The Duke of a Thousand Desires

by Jillian Hunter

  His nostrils flared. “I am the one who cannot wait.”

  His knuckles settled between her saturated folds, stroking the bud of her sex in a languid rhythm that inflamed her. His brooding eyes studied her reaction as he pierced her with another finger, intensifying the pressure, taunting her beyond what she could endure. “How does this feel?” he whispered.

  “Indescribable. Surely such a thing should not be discussed.”

  “Why not?”

  “It strikes me as too private a matter to discuss aloud.”

  “Perhaps not at a supper party. Other than that, I disagree. A husband should speak honestly to his wife in their bed. Although by the time I put my cock inside you, neither of us will care to converse at all.”

  Her small gasp stoked his arousal. He felt her arch her spine, felt the shivers that darted through her lower body.

  “Give me mercy,” she whispered.

  “Soon enough.”

  Simon luxuriated in her invitation, her trust. As long as he could subdue the selfishness that wanted all of her immediately, their wedding night would be made of blissful moments and intimate secrets. Intensely sexual ones, to be sure. He covered her face and throat in proprietary kisses, light and fleeting. A sting of heat here and there, at first.

  Then nearly everywhere. He kissed her ears, her nipples, her belly button, and the sensitive hollows behind her knees. He pressed his fingers even deeper inside her. He centered his mind on her pleasure, subdued the need for his own. He would bring her sweet oblivion when she was ready. Neither of them would forget their first joining.

  Her full hips lifted from the bed as he played her, stretching her sex. He would punish them both by holding back until she needed him even more than he did her. Of course he might die first. He felt as if he had climbed a cliff in the dark. He was exhilarated. Her excitement mounted, and fed his own. Slow down, he thought. Slow down. Yet he wanted to devour her, drive into her snug warmth, and lose himself.

  “No man could hope for a wife sweeter than you,” he said, studying her face. “I shall strive to meet your expectations as a husband.”

  She sighed in drugged pleasure.

  He spread his fingers inside her cleft. She shuddered in surprise. She might have writhed beneath his reach had he not gently stroked her hip to stillness with his other hand. “Should we rest for a while?” he asked.

  “My heart is swinging like a pendulum,” she said in a ravaged whisper. “I’m filled with disgraceful urges. I don’t need rest. I need a … denouement.”

  He smiled into her eyes. “I understand. I can’t refuse you.”

  “I want everything,” she whispered, edgy and half-delirious.

  “Give me another kiss,” he coaxed her.

  “More than kisses.” She pushed up on her elbow to offer him her mouth. His kisses intoxicated her, but she wanted to feel the full strength of him. With an overt intent to tease her, he withdrew his fingers from her warmth.

  “Don’t stop,” she begged, pulsing to the quick.

  He swept his damp fingers across her nipples, pinching each tip in turn. “That feels decadent,” she said with a shiver.

  “There is no wrong in a man pleasuring his bride,” he said as he bit lightly at her breast. “Or in her submitting to her husband.”

  “Then I must grant you complete power?”

  “I’ll do only what you allow. But know that you are not powerless in the least, as my response to you proves. You have resources you’ve not discovered.”

  “Yet we aren’t equal,” she said, dropping back on the bed in breathless capitulation. “You could recite Mother Goose and render every rhyme an erotic invitation.”

  “But you could be Mother Goose and I’d desire you.” He moved over her, kissing her again, her neck, her stomach until his mouth reached the seam of her sex.

  “Simon?”

  “I’m here.”

  “I know where you are, but what are you doing?”

  “Wait,” he said in a diabolical whisper.

  He grasped her hips and buried his face in the delta of her thighs. She flexed her back, shivers running down her legs. “Simon, your tongue.”

  For an interval she was too beset with sensation to do anything but stare at the nebulous shadow of his head between her legs. His tongue speared her folds, working her into a daze. Surely a lady should protest. But a wife? Why should she deny what infused every part of her with such pleasure? She strained, smothering a cry with the back of her hand.

  “Is this what you needed?” he said, and flicked his fingertips back and forth across her swollen clitoris. Her inner muscles tightened like silk threads that broke all at once. She cried out, fragmented, rendered insensible by the relief that swept through her body.

  Her belly trembled. She closed her eyes, entranced, and waited for what would happen now. She was, in fact, too disarranged to rouse, the echoes of her orgasm intense and deep-reaching. Distantly she realized he had not been afflicted with a similar lassitude.

  Before her next breath, he was braced on his arms above her. She placed her hand against his hard-muscled chest. The tip of his thick penis stabbed at the entrance of her sex, and yet he denied her the complete penetration she silently pleaded for. “I don’t know you,” she whispered raggedly. “I don’t even recognize myself.”

  “Know that I am yours only.”

  His shoulders tensed. His muscles glistened lightly with a faint sheen of sweat. Their eyes met again. He raised higher to guide his prick inside her. He hesitated momentarily as she lapsed into an uncertain quietude. He was pulsing heat and yet reluctant to inflict what would be a necessary pain. She was so tight that he had to allow her time to accept his size. To his relief she exhaled and parted her thighs, sufficiently becalmed that he could enter her with some ease.

  “I apologize in advance for what you need endure,” he said. “I will tear a small part of you when we make love. I’m embarrassed to admit I have the most cumbersome erection in my memory. That is a tribute to my desire for you, although it doesn’t sound like one.”

  A soft laugh escaped her parted lips.

  “Branwen?” he said in hesitation.

  She blinked. “How long have you know my real name? And who revealed it to you?”

  “I’ve known for years. I overheard Aunt Primrose reprimand you once, and she explained to me afterward that Branwen means white raven in Welsh. She was the goddess of love and you were named after her for your pale hair. But your hair turned as dark as a raven’s before your first birthday. Your English nursemaid called you Ravenna. I thought the original name was beautiful.”

  “I should be privy to all your secrets.”

  “I’ve told you. I have very few.” He dipped his head. “Breathe,” he said. “Listen to instinct.”

  He pressed slowly inside her, tightening his lower torso, controlling the angle of his entry. He made a bid for steadiness. Soon he was moving in shallow, restrained strokes, rubbing the base of his cock against her bud. Breathe. Listen to instinct. Could he heed his own advice? His body urged him to go deeper. He didn’t want her to think he was an animal.

  But in truth he was. Feral need took over.

  He dominated, claimed, denied himself until the final instant. Her nipples hardened. Her essence coated his cock. His sweet duchess, a woman strong and made for him. Branwen. The goddess of love.

  The only woman he had ever desired. His wife in every sense of the word.

  21

  She feigned sleep for half an hour, collecting her thoughts, blissfully aware of the man in bed beside her. She listened to the pattern of his breathing, deep and relaxed. She thought of how magnificent it had felt to be ravished by his hard male body. Dare she remove the heavy arm that he had flung across her midsection? Or did she like her imprisonment? She could make out the shape of his strong jawline and one broad shoulder in the dark.

  She had not lost herself at all. He had become part of her. He was indeed a splendid lover.r />
  Was he awake?

  Should she ask?

  How was she to break this profound silence? Perhaps it was best to let him speak first.

  Etiquette lessons offered a young lady advice on the appropriate response when presented to royalty or to an unknown person at a party. Such instructions did not include what to say to one’s husband after a breathtaking deflowerment.

  “Oh. That was lovely, your grace. Shall we do it again?”

  Or, “I feel as sticky as a bun -- at sixes and sevens. May I be excused from your presence to attend to my toilette? The room has turned chilly, hasn’t it? Would you cover me in kisses to warm me up?”

  The sheets rustled at her side, releasing the combined scents of lavender and sex. A sigh escaped her as Simon climbed lithely from the bed. It took a mere glimpse at his naked body to restimulate her senses. She wished the night would never end and that they would resume their nuptials. Then she realized he was reaching for the bell cord. She dove under the coverlet in panic.

  “You don’t mean to summon a servant while we are still -- in bed?” she asked in a muffled voice.

  He returned to her side, unclad and evidently unconcerned what the staff would make of him. “Didn’t I see a man’s robe on the dressing screen?” she asked. “Is it there for display? How could I have thought for one moment that you were reserved?”

  “It’s cold in here,” he said. He perched on the edge of the bed, his natural state so engrossing that the chill in the air could not counteract her blushes. “Would you like the fire stoked?”

  She stared around in dismay. Where had the pillows gone? She was surprised Simon had not brought down the silk tester curtains during their third bout of lovemaking. He had sworn to handle her with gentleness, but the fact remained that he was a physical man and had proven himself as such.

  She approved. She was a vigorous woman herself.

  “You’re hiding under the covers,” he noted. “Not from me, I trust. Have I wounded you in any way?”

  “Deeply,” she murmured. “I’ll never be the same, you great brute.” She hadn’t worked up enough nerve to meet his gaze, as intensely curious as she was about both the details of his body and emotional state. “I’m joking, Simon.”

  His brow furrowed. “I caused you pain?”

  “Not as much as I anticipated. It’s a natural act, after all.”

  “There isn’t always pleasure for a woman.” He leaned over the mound of bedding that hid her, his voice stark with desire. “Is there a spot on your body that I’ve neglected to adore?”

  She glanced up at his face. He looked sweetly anxious and yet forbidding. For an instant she thought of David, of how different she might feel had Simon not taken his place. But it was as if the duke had already erased him. She would never know another man. No one else could compare.

  Without warning he lowered his head another inch and kissed her with lingering possession. She basked in his warmth. Her body went limp. He said, “Forgive my roughness. Are you recovered enough for me to hold you, knowing what it might lead to?”

  “You are demanding,” she whispered, a frisson of anticipation sliding down her spine.

  “You are sublime,” he said as he settled against her. “I feel as if I’ve conquered the world.”

  She smiled, curling her knees into his side. “Not just a continent?”

  “I want to give you a gift to celebrate our wedding. Gems, gowns, a golden coach.”

  She wriggled to fit against the hard contours of his body. “A glass of water?”

  “Rest while I bring it to you.”

  “I really am in need of a wash, Simon.”

  “I shall attend to that, too. There is nothing more I can do to give you comfort?”

  “Could you put me back in one piece?”

  He expelled a sigh. “I ought to confess regret, but it isn’t in me to lie. You will feel sore for some days. I’ve never known such bewitchment. I hope you don’t resent me.”

  “My recovery is imminent.”

  “I can’t say the same for mine.”

  She could not resist another smile. She felt possessed and replete. “Why did you avoid me the last few times you came to the castle?” she asked curiously.

  He traced his fingertip from her nose to her chin. “No one could accuse me of avoiding you now. Nothing but water, you said?”

  More of you, she thought ruefully, and even though she felt half-broken and indecorously pummeled, she would not refuse him what remained of her. She wished she’d understood that his virility concealed such complicated tenderness. She might have chased him to the chapel years ago.

  He stirred. “You can bathe before breakfast. Whenever we decide to eat, that is. I’ll have hot water brought to the room. Or we can take tea and cake in bed.”

  “I’d like that. However,” she added in embarrassment, “there is a dampness between my legs that is unsettling. It needs immediate attention.”

  “It is my seed and your virgin’s blood,” he said matter-of-factly. “I’ll fetch a cloth to cleanse it from you. In the meantime you should take the chance to rest.”

  Which, after his candidly disarming description of her lost maidenhead, was unlikely.

  On the way to the antechamber he passed a cheval glass that cupped a pair of unlit beeswax candles. He paused to stretch his arms above his head, a beautifully fashioned and unselfconscious creature. His absence of inhibition seemed appropriate in view of the intimacies they had just shared. He was not admiring his body. But she was.

  She was transfixed by the angular symmetry of his reflection. The poor light prevented her from a detailed perusal of his form. She could not distinguish his exact proportions. But she had taken him inside her. The dull pressure of their union echoed in her deepest regions. A fullness, a connection. He was agile and well-formed.

  He moved past the mirror in silence and disappeared into the antechamber. She made an attempt to tidy her hair, the bedclothes, and then drifted into a daze. What a night. How would she describe her rite of passage if she recorded the experience in her diary, to look back upon when she grew old? Assuredly not in Simon’s blunt language.

  Instead, she would employ flowery euphemisms, delicately embroidered half-truths such as, “He used me gently through the night,” and, “From the moment he parted the bed curtains, I became insensible to all but his will. The details are obscure. I only know that when I awoke, I was a woman without a memory.”

  She grinned. How untrue. She remembered every torrid detail; every demand he’d made of her and won. There was no doubt that she’d lost a weak-willed boy in David and was married to a full-blooded man. One who only minutes later gently drew her from her repose and back into the crook of his shoulder.

  She sighed. “I almost fell asleep.”

  His fingers drifted down her arm. “Should I retire to the other room?”

  She nestled her face in the hollow of his neck. His hair felt damp, as if he’d washed, and his skin smelled clean, of Castile soap. “Whatever for?”

  “For your sake. You can barely keep your eyes open.”

  “That is because I can barely keep my eyes where they belong,” she admitted. “But yes, I did stay up late last night with Jane and Isolde, discussing the wedding.”

  “Ah,” he said with a knowing smile.

  “And fashion,” she added unnecessarily. “Aunt Glynnis has advised me that I should begin to dress as befitting my rank.”

  “You need not follow the latest fashion to please me. But if it pleases you to do so, I shall open my purse to oblige.”

  “I don’t want you to spoil me. I wasn’t mollycoddled as a girl. No one expects you to indulge my slightest whim.”

  “I shall if I want to,” he said with an authority she decided it would be disadvantageous to challenge.

  A woman could swim against the tide or allow it to carry her to undiscovered shores. Considering her husband’s abilities, Ravenna saw no reason to question the order of t
hings.

  Simon had not gone into the antechamber solely to fetch his wife a glass of water. He had retreated to make use of the washstand and compose himself. Even so, he felt like a beast about to spring fangs as she sat up in bed to drink from the pewter goblet.

  “Better?” He took the vessel from her hands and placed it on the bedside table.

  “Except for the one unbecoming complaint I mentioned.”

  “Do not fret,” he said. “I have a remedy for you.”

  He raised the sheet she had demurely draped across her breasts. She was a sight to behold, her tumbled charm so engaging that he almost forgot the damp cloth he had brought her. “I soaked this in comfrey,” he explained as he slipped his hand between her thighs. “It should help bring down the swelling.”

  Her nose wrinkled. “Comfrey? It has an odd scent for an herb.”

  “And diluted champagne. The water seemed a little cold. I wanted to soothe you.”

  She gasped back a laugh. “You scoundrel. Do you do this often?”

  “Never.” He dabbed gingerly at her stained flesh. “My valet keeps a supply of medicinals on hand for shaving mishaps. Is that better?”

  “I’m not sure,” she said and rolled onto her side, unintentionally presenting him with a view of her posterior. “You are too much. Anointing me with champagne.”

  “I trust it didn’t sting,” he said, reaching back to place the cloth on the table.

  “I was too overcome to notice. You are sin incarnate. To think I doubted Jane.”

  He chuckled, his chin resting on the top of her head. “I should warn you that it isn’t wise to criticize a man whose chains of restraint have been unfettered.”

  “What if I do?” she whispered, feeling cherished, daring, and certain she could hear the rattle of broken links.

  “Then I might have to discipline you.” He dipped his head to lavish kisses on her shoulder. His mouth raised shivers where it lingered. “There’s a possibility, however, that any such action might come back to haunt me, you being such an adventurous girl.”