The Secret Wallflower Society - Jillian Eaton Page 0,115
me,” he growled. “You needn’t even say the words. A nod, and I’ll do it. A blink, even. Exhale, and it will be done.”
“The only things I’m asking is that you love me, and allow me to love you. Would it be so hard?” she asked, and Lucas’s heart ached when he detected the sliver of hurt in her tone. “Am I so ruined that you cannot bring yourself to care for me? Is that it?”
“Persephone.” On a tortured groan, he raked his fingers through his hair. “You’re not the one who is ruined. My soul…it may be beyond salvation. And you shouldn’t be damned along with me. You need someone who is good, and righteous, and moral. Not an orphan who was born in the wrong section of London.”
“Are you done?” she asked, peering pointedly at him from beneath her lashes.
Teeth clenched, Lucas gave a curt nod.
“Excellent because I don’t care where you were born. Or how righteous you are.” She put her hands on her hips. “I fell in love with the Devil of Duncraven. That’s who I want. That is who I will always want.”
He gazed down at her. His fierce little love. His beautiful fairy queen. His sweet Persephone.
“I don’t deserve you,” he said hoarsely. “I don’t know if I ever will.”
“Then earn me.” She stepped up to him. Looped her arms around his neck. “One kiss at a time.”
They didn’t speak for a long while after that.
Lucas devoured her lips with the hunger of a man starved, and her passion equaled his own. Somehow they found themselves sprawled in front of the fire, their bodies twined together, impossible to tell where she ended, and he began.
As it should have been. As it forever would be.
“I love you.” He stroked the side of her face, the edge of his thumb tracing the delicate curve of her cheekbone where a shiny ebony curl rested. Brushing it behind her ear, he kissed her again before letting his head fall back onto the cushion he’d wrested off a chair in the midst of their desire. “My single regret is that I cannot ask you to be my wife.”
“I’ve been a lady, and a duchess, and a wife. None of them suited me.” On a contended sigh, Persephone nestled into the crook of his shoulder. “I should quite like to think I’d make a wonderful mistress.”
“And a naughty one.” His roguish grin having returned full force, Lucas grazed his hand teasingly along her ribcage. Then his smile abruptly faded. “You are everything I never knew to ask for and more than I could have ever dared dream for. Our life is never going to be conventional. I’m not a lord of the manor, or even a gentleman. Are you certain this is what you want?”
“You’re right.” Dark curls spilled across the pillow as she sat up on her elbow. “You’re not a lord, and you most certainly are not a gentleman. But…” Her eyes taking on a mischievous gleam, she pressed the tip of her finger to the middle of his chest and began to trail it downwards in a lazy, wandering path that had nearly had him jumping out of his trousers. “You are a devil. You’re my devil. And I couldn’t ask for anything more.”
He kissed her again. Slowly. Gently. Savoring each moment as if it were their last.
Except it wasn’t.
It was just their beginning.
Because this time, he was never letting her go.
Epilogue
Lucas and Percy’s budding courtship was not without its setbacks.
After Helena had learned where her friend had snuck off to in the middle of the night, she’d been furious. Almost as furious as Stephen had been when he learned that Helena had gone to Seven Dials.
Collectively, the Secret Wallflower Society had vowed to their men and to themselves that they would never venture to that part of London again.
All three of them had crossed their fingers behind their backs.
The second obstacle Lucas and Percy encountered was where to live. Percy wanted to remain with Helena, at least until the countess was married, whereas Lucas wanted her to move in with him as quickly as possible.
“We’ve already lived together,” he’d argued. “What’s the difference?”
“The difference,” she’d countered, “is that you kidnapped me. Now you’re courting me.”
He couldn’t exactly argue with her logic, and they’d agreed to wait three months (“Not a bloody day longer,” Lucas had growled) before Percy packed up her belongings and started her new life with her new lover in their newly furnished home.