be a duke.” His face set into a grim expression. “He forced me to treat people as he did.” She didn’t need to hear him say it to know what he meant, but he said it nonetheless. “He told me I had to use violence if I wanted to make my point. He took me to boxing matches, ones that were fought to the death, and made me watch all the way through. He told me I would always be like him.”
She inhaled sharply, feeling all the terror a child would at seeing that violence.
“I didn’t want to learn that lesson, but I did—the only way I could express myself was with my fists.” He met her gaze, an anguished expression in his eyes. “I couldn’t trust that I would be able to hold myself back.”
He kept his gaze locked on hers. “I couldn’t help but believe him, that I would be just like him. Inevitably. Eventually. That I would end up hurting you.”
Her eyes widened. “That you’d hit me? You would never do that!”
He shook his head. “You don’t know that, Ana Maria.” He took more steps before speaking again. “That is, you didn’t know that. Nor did I. But now I do.” He turned to look at her, then went and knelt by her chair, putting his hand on the arm. “Once you showed me what it was like to feel, once you gave me the joy of your joy, I knew I couldn’t keep myself shut down any longer. You told me I had a choice. It terrified me, but I knew I had to express everything I was feeling. To choose to be the man I wished to be.”
She nodded slowly. “But why didn’t you say anything after—?” After he’d shown her how it felt to be loved. After he’d loved her with his body, though not his words. After she had begged him to.
“I don’t know.” His words were desolate. “That is why I am an ass—I knew what I had to do, and I didn’t do it. That’s what I’ve been doing since that night, however; talking to everyone and anyone I can find, telling them how I feel and asking them how they feel.”
He reached to take her hand.
“And now I have to tell you, the most important person in my life, how I feel.”
Oh.
He took a deep breath. “Ana Maria, I want to spend my life trying to see things through your eyes. Every remarkable color, every flower, every gorgeous gown you put on your beautiful body. I want to live, not just survive. I want you to be by my side as I discover what it means to say how I feel. I want to tell you everything, including how much I love you.”
She bit back tears as she regarded his handsome, earnest face.
“I want you to help me find the good parts of being who I am, of using who I am to do better for everyone. Joyfully. You and I, we’re both of two worlds—me, who never wanted to be a duke, and you, who didn’t have a choice about who you were, whether you were scrubbing kitchen grates or dancing in ballrooms. I want us to be together to create one world—one world in which two people love one another.”
She saw him swallow. “And I want to know if you would—if you could possibly feel the same wa—?”
“I love you, too. Now shut up and kiss me,” she replied, placing her fingers on the back of his head to draw his mouth closer to hers.
He laughed softly before complying.
Nash felt as though he was going to explode from all the emotion. Just seeing her had made his heart actually hurt, and now he was kissing her, and that was all he ever wanted to do for the rest of his life.
Her lips were so soft, and he tried to kiss her tenderly, but then she opened her mouth, sliding her tongue into his mouth, her fingers gripping the back of his head tighter.
He deepened the kiss with a groan, putting his hands at her waist, twisting so he was kneeling directly in front of her. She spread her legs to accommodate his body, and he pressed against her, his torso against her mound, his chest against hers.
He felt her hands at his jacket, pushing it off his shoulders, and he quickly removed his arms from the sleeves, then tore at his cravat to take that off, too. All