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“However, perhaps I could be your lover. While we are here. At this house party.” And when they returned to London, she would insist her grandmother take over matching him.

As Mei had already failed with her four contenders, she had good reason to pass him off to her grandmother.

“My lover. While we are at this house party.” There was very little emotion in his voice, as if he was mulling the idea over, but Mei could not discern whether he found her blunt offer distasteful or appealing. Well, if it was the former, then she had her answer. She was very blunt. If he did not like that, he could keep his desires and his hands and his kisses to himself.

Sebastian

Lovers.

She was not willing to be his mistress but his lover.

Sebastian was uncertain what was motivating her offer. The former was a far more secure position than the latter. Though he supposed she did not need that security since she considered herself a matchmaker. It was true that the formal position of his mistress would make that of a tonnish matchmaker well-nigh impossible. As lovers, they could remain a secret, protecting her position and reputation.

“What will your future husband think when he discovers he is not the first lover you’ve had?” It was the only way he could think to ask what her thoughts on marriage were, without revealing that he had not been thinking of offering her carte blanche but making her an honorable offer. Something which she clearly did not expect from him.

Miss Hu laughed, her hands shifting on his shoulders. “I do not intend to marry, so that is hardly a concern of mine.”

“You do not intend to…”

“A matchmaker makes matches; she does not become one.” Miss Hu’s firm statement left no question that she was completely serious.

“So, you do not mean to marry at all. Ever.” Sebastian wanted to be sure he understood what she was saying.

“Exactly.”

Well. That was certainly a problem. On the other hand, she was offering him the opportunity to be her lover. She desired him, the same way he desired her. Perhaps, given the advantages of time and proximity, he could convince her otherwise. And it would give him the opportunity to ascertain that this truly was the course he wished to take. Which was not the kind of situation generally offered to gentlemen of his rank.

Certainly, he would not have been able to take such liberties with any of the debutantes here this weekend.

“Very well.” He began to lower his head, his lips coming down to brush against hers so she could feel them moving. “Lovers it is.”

Then he kissed her again and felt her mouth open on a gasp as he hauled her bodily up from the bench and across his lap. She was a warm weight on his thighs, her soft curves pressing against his body, and his swiftly growing erection rubbed against her bottom. Sebastian felt her shudder in response, then her hands slid around his neck and up into his hair. He groaned, his own hand moving up her side to cup one pert breast, and he felt her gasp against his lips as his fingers closed around it.

She whimpered as he ended the kiss and began to move his lips along her jaw, heading for her throat.

“Shh,” he murmured. “You must be quiet, little minx, or someone will hear you.”

The soft moan of her response made his cock jerk in response.

21

Mei

Lovers.

Her wits had abandoned her, leaving her to nothing but the sensations the duke was creating within her. Mei had never felt the like as his hands and mouth moved over her. Touching, caressing, cupping places that no man had ever touched before. Leaving her aching and needy along the pathways he drew on her body.

She bit her lip against crying out as his lips pressed against her collarbone, her head falling back as she clung to his shoulders to keep her at least mostly upright.

Even as part of her whispered that this was a mistake, that was nothing compared to the call of desire that swept through her. The whisper was easily drowned out by the aching need pulsing within her core.

His hand moved to her breast and squeezed, and Mei gasped as the top of his thumb swept over bare skin.

“Your Grace!”

“Sebastian,” he murmured back, moving his lips along her shoulder. “Call me Sebastian, Mei.”

Hearing him call her by her name, requesting that she call him by his, was shockingly intimate. She’d understood what it meant when her friends had permitted such an acknowledgment of closeness, but this was an entirely different level.