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.But then he let them fall back down.Katherine edged away from him; she leaned up on tiptoe and pressed her lips to his.Jasper’s muscles strained the fabric of his midnight black garments, and then he took her in his arms.His mouth slanted over hers again and again; fast, hard, and furious as he tasted her lips.Theirs was not a gentle exchange but a volatile explosion of passion to rival the most violent of summer thunderstorms.She opened her mouth and allowed him entry.His tongue slid inside, possessive and searching and she met the bold thrust and parry of his kiss.He folded his hand around her neck, and angled her head, so he could better plunge his expert tongue into the cavern of her mouth.Katherine moaned and the life seeped down her legs, and down her feet, until she was reduced to nothingness in his arms.He caught her to him, and anchored her against his chest.His kiss was what drove poets to memorialize their words upon a written page and drove women to sin, and young ladies to toss aside their good name and respectability.And she took his kiss.All of it.A gasping cry escaped her as his hand cupped her breast, the breathless sound swallowed by his mouth.His mouth left hers, and she tangled her fingers into the thick strands of his black hair and tugged, in a desperate attempt to bring his lips back to hers.Her efforts proved ineffectual and he continued his quest.He kissed a path down her temple, and to the sensitive flesh where her neck met her ear.A breathless giggle escaped her.Jasper pulled back and glanced up at her, questioningly.“It tickled,” she said weakly, wanting to toss her head back and shout with frustration, desperate for him to continue.Jasper touched the tip of his finger to that sensitive patch of flesh, and then lowered his lips again to the skin there.“Oh, Jasper,” she whispered on a breathy laugh.“You are certain you still wish to wed me?” he asked again.The faintest hint of uncertainty underlined that question and her heart flipped at the crack in the cold veneer he’d perfected these many years.Was he mad? His hot touch fueled the dreams of him, and their future, a future where those kisses were not mere kisses, where he showed her the truth behind every last secret she’d wondered of between a man and woman.She cupped his cheek, and leaned up.“There isn’t another man I’d rather wed.”His gaze seared her, bore through hers with a staggering intensity, and with a foolishness more reserved for a naïve debutante, Katherine waited with suspended breath for him to utter like words.The words however, did not come.Instead…He nodded curtly.“Very well.We shall wed within the week.”Jasper stepped away from her, sketched a hasty bow, and stormed from the door as though a fire had been set to the parlor.Katherine stared at the empty doorway long after he’d left.She folded her arms across her chest and hugged herself tight.Jasper could not be clearer than if he’d committed the words to paper, that his interest in her was of a practical nature.There were no intoxicating feelings and desperate longings where he was concerned—not for her.Perhaps all those volatile emotions had been buried with his Lydia.Her nails dug into the exposed skin of her forearms.Only…his kiss, his touch made her dare to dream, dare to believe that he would eventually come to care for her, as she cared for him.A knock sounded at the door, and Katherine looked blankly at the entrance as her sister peeked her head in.A wide smile wreathed Anne’s porcelain fine cheeks.“Hullo.” She peered around the room as if to ascertain Katherine was alone.“May I come in?”Katherine nodded, grateful for her twin’s presence.Anne entered, and closed the door behind her.“Mother is livid.”Katherine considered Mother’s vile charges when Jasper had arrived earlier.Mother should be ashamed, more than anything else.Anne tugged Katherine over to the plush, powder-blue velvet upholstered sofa.“Sit,” she commanded as if speaking to a small child.Katherine smiled weakly up at her sister.Though a handful of minutes older, Anne had never really seemed the older of the two.Always ready with a smile, Anne always landed them, in any number of troublesome situations.In this moment, however, with her serious expression and calm demeanor, she was very certainly the elder sister.“Well, when I proposed we find you a husband to save you from that horrid Mr.Ekstrom, I never once imagined you’d find someone who could be far worse.”Katherine shook her head.“No, Anne.He’s…he’s…”Anne’s brow wrinkled.“He’s what?”Brave.Hurting.Strong.“He’s a good man,” she finished lamely.Anne sat back in the folds of the sofa.“He’s a very severe gentleman.I should like my gentleman to smile a good deal and not be so serious like the duke.” A long sigh slipped past Anne’s bow-shaped lips.“I could never despise anyone who would save you in such a heroic manner as the duke did.But beyond that, there seems little to recommend him.” She wrinkled her nose.“Though that is a very high recommendation.”One time when Katherine and Anne had been girls of just seven or eight years, they’d been traipsing through the woods of their father’s estate.They’d come upon a red fox; its front leg had been caught in a snare, and hopelessly broken and bloodied.The creature’s lip had pulled back as it snapped and snarled.Katherine bit the inside of her cheek to keep from explaining that Jasper was that scared, hurt fox.She loved her sister and trusted her implicitly but still could not betray Jasper’s privacy in telling of his past.“You mustn’t wed him unless you wish to,” Anne continued.“It shan’t be easy with the holiday nearly upon us, but we must find someone to rescue you from both Mr.Ekstrom and the Duke of…”“I asked him to marry me, Anne
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