Duke in Darkness: Wickedly Wed, Book 1

by Davidson, Nicola

  “Of course, Your Grace. Thank you for clarifying my role further. I am decoration, much like a chandelier or an urn. Not a helpmate. Or someone to share a bed with for the entire night. Just used and left without second thought.”

  Gabriel froze at the hurt in her words. At this point it seemed unlikely that he would ever understand his duchess. Or his own twisting, turning thoughts. Downstairs he’d been about ready to heave Lilian into some particularly prickly shrubbery after her behavior toward Aggie, thinking it aristocratic nonsense toward someone considered lesser because she wasn’t a daughter of the ton.

  But no. It seemed his cool, mostly proper wife considered Aggie a rival. Rather laughable, when he’d never seen his nurse as anything other than a friend he would be in debt to for the rest of his life. Besides the fact that Hobbs would probably turn from Nanny to nightmare if another man got between him and his sweetheart. Even now his library might be witnessing eye-opening acts, well if the two of them got their act together and stopped wasting anymore time, of course. But what the hell was Lilian talking about when she said he only saw her as decoration? He’d made it plain that he valued her contributions with Fairlie, and the way she’d taken the menus and townhouse in hand, hadn’t he?

  “You are not seen as an urn,” he ground out eventually, grasping for the right words when it felt like he waded through quicksand. “And I am curious to know…why leaving your bed…is now a complaint. It’s what you wanted. Albeit couched in terms of my preferences. Or servant sensibilities.”

  Lilian’s cheeks went dark pink. “I…I…”

  “You think you are the only one…who feels like an interloper…in this damned mausoleum?”

  Frustration added an extra edge to his tone. The angrier and more tense he became, the worse his speech got, until he sounded like a drunken buck at the end of his first night out.

  “I don’t know,” she choked out. “How would I know? You keep your secrets locked tighter than a vault.”

  “As do you, madam. So I ask…you again. When did…leaving your bed…become a complaint?”

  Lilian looked away, but her fists unclenched. For the longest moment she didn’t speak, and the crackle and snap of the fire in her bedchamber sounded almost as loud as cannon fire.

  At last, she met his gaze. “The other night…”

  “After the ball?” he asked, suppressing a groan of annoyance as desire coiled around his anger, hardening his cock.

  “Yes,” she whispered. “When we…er…”

  “When I had you…over and over again.”

  Lilian shivered. “Mmmm.”

  Lust burned through him, brighter and more intense than the flames warming the bedchamber. “When I bound your wrists…and you begged me…so prettily…to fuck you.”

  “Yes!” she burst out. “You made me say those wicked words. Made me feel things I’ve never felt before and didn’t understand, how pleasure and pain can be as one. More intimate than I ever thought marital relations could be. I have so little experience, it was overwhelming. But you…you hurled me into this new world, and then just left. Without a goodbye. Or a kiss. Like I didn’t…like I didn’t matter.”

  Guilt and shame settled like a boulder in his gut. Yet again, the darkness, that crushing panic that drenched him in sweat and made it so hard to breath or think, had unmanned him. But how could he begin to explain the truth of why he’d left, when a four poster bed reminding him of his cell sounded so damned foolish? That would mean sharing the excruciating details of his capture and torture by the French, and he wasn’t ready to do that. Not even Hobbs or Aggie knew everything. “That is…not true.”

  She stared at the floor. “Is it not?”

  “No. You matter, Lili,” he replied gruffly, gently sliding a finger under her chin and forcing her to lift her head and meet his gaze. “You matter to me. I only want…you.”

  Lilian’s rigid shoulders sagged. “I thought I’d done something wrong.”

  “You didn’t. I did…”

  Hell and damnation, this was difficult.

  Gabriel swallowed hard, trying to loosen his jaw. “I wanted to talk to you…last night. But I fell asleep. So tired and sore…after that damned fool ride. I left because…I was ashamed. I hurt you. Left marks. Bruises. I was too rough. And I’m sor—”

  “No!” she burst out.

  “Excuse me?”

  “No,” she repeated, her cheeks darkening to scarlet. “You didn’t hurt me. I’m so pale…ever since childhood, my skin has always shown every bruise or scrape like a splash of paint. But my wrists, my hips, my, ah, breasts…all fine.”

  Relief made him lightheaded. “I’m glad.”

  “I apologize for leaving the library. My jealousy is unwarranted, you told me you don’t have a mistress. I just wish that in future, we could be more open with each other. In all things. I really…I really don’t want to hear about you from other people. I’d much prefer to hear the truth from you. I’m not a hothouse flower that will wilt in the first storm.”

  “I know,” Gabriel said gruffly. “You are strong. Capable. You’ve improved my life…so much already. I’m used to keeping secrets. But I will try.”

  Lilian beamed at him. “That’s all I ask.”

  “Very well,” he replied, lifting her hands and kissing each.

  She shivered, and peeped up at him through her lashes. “In the interests of openness, it is only fair I tell you that, ah, I liked our bed play the night of the ball. Very much.”

  “Did you now? Which part?”

  “All of it.”

  Gabriel shook his head as he stood taller, lust and satisfaction surging through him. That she had declared her wish for a closer marriage had been momentous enough. But to follow that with the admission she had liked their bed play…hell. Any minute now, he’d be puffed up and roaring like a damned lion. Yet he wanted even more from her. Again, to hear explicit talk from those sweet, pouty lips. “No, Lili. Tell me exactly what. At once.”

  Chapter 15

  The old saying rang true: with great risk came great reward.

  They had talked, really talked. Both apologized, and made a promise to do better. Gabriel had said she mattered. No one had said that for as long as she could remember. After her mother had died, any declaration of affection was rare in the Nash family, praise even more so. To hear something like that, stated so simply and sincerely…well. Her heart might burst right out of her chest. And now her husband was looking at her as though he wanted to eat her up in the best possible way, enticing the hot-blooded part of her nature out to play.

  Lilian quivered in anticipation. If she teased him, provoked him a little, would he take her as a colonel for the second time? Even though pale sunshine streamed through the windows rather than moonlight?

  Only one way to find out.

  “I like it when you touch me. Down there,” she said demurely, deliberately vague.

  Gabriel shook his head. “I’m afraid I don’t understand. How can I do what you enjoy…if I’m not sure what it is?”

  “You know,” Lilian practically purred, batting her lashes. “Down there.”

  With a low growl, he secured her wrists in his hands, pushing them up so they rested on her breasts. Then he leaned down and kissed her neck, before nipping her earlobe with his teeth. “Minx.”

  “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean, Gabriel.”

  He pulled back, his eyes glittering jet. “I like hearing my name…from your lips. But you are a disobedient duchess. Come with me,” he finished sternly, in that delicious colonel tone, and she squirmed with excitement.

  Yet instead of taking her to bed, he led her across the chamber to the dressing table. Leaning down, he dragged her sturdy, padded rectangular seat several feet away until it rested directly in front of the full-length looking glass. Then he carefully lowered himself onto it.

  Lilian bit her lip in confusion. “Aren’t we going to bed?”

  “No. You’re going to lift your gown,
petticoat, and chemise. Then sit on my lap. Facing the mirror.”

  “What?” she replied, startled. Surely he couldn’t mean…

  “Quickly, Lili,” he added in that colonel tone, and a pulse started beating wildly between her legs. Good heavens. They were really doing this.

  Slowly, Lilian lifted her pink-striped gown, linen petticoat, and fine lawn chemise to her waist, shivering as cooler air danced against her overheated, damp center, stifling a moan when her nipples hardened painfully. Then she turned around and settled on his lap, her back to his chest, and her thighs spread wide by his.

  Oh.

  In front of the mirror like this, her private parts completely exposed, she could see everything. The thatch of tight curls, glistening with juices. The pink of her secret flesh.

  Cheeks burning, she looked away from the too-carnal sight. “Um, Exton—”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Gabriel,” she said softly.

  “Better. Yes?”

  “What should I, ah, do now?”

  His hands stroked up and down her arms in a soothing motion, then one brawny arm curled about her waist, and the other came to rest on her thigh. “Keep your gown high. And tell me what you like. If I understand…I can make you come. But you must watch. If you stop watching…I stop touching.”

  Lilian whimpered and eventually dragged her gaze back to the mirror. It was altogether too wicked, sitting here on her husband’s lap with her gown raised and her legs spread, in the daytime. And yet he was holding her. His huge, hard chest a warm wall at her back, his arm securing her. Never had she felt so safe. So protected. And the throbbing between her legs had become quite unbearable. If she obeyed and said all those naughty words, she would be thoroughly pleasured by her soldier lover, the lover who said she mattered.

  Taking a deep breath, she shifted a little on Gabriel’s lap to get more comfortable. “I like being stroked. Between my legs.”

  “Very well,” he said, trailing his fingertips along her sensitive inner thighs. Up and down. Back and forth. Teasing and teasing and yet staying far away from the place that ached for his touch.

  Her hips tilted in supplication. “Please.”

  Gabriel tsked. “No. I can see you want to come. Your clitoris is swollen. Your cunt is dripping wet. But you’ll get nothing…until you ask. Specifically.”

  Such a strict colonel, insisting she submit fully like this. How did he know that was exactly what she wanted?

  “Stroke my clitoris,” Lilian whispered, arching against him like a kitten wishing to be petted.

  “Can’t hear you,” said her husband, the hot glint in his eyes making a lie of the words. Not to mention the bulge of his cock pressing against her bottom.

  She moaned in frustration. “Stroke my clitoris.”

  “Louder,” he commanded, his mouth creating sensual havoc as he gently nipped her neck, then flicked his tongue against the slight sting, the muscled arm draped across her breasts rubbing her taut, tender nipples through her gown.

  Her body screamed at her to obey. All at once, the fantasy of the moment descended over her like an erotic cloak, blocking out the world apart from Gabriel. Allowing her to be free.

  Lilian took a deep, shuddering breath. “Stroke my clitoris. And…and put two fingers inside me. Inside my cunt. I am a soldier’s woman and I need to come. Please. Please let me come.”

  His arm tightened around her, and the lustful approval on his face made her squirm in his lap. “Very good, Lili. Very good indeed. Now. Remember to watch.”

  Seconds later his big, bronzed hand slid down and cupped her mound. The warmth of him felt like a brand, a mark of ownership in itself, and the contrast of his size, the color of his skin against the pink and white of hers, had her trembling in delight. Then his fingers parted her nether curls and began to caress her soft folds, while his thumb circled her clitoris.

  “More,” she said.

  “So wet, Duchess,” he rasped, his fingers stroking her entrance, the erotic sounds of her slick readiness, her panting breaths, his low, guttural growls a sensual symphony in the stillness of the bedchamber. “What a pretty cunt you have.”

  Just when she was ready to shriek her displeasure with the deliberate teasing, he pushed his fingers inside her. A gasp tore from her throat as a jolt of pleasure raced from her core to the tips of her toes. But Gabriel remained ruthless and utterly in control, not allowing her to buck away or retreat from the ferocity of the sensations as he plunged his fingers in and out, and his thumb pressed against her aching clitoris. Hotter and hotter, tighter and tighter, the tempest coiled inside her, and Lilian groaned in frantic need as the orgasm she wanted so desperately hovered tantalizingly out of her reach.

  “Please, please,” she begged. “Gabriel…”

  “Come, Lili. Come all over my fingers.”

  As though his command was the key to unlocking her pleasure, her inner muscles squeezed tight then released and she climaxed with a wild cry. Her hips circled, grinding against his hand to prolong the intense ecstasy, and as if he understood, his fingers and thumb kept moving, kept coaxing wave after delicious wave to surge throughout her body.

  Oh God. Oh God. Oh God!

  * * *

  Nothing brought him greater satisfaction than guiding his wife to a violent orgasm.

  Transfixed by the erotic play occurring in the mirror—his fingers buried deep in Lili’s soaked cunt, the restraint of his arm across her breasts, her flushed cheeks and glittering eyes as she arched and screamed—Gabriel stroked and rubbed and drank in every moment of her pleasure.

  Because she liked this.

  He did also. Hell, the warmth of her pressed against his chest, the way her lush backside moved against his engorged cock, her orgasmic cries…it made him feel strong. Capable rather than weak. And yet it was safe, too. Her hands were occupied holding up her gown and petticoat, so she wouldn’t accidentally touch him. And with her facing away, he could control everything, while watching every aspect of her submission.

  Eventually she sank back against him, soft and pliant, her breathing ragged. “Oh my.”

  Gabriel closed his eyes briefly, reveling in the close contact. Like this he could pretend he held onto her so tightly so she wouldn’t fall off his lap onto the floor, rather than a need in him. Although speaking of need…he grimaced in discomfort as his cock strained against his trousers. Very shortly it would be him begging to come.

  Carefully removing his hand from between Lili’s legs, he met her gaze in the mirror and deliberately licked her fragrant, spicy juices from his fingers. “Delicious. However…I need more.”

  A hot blush scorched across her cheekbones, but she nodded. “What must I do?”

  What must I do?

  His breath hissed between his teeth at the sweetly yielding words. Christ. She would have him ruining yet another pair of trousers with her innocent sensuality. The urge rose to mark her again, to possess her so completely that she would never want another man but him.

  “Stand up,” he said thickly. “Go to your dressing table. Bend right over…and grip the far edge.”

  Lili’s eyes widened, and then grew languid. “Yes, Gabriel.”

  After shimmying off his lap, she walked the six or so steps to her dressing table and arranged herself as he’d instructed. Somehow she managed to keep her gown and petticoat up the entire time, giving him an unobstructed view of rounded backside and ample hips.

  And then she peeked at him over her shoulder and spread her legs, teasing him with the pink of her wet cunt.

  Minx.

  Groaning, all fingers and thumbs, Gabriel tore the buttons from the waistband of his trousers as he attempted to undo the flap and release his painfully hard cock. Thankfully the dressing table stool wasn’t too low, so he could brace his good foot on the floor and get to his feet without too much bother. “Are you ready?”

  Lili shivered. “I am. Ready to be, um…fucked.”

  He stalked toward her, his cock b
obbing against his stomach. His wife had barely whispered the word, and yet he’d heard it like a shout. A Siren’s call.

  “Are you?” Gabriel replied, curving his hands around the lush globes of her backside. Although he had the taste of her in his mouth from when he’d licked his fingers, it was too faint. He wanted his tongue coated in her honey.

  Dropping to one knee, he spread her cheeks, pressing his face between her legs, and darting his tongue out for a taste. Lili moaned loudly as he took his time, licking her up and down, and side to side, but she couldn’t move, not when he held her so firmly. Again and again he teased her, lapping the spicy wetness from her labia and pushing his tongue inside her for more. Yet from this distance, and with her so open and on display for him, he couldn’t resist the lure of another part of her.

  Very, very carefully, he flicked his tongue over her back entrance.

  Lili gasped. “What are you doing?”

  “Licking you,” he replied, repeating the action.

  “But you c-can’t. Not there. It’s wrong. F-forbidden.”

  “Is it?” Gabriel mused, stroking her labia with his thumbs. “Oh dear.”

  And then he licked her a third time, slower than he had before, dragging his tongue across the little pink rosette and penetrating her ever so slightly.

  “Gabriel,” she choked out, her breathing harsh pants.

  “You want me to stop?”

  There was a long, long pause, and she shifted against the dressing table. His wife, like so many of the ton, truly did not like direct questions, or providing direct answers. “It’s wrong.”

  Gabriel’s lips twitched at the non-reply. “Some might say. Does it feel good?”

  Lili peeked over her shoulder, her gaze a little wild. “I…ah…”

  “Answer me,” he said sternly.

  She shuddered, and more juices trickled onto his thumbs. “It feels strange. But, um, nice.”

  Pleased, he lapped at her center, coated his tongue in her honey, then licked his way up to her back entrance again. Using her juices to assist, he penetrated her more fully, darting in and out and in and out, fucking her ass with his tongue the way he would be shortly fucking her cunt with his cock. His wife cried out, tilting her hips to assist him, and on another day he might have kept going until she came. But his cock was too hard, and he wanted Lili’s next orgasm to be when he was buried to the hilt inside her.