He gently caught her chin between his thumb and finger. “Sweetheart, you do know sexual relations are meant to be enjoyable. There is nothing unnatural about a man and woman delighting in one another.”
She smiled. “Delight sounds so carefree, playful even.”
“Playful is good, too.”
“Very well, the table is not an issue. But there is another reason I don’t think we should do this.”
“Do what exactly?” He wanted to hear her say the words. Making love. Swaying into her, he grazed his lips over hers. She tasted like heaven, smelled like vanilla. And he wanted her.
Here.
Now.
Bare on this table.
And to hell with the Scot. Sebastian had survived more than his share of beatings at Eton, not to mention a few this Season. He could handle himself well enough in a fight.
Helena’s eyes drifted closed. “This,” she said on a breath. “Tupping.”
Tupping? Sebastian drew back. He couldn’t believe a lady would use such crude language. No matter that he used it on a regular basis, but never with Helena. “Is that how you think of us? Like rutting animals?”
She pursed her lips, her displeasure radiating from her blue-green eyes. “Why in God’s name would I associate us with rutting animals? That’s so—so…base.”
Sometimes she frustrated him beyond reason and yet he still wanted her so much it hurt. He paced several steps away, shoving his fingers through his hair, then spun on her. “I didn’t use the word tupping. You did.”
“I don’t know what else to call it. We are not married, so it would be incorrect to refer to it as amorous rights.”
But they could be. If she stayed in London, they could marry and he could be the husband she deserved. Nothing like that bugger who had kept her locked away at Aldmist Fell. Why did she even want to return to that place? “I expected you to say making love, Helena. That is the appropriate term.”
She averted her gaze. “Isn’t lovemaking reserved for people who love each other? I don’t think brief affairs qualify.”
Her refusal to see the truth incited his temper. He marched back to the table and captured her face between his hands before she could scramble from the table. He pressed his face close so they were eye to eye. “I love you, Helena.”
Her lips parted and he couldn’t be sure she was breathing. She certainly wasn’t repeating the sentiment, which elicited a tight squeeze in the center of his chest. Well, she didn’t need to say it for him to know she loved him too. She had expressed it many times without saying a word. Love was in the gentleness of her touch when he was bleeding after his fight with Benjamin Hillary in the garden. It showed in the softness of her eyes, her kind words to his sister, and her fiery defense of him at the theatre.
“And you love me, but you’re too stubborn to admit it, aren’t you?” He brushed his thumb over her bottom lip, unable to resist touching her even though anger still burned inside him. “I am very put out with you for making me tell you this when I am mad.”
She blinked, her brow scrunching as she eased from his touch.
“It made sense in my head,” he said. Perhaps he had loved her from the moment they collided outside the church, or maybe he had fallen for her the day she took Eve shopping. When she had looked into his eyes with such hope and trust, he wanted to be her champion. He still did.
“You love me?” Tears shimmered in her eyes and his fingers intercepted them as they slipped onto her soft cheeks.
“I’m sorry, Helena. I planned to use sweet words and tenderness. I wanted to kiss you first, and then declare my heart. But I’ve messed it up.”
She shook her head, her exquisite eyes still bright with tears. “No, you did splendidly. It was the best declaration of love I’ve ever had. That it is my first doesn’t lessen its value.”
Sebastian had never blushed a day in his life, but heat crept into his face. “It is my first time, too.”
Her arms slid around his neck and a shy smile spread across her lips. “An innocent.”
“Hardly.” His mouth touched hers as a bang sounded at the door. Helena jumped.