Her stupid heart. Her stupid, mad heart.
Oh, but why had Clay chosen such a dangerous path? She could not shake the question, for it bothered her every bit as much as her capitulation to the desire between them did. “His work for the Home Office is perilous indeed. I do hope the villain responsible has long since been sent to prison.”
Clay’s mother gave her an odd look then. “No, the man responsible has not been imprisoned. Indeed, he continues to live with impunity.”
“How horrid.” Despite herself, and despite everything that had come to pass between her and Clay, she knew a surge of rage on his behalf. How dare someone cut him, attack him and slice his beautiful flesh with a blade, and go about life without consequence? “Is there nothing that can be done?”
The elder woman returned her attention to her dinner abruptly. “There is something, perhaps.”
Something was better than nothing, Ara supposed, but this newfound knowledge still disturbed her. “He knows then, who the assailant was?”
Another strange, probing look. “Yes, Your Grace. He does.”
“When did it happen?” she asked, curious though she knew she ought not to be.
She was curious about everything that had happened to Clay in the years since she had known him last. In the years since he had been hers. It was ridiculous. Ludicrous, even. But she was desperate to know, hungry to learn the missing pieces of him. Where had he gone? What had he done? Why had he left her?
A slight frown curved Lily’s lips. Melancholy swirled in the depths of her dark eyes. “Perhaps you should ask Clayton. The story is not mine to tell.”
Ara nodded, forced herself to consume a few more bites of her dinner, and wondered. What had happened to Clay? And why did she care so damn much?
She had been given the apartments of the lady of the house.
Ara paced the floor. The hour was late. The night was dark beyond her window. She should be sleeping, regaining her rest after the travel that had brought her to Oxfordshire and Clay’s home. She should not be thinking of him. Should not be wondering what he was doing. Wondering if he would come to her. If she should go to him.
Should not be imagining his body on hers, atop hers, inside hers.
Should not be wanting him.
The chamber she had been assigned disturbed her. It ate at her, pricked at her, prodded and goaded and taunted.
From the moment she had entered the sumptuous chamber, she had known it was one of the best in Harlton Hall. She had not initially, however, realized it was the lady’s apartments. That a door adjoined her chamber with the one next, and that one likely belonged to the man who owned the entire home.
To Clay.
She had lain awake. Tossed and turned. Had attempted to read a book and surrendered. Had reverted to the years of her youth and tried to abolish the despicable thing by appeasing it as she had oft done in the past. But her body knew Clay’s was near, and it wanted him now more than ever.
Her feet seemed to move of their own accord, eating up the distance between them. Her senses were overly aware of everything: the plush coarseness of the carpet beneath her bare feet, the cool evening air bussing her cheeks and kissing her throat, the scent of the fire in the hearth, the pounding of her heart. Her hand found the latch.
The door had not been locked.
It opened. Swung wide with a slight creak.
Her breath caught. There he stood, bare chested in the golden glow of the fire in his hearth, wearing only trousers. Even his feet, long and masculine, were bare. It was the first she had seen him in dishabille since the day she’d caught him brawling in her ballroom. And this time was different. More intimate. They were the only two occupants of the chamber, and they were not in the daylight of an empty ballroom. They were in the quiet promise of a bedchamber with nothing and no one to come between them.
She feasted on the sight of him, because while he had made love to her earlier, he had been behind her, and she had been denied this opportunity. She allowed her hungry gaze to rake over every bare swath of skin, every sculpted muscle. My God, he was beautiful. Glorious in a way she could not deny. Every inch of him was warrior—wide shoulders, defined chest, the muscles of his abdomen like cut ropes etched in stone, the strong arms.
“Ara.” Her name uttered in his low, dark drawl was her undoing.
Time fell away. Years ceased to exist. The aching void in her life that had been left by him was whole once more. She flew to him as she had so many times before. As she had when they had been young and innocent. When they had been forbidden but it hadn’t mattered because their hearts had been wild and their hands and mouths had been greedy and they had not wanted anything at all but each other.
When they had been a man and a woman who had found love, against all odds, in the delicious shade of a forest, and they had fallen hopelessly under each other’s spells.
She threw herself into him, leaping through the air. As she made impact, she hooked her legs around his waist. He caught her, his arms going around her like bands. Her arms twined about his neck.
“Fuck, Ara.”
She slammed her lips into his. It was the only answer. The only thing she could do. All she wanted. Precisely what she needed. His tongue was inside her mouth, his hands kneading the flesh of her bottom. Even though it had been mere hours since their furtive coupling, they were ravenous. He bit her lip. She sucked his tongue. Teeth crashed together.
She moaned. He groaned. Her fingers sank into his hair. Still holding her in his arms, he walked them across the chamber effortlessly, as though she weighed nothing. And then she was on his bed, on her back. He had tossed her there. With a rush of desire, she watched as he shucked his trousers and smalls until he stood by the bed, naked.
His cock was huge and hard and thick, jutting against his lean abdomen. He took her breath. Every bit of him was strong. So strong. So vital and powerful and gorgeous. She grasped handfuls of her nightrail and pulled it up over her head, throwing it to the floor where it landed in a wispy heap.
And then she was naked.
On Clay’s bed.
It was wrong, and she knew it. Wanting him this much, letting him back in, was a grave error. But she couldn’t stop. He was here, and he needed their lovemaking as badly as she did—before her stood stark, glorious evidence of just how much.
He lowered himself to the bed at her feet, his large, warm hands on her ankles. His gaze burned across her body like twin, live coals, feasting up over her legs, lingering at the apex of her thighs, trailing over her breasts to her lips and at last meeting hers. “This is madness.”
It was, and yet it wasn’t. She had fought for so long—against him, against the feelings he inspired in her, against her desperate need for him. But they had always been fire, and she was ready and willing to catch flame once more for him. With him.
It would always be him, she realized. Clayton Ludlow was her fate. He was stolen kisses and furtive assignations. He was the first man who had ever made her body come to life. Her only lover. Her every sin. He was the man she had never forgotten. The one she had despaired she would ever find again.
“No one has ever felt right but you.” She made the confession almost involuntarily. Her lips moved, her tongue formed the consonants and vowels. Her voice produced the sound. But she had not meant to blurt them aloud.
“Damn it, Ara.” His touch glided up her calves, and he lowered his mouth to her skin. He rained kisses on her anklebone, her shin, the sensitive swells of her calves, the dips behind her knees. “You should never have come here tonight.”
No, she should not have. Opening the door between their chambers had been a mistake. Allowing him to take her earlier had been a mistake. Hungering for him the way she did—also a mistake.
The biggest mistake of all? Her words. She should never offer up such revelations. Not to him, not to Clay, the man who had left her once before. The man who had fled, taking her heart with him. Why had he gone? And where? Ara wanted to as
k, but the sight and sensation of him slowly pleasuring his way up her body stole her breath.
He kissed a trail over one hip, then the other, nipping her with his teeth. The hum of satisfaction deep in his throat rumbled through his body, and she felt it in his lips as they opened on her skin. Felt it in his tongue as it licked a path of fire over the protrusion of her hipbone. His breath was hot and moist, so near to her throbbing center and where she wanted him most.
Not close enough.
“You left the door unlocked,” she reminded him breathlessly. He could not pin this on her. The naked want on his face when she had stood on the threshold had been her undoing.
“For if you required me.”
Oh, she had required him, but perhaps not in the manner he had originally intended. Ara bit her lip, saying nothing as he kissed higher, over the faint white lines that had scored her skin from carrying Edward. She stiffened when he lingered there, stopping to skim his palm over her belly. The marks had been purple and angry once, but they’d had seven years to calm and fade.
No one had ever seen them before, and she knew a flutter of embarrassment, chasing away the need.
“What happened here?” he asked softly, tracing the lines with his long fingers, looking up at her. “These are new.”
“Not new.” A rush of heat flooded her cheeks. “They are from bearing Edward. He was a large babe, as one might expect.”
His eyes darkened, and he lowered his head, kissing each mark as if in worship. He said nothing, his hands bracketing her hips, his mouth finding its way to the dip in her belly. His tongue slid inside, making a wild current of pleasure rocket through her.
A rush of air burst forth from her, half sigh, half moan. “Clay, please.”
His mouth moved lower. “Please what, Ara?” he murmured against her. “Tell me what you want, what you need. Tell me why you came to my chamber and leapt into my arms. Tell me why you cannot stay away.”
Because she loved him.
Because she had never stopped.
She swallowed violently, pushing away the errant thought. It was wrong. It had to be wrong. She could not still be in love with Clay. Not after all he had done. Not after all these years. No, it was that she wanted him. Her body remembered all the sinful, exquisite tortures he could visit upon it.
That was it.
That was all.
“I want you,” she said instead, and even that was an admission she hated to give.
He coaxed her legs to widen. They glided across his coverlet, opening her to him completely, and she almost trembled with need. She imagined he could see her folds, plump and slick, the aching bundle of flesh between them, eager for his tongue. He tormented her by kissing everywhere—her inner thighs, the juncture where her thighs met her mound, the swell just above her cleft.
“What do you want?” he asked. His fingers raked up and down her outer thighs, lightly dragging his nails over her sensitized flesh.
“Your mouth,” she whispered, cheeks growing hot. “Your tongue.”
The words fled from her. They could not be contained. Long ago, he had used his lips and tongue upon her, making her spend with nothing else. It had been so many years…it had been forever, it seemed, since she had last been pleasured. Eight years, to be specific. She did not know what it was about this man that turned her into a wanton, that made her so weak, that made her flesh come alive and her lust boil out of control, but she could not help herself.
There were some facts she had come to realize were indisputable.
The sun rose in the east.
London would forever be rife with fog.
And as long as she lived, Clayton Ludlow would make her body sing.
“Do you want me to lick you, Ara?” he asked, his voice so gruff and low and decadent that it emerged as a growl. His kissed a circle lovingly around her pearl, avoiding it. “Do you want me to take your sweet, swollen bud into my mouth and suck you until you spend?”
Oh. Good. Sweet. Merciful. Heavens.
A tiny spasm ricocheted through her with such sweet pleasure she could not keep still. Her hips jerked. A burst of wetness rushed from her core. His words were so erotic. His teasing so unbearable. She swore she would die if she did not have his tongue on her, stroking her. Inside her. If he did not do as he had asked and suck her until she came again.
“Yes,” she cried out. “Please, Clay.”
“I like the way you beg, Duchess.”
His words were hard. Harsh. A vivid reminder that this was not eight years ago, and they were not the same people as they had been then. That those young fools were forever lost to the ether, replaced by hardened, sharper versions of themselves. That time could change everything, and some things were not meant to be revisited. That practicality and reason could outweigh fate. She would have withdrawn from him had he not lowered his dark head at last and run his tongue along her slit. One hot, wet pass was all it took.
She was mindless again, moaning, arching her back. Her hands sought him. One landed in his luxurious hair, the other found his splayed over her belly. Their fingers tangled and held. He licked her again, another long, slow swipe.
A moan rent the air. She did not know if it was hers or his. She rocked against him, pelvis thrusting against his face. The despicable thing was at work within her, and it wanted satisfaction. It wanted Clay Ludlow taking her apart, climax by climax.
At long last, he gave her what she wanted, taking her throbbing pearl into his mouth. He sucked long and hard, and this time there was no doubt who the cry echoing through the chamber belonged to. It was hers. And he was…oh, he was…
He was far too much. And not enough. And everything all at once. The world fell away. Everything disappeared, even her surroundings. All that remained was him and his glorious mouth, bringing her to her peak.
He worked the underside of her bud with his teeth. Gently nipped before flicking his tongue over her in steady, fast pulses. The hand that was not entwined with hers moved from her hip to between her thighs. He traced her seam, parted her flesh, and sank a finger deep inside her.
She clenched. Bucked, took him deeper. A second finger joined the first, sliding in and out as he alternated between sucking and licking her swollen pearl. His knowing probe found a place inside her she had not known existed. In and out he pumped, curling his digits, her channel growing wetter and wetter until the sounds of him pleasuring her filled the chamber.
Her breathy moans of helpless need. The sodden harmony of flesh colliding, of licking and sucking and claiming. Of receiving pleasure and giving pleasure. Of surrendering to the passions that had always been simmering between them, just beneath the surface of their every interaction since he had reappeared in her life.
Something deep inside her tightened like a knot. She was on the precipice, the place between her legs throbbing and heavy. Her nipples hard, her breasts achy and full. Even her skin seemed as if it were on fire.
“You taste so good,” he whispered, his tongue flicking back over her again.
Her release jolted through her, sudden and ferocious. One moment she was undulating her hips against his delicious ministrations, and the next everything had exploded. She had exploded. Pleasure roared through her, white hot and overwhelming, so strong her shoulders curled forward, rising off the bed. Her body gripped his fingers, bringing him deeper. More wetness rushed from her, bathing his fingers, soaking his mouth.
And then, he tore away from her with a warrior’s fierce roar. He rose on his knees, gripped his cock—so magnificent, so engorged—and positioned it at her entrance. The aftershocks of her release were still tremoring through her but she wanted more. She wanted everything. All of him. Everything he had to give.
She moved beneath him, bringing the tip of him inside her.
They sighed as one.
Clay lowered his large body over hers, his face hovering above. Dark eyes seared hers with unabashed heat. “Is this what you want, Ara?”
She did not thin
k she could manage a coherent word, so she made a sound of approval low in her throat and undulated her hips, bringing him deeper inside her.
“Say it,” he commanded, his expression as intense as his gaze. “I need to hear you.”
“Yes,” she forced out, and it was natural, so natural for her to wrap her legs around him. It was as if time had never passed. As if they were back to the Clay and Ara they had been. Back in the hunting cabin. Back when they had been free. When they had been young and desperate for each other. When everything had seemed possible. “I want you. Only you.”
It had only ever been him.
Would only ever be him.
Damn him, what was it about Clayton Ludlow?
He thrust inside her, his cock sliding deep and slow. His movements were controlled. “Only me?”
“Always,” she promised before she could think better of what she’d said. Her arms locked around him, holding his huge, powerful body tight to hers. He was so large and she was so small. She loved their dichotomy. “You are my fate, Clay, and I am yours.”
Right or wrong, it was the truth. They were inevitable. Years and betrayal could not keep them apart. They still wanted each other as much, if not more, than they ever had.
“Yes,” he hissed, taking her deep, withdrawing, and then sliding home inside her again.
His mouth found hers. Their kiss was as frantic as it had been earlier, just as hungry, every bit as ferocious. She tasted herself on his tongue. Ran her fingers down the strong planes of his back. Marked him. Taunted him. Met him thrust for thrust.
And then they were flying together. It was elemental. Give and take, bodies pumping, tongues mating, hands roaming every inch of skin they could find. They slammed together, moved as one. Harder, faster, his strokes growing more deliberate, more prolonged.
She fractured again, splintering into a thousand different shards of herself, coming over him, around him, milking his cock as stars and light flashed through her. She cried out into his mouth, and he swallowed them, took them, made them his just as he made her body his. Wetness gushed from her.
Nobody's Duke (League of Dukes Book 1) Page 19
