordinately nice.” He let out an odd sound. Part laughter, part relief. “And when I offered myself to you … very badly as it turned out … it was only in so much as I needed time to adjust to things, to make a concerted effort to be the man I want to be for you, the faithful and trustworthy man you deserve. Before I saddled you with me and our children to my Standish blood for life.”
Inside her chest, her heart melted. “That’s actually rather sweet … and noble … and nice.”
“That’s what I thought at the time, but … No wonder you’ve been so angry with me. I would never, ever suggest taking you to my bed without proper commitment. I thought I was proposing an extended courtship. So that when I did propose … if I could propose … I would do so in the knowledge I would keep my vows. Once I’m sure, completely sure, I’ll ask for your hand but not before, because I believe vows should be forever. I don’t want to be my father. I couldn’t bear to hurt you that way.”
“I’m afraid I didn’t hear any of that.”
“And that’s why you said that curt no. Will you take a chance on me now?”
She nodded. There was no indecision. No need to weigh it all up in her mind. The tormented man in front of her wasn’t cut from the same cloth as either her father or the sweetheart who had abandoned her. He was her knight in shining armor. A true gentleman in every sense. He might not see it himself, but he was honorable, decent, and noble to his core. A man with tainted blood wouldn’t care so much about others that he would sacrifice his own feelings to avoid hurting the feelings of others. Yes—he went about it in completely the wrong way, but his heart was so big it made hers want to burst and weep for him at the same time. If ever a man needed a sensible woman to guide him through life, it was Hugh. And if ever a man needed loving and saving from himself, it was Hugh, too.
“I am going to need the words, Minerva. The actual words…”
“Yes.”
“And you won’t leave me when Giles comes back? Because I’m going slowly mad with the stress of it all. I’ve never been in love before. It’s all new and it’s petrifying. I never imagined I was capable of it, so to find it had happened without me knowing completely threw me. I tried to fight it and I can’t. Tried to call it lust and affection and make excuses for it, when the truth is, I’ve not been myself since that day I met you in London. It’s like something missing fell into place and I’ve been dreading the day you leave me. I thought I’d told you all that and you just didn’t want me. I’ve been trying to accept it, but it’s felt like a death.” He rubbed his chest. “I have this constant pain here. I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. I have been entirely miserable and…” She kissed him. She couldn’t help it. Poor Hugh, and how sublimely wonderful that he was in utter turmoil!
“I love you, too.”
He replied with a kiss so perfect, so honest, and so heartfelt she never wanted it to end. But it did end. Not by either of them pulling away, but because the timbre of the kiss changed as they both poured their entire souls into it.
His arms wrapped around her, dragging her against him, and she discovered that after a miserable week apart, that was exactly where she wanted to be. Passion ignited instantly, as it had with their previous kisses, but the intimacy of the darkened room, the bed, and their newfound understanding of one another brought another dimension to it.
When he gently lowered them both down to the mattress, she went willingly, reveling in the feel of his big body over hers, feeling safe and adored and oddly powerful at the same time.
He loved her.
Wanted to commit to her. Take vows. Have children. And he was petrified. Of spoiling it. When she knew in her heart he could never spoil it. Whatever he misguidedly thought, he just did not have that in him.
His honesty, trepidation, and the darkness made her bolder, and she allowed her hands to explore his body, over the thin covering of his shirt, marveling at the muscles under his skin, the way they bunched beneath her touch. As his tongue and lips danced with hers, she slid her hands beneath the soft linen to explore him, the warm feel of his body beneath her palms, the bristle of the scattering of hair across his chest, the taut, flat planes of his stomach, and his overburdened broad shoulders before her arms wrapped around his neck.
He sighed into her mouth as she arched against him in invitation, smoothing one hand down her hip and thigh with aching slowness until he found the hem of her nightdress, and retraced his path back up on her bare skin, lingering momentarily to rest on her hip before it snaked up to cup her needy breast.
She felt him smile against her lips as her nipple pebbled beneath his palm and a guttural moan escaped her lips, and despite her pushing the sensitive flesh shamelessly into his hand, he made her wait before his index finger traced the shape of it. The strange new sensation was so intense, Minerva shuddered, then moaned as he replaced his finger with his mouth above the filmy fabric. Sucking the sensitive tip into his mouth and laving it with his tongue.
That proved her undoing, as suddenly her nightgown became an unwanted barrier while her other breast demanded attention.
She grabbed the fabric and began to pull it up before he stopped her and took over, patiently unwrapping her like a delicate gift until she was completely bared, her modesty veiled by nothing but the night.
She could see his eyes in the blackness, intense and focused as he gazed upon her with a reverence that fired her passions further.
“You are beautiful … so beautiful…”
Simple words, honest words. Flippant and mischievous Hugh had been replaced by a man who seemed to exist only for her. Only in this moment.