“I know women, Izzy. I’ve known far too many women.” He’d spent years searching for that physical comfort he’d been denied, always shying away from any deeper connection. “And I’ve known, ever since that first afternoon, that you were unlike anyone who’d come before. I’m glad of it. And if men never paid you attention, I’m glad of that, too, selfish cad that I am. Otherwise, you’d be with some other man instead of here with me.
“But no matter how tightly I hold you, no matter how deeply I sink inside you—I’ve felt there’s always some small part of you I can’t reach. Something you’ve been holding back. Your heart, I assumed. Oh, I wanted it. I want all of you. But I couldn’t bring myself to ask for something I so clearly didn’t deserve.”
He felt her draw breath to object, but he cut her off before she could try.
“And it’s nothing to do with my birth or my childhood. I’m old enough now to recognize my father’s treatment for the senseless cruelty it was. But it’s everything since. You think a few features scattered on your face make you plain? I am ugly to the core. All England knows it. And after reading through my papers, you must know it. You sifted through a mountain of my misdeeds. Of course you’d build a wall around your heart. You’re a clever girl. How could you love this? How could anyone?”
“Ransom.” Her voice wavered.
“And now I learn that this . . . this . . . is what you’ve been guarding. This is the reason for that reluctance. You don’t feel pretty enough. For a blind man. Christ, Izzy. And I thought I was shallow.”
The words came out more harshly than he intended. So he followed them with kisses. Tender, soothing kisses to her cheek, her neck, the pale, arousing curve of her shoulder . . .
Bless this woman and her silly, all-too-human vanity. He might never know how to be the man she deserved, but this?
This, he knew how to remedy.
“Izzy,” he moaned, pressing his body to hers, “you make me wild with wanting you. You can’t imagine.” He started pulling up her skirts.
She gasped. “What are you doing?”
“Just what it seems like.”
“We can’t. The solicitors. They’re just downstairs, waiting.”
“This is more important.”
“Tupping me in the corridor is more important than saving your title?”
He held very still. Then he kissed her lips. “Yes.”
He said the word simply, solemnly. Because he meant it, with everything he had left to him. Body and soul. The solicitors and dukedom could go hang. There was nothing worth defending in his life if he couldn’t make her see this.
“I can’t judge how beauty looks anymore,” he said. “But I know the sound of it. It sounds like a flowing river of wild, sweet honey. Beauty smells like rosemary, and it tastes of nectar. Beauty sneezes like a flea.”
She smiled. That beautiful smile. How could she ever doubt her effect on him?
“This is how plain you are.” He caressed her breast with one hand, while with the other he undid the closures of his breeches placket. “This is how unattractive I find you.”
There wasn’t time for foreplay or finesse. Only joining.
He fought his way through the petticoats, found her to be every bit as ready as he was—and put both hands on her backside, lifting her off the ground and against the wall. She clung tight to his neck, wrapping her legs about his waist.
And then he thrust.
“I love you.”
Saying those words—the words he’d been denied so long, until he denied that they meant anything—damn, it felt good. And saying the words while sliding deep inside her? It felt amazing.
“I love you, Izzy.” He thrust deep and true, sliding further home with every dig of his hips. “I love you. You. Beautiful . . . tempting . . . clever . . . lovely . . . you.”
He paused inside her, sheathed to the hilt. Holding her pinned to the wall, the both of them fighting for breath. Her thighs quivered against his. There wasn’t any way to get closer. He’d pushed into her just as far as he possibly could, thrust as deeply as he could ever reach.
But was it enough? Could he manage to touch her heart?
He had to know.
He closed his eyes and pressed his brow to her sweet, powdered skin. That old, insidious voice thundered in his blood. You don’t deserve this. You don’t deserve her.
But he had to ask anyway.
He spoke the words that were most difficult of all.
“Love me.”
Chapter Twenty-six
Love me.”
The words were a hoarse, faint whisper. But Izzy knew how much they’d cost him.
“I do.” She hugged his neck tight, lest she be swept away by this flood of tender emotion. She kissed his brow, his cheek. “Oh, Ransom. I love you. I do.”
On a shaky gasp, he pulled almost all the way out, then thrust home once more. “Again.”
“I love you. I love you.”
She could have said it a hundred times. She could have held him deep inside her for just as long as he could wish. But they didn’t have that kind of time. He worked hard and fast, bringing them both to a stunning, silent crisis. She sank her teeth into her wrist to keep from crying out.
Then he withdrew from her body, setting her feet back down on the floor. He held her for a few moments longer. Just breathing.
“I needed that,” he said. “You don’t know how much.”
She smiled. “I think we both did.”
She lowered her skirts and smoothed out the worst of the wrinkles while he refastened the buttons of his breeches.
“Izzy, here is what I can say with confidence, as a man who would know.” He straightened his waistcoat with a tug, then each sleeve in turn. “You’re a wildly attractive, palpably sensual woman. Perhaps suitors kept their distance because of the Tales. Perhaps your father held them at bay because he feared losing you. I don’t know why men never pursued you in the past. I can only tell you why they won’t pursue you in the future.”
“Why’s that?”
He gave her an isn’t-it-obvious shrug. “Because I won’t let them.”
“Oh.” Izzy melted against the wall.
He spread his arms for her appraisal. “Am I put back together? Will I do?”
“You’re devastating.” Still reeling, she touched a hand to her coiffure. Or what remained of it. “My hair. You go ahead. I’ll just run upstairs and—”