The Duke of Desire

by Michaels, Jess

  Except for looking at him. That she did. He’d caught her several times during the night, those dark eyes held on him with an unreadable expression.

  It was disconcerting, really. This entire situation was. He’d come here to take a break from the woman. To do as his friends required and avoid her for a while. Avoid his wishes, his desires, which had nothing to do with some wager. In truth, he just wanted the woman. Once he had her, he was certain that desire would fade. It always had with other ladies. In fact, he hadn’t been sure that ten days away from her company wouldn’t kill the desire all on its own.

  But here she was. Temptation in a pink dress that clung to her curves and accentuated her long, slender neck. She was a complication to his plans. He didn’t like complications.

  He turned away from her, focusing instead on the drink he pulled from a servant’s tray as the man walked by. It was not strong enough by half. “Ridiculous.”

  He faced the dancefloor once more and jumped. Somehow, as his attention was elsewhere, Katherine had crossed the room to him and was now standing at his side, eyes straight ahead and focused anywhere but on him. He caught a whiff of that cinnamon scent of hers and his body reacted of its own accord to her presence.

  “Your Grace, we must discuss our situation,” she said, her tone very calm and careful.

  “Must we?” he asked, unable to keep himself from laughing at this unexpected confrontation.

  “Yes.” Her tone was sharp and silenced his chuckle as she glared at him from the corner of her eye. “You told me today that you were brought here in order to be separated from me. So please don’t sport with my intelligence by pretending that we do not have something to discuss.”

  He inclined his head in an attempt to acknowledge and apologize. She was clearly upset despite her tranquil tone. “I would certainly never sport with your intelligence, my lady,” he said, then winked at her. “Other things, perhaps. But not your intelligence.”

  She faced him full on now and put her hands on her hips. That drew his attention to them, of course. Made him think about replacing her fingers with his, digging those fingers into her skin as he pulled her flush against him.

  “You should not say such things to me,” she said, her skin suddenly rosy red with emotion. “You forget yourself.”

  He arched a brow. “Is it I who forgets myself, or you?”

  She shook her head. “What does that mean?”

  “Of course there is a situation between us, Katherine,” he said. “I don’t deny it. But it may not be the one you think it is.”

  She lifted both eyebrows and her lips pursed in displeasure. “Do enlighten me, oh great Duke of Roseford who knows so much.”

  “I don’t know anything,” he said. “I see things—there is a difference. And what I see is that you have a scandal to overcome. Or at least you think you do.”

  “You think my husband…” Her cheeks darkened further. “…dying the way he did is not truly a scandal?”

  “I don’t think his death is the scandal.” He smiled. “You see, my dear, a passionate nature isn’t appreciated by Good Society. And yours has been revealed. So that is your scandal. The world knows you have wants and needs, things that wake you in the night, trembling and wet and shaking as you try to find release.” Her lips parted and she stared up at him, hands trembling, eyes glassy and dilated with desire. He leaned closer, taking another generous whiff of that amazing smell of her hair. Her body. “Or am I wrong? Am I forgetting myself?”

  She straightened her back and folded her arms, putting up that useless shield she wanted so badly. “I don’t have to tell you anything.”

  “Of course you don’t,” he pressed. “Because I can already see it. A tiger knows another tiger if they’re in a room of housecats. I see what you are. What I don’t see is why you so desperately want to deny it. Deny yourself instead of embrace it.”

  She tilted her head. “And I suppose the way you define embracing this nature you see is by giving myself to you.”

  He smiled a little, but didn’t respond. It was almost impossible not to. Almost impossible not to touch her and draw her into his embrace to let her feel what it could be like. This wasn’t the time. Chasing her wasn’t working—he had to make her lean into him now.

  But she didn’t. She glared at him and hissed, “I will never—”

  She didn’t finish her sentence. Instead, her gaze flitted past him. He turned. Graham was standing at the door to the ballroom. The footman said, “The Duke of Northfield,” as an announcement.

  He barely got the words out when there was a little cry from the crowd. As everyone watched, Adelaide rushed across the room. Graham started toward her and they collided midway through the chamber. Apparently oblivious to everyone else, he caught his wife in his arms and placed a kiss right on her mouth. Her arms came around him and they stood like that together for a moment. Far too long for propriety.

  When Adelaide stepped away at last with a blush, there was no mistaking the tears on her joyful face.

  Robert glanced down at Katherine, expecting that now that the spectacle had passed, she would return to railing at him. She didn’t. She stood there, staring at the happy couple as they faded into the crowd of friends. Her face was no longer blank, no longer controlled.

  It was twisted in a pain so powerful that it was palpable. Robert felt it in his gut as he watched her.

  “Katherine?” he said softly.

  She jerked her face toward his for a beat. Two beats. Then she shook her head. “I’m sorry, excuse me.”

  She said nothing more, nor did she wait for his response before she broke away from him and tore off through the crowd. He watched her exit the room and turned his face.

  His purpose with this woman was seduction. That was all. He didn’t care about her crumpled expression. He didn’t care about the emptiness in her eyes that called to the emptiness in his own broken soul. He didn’t care.

  And yet he felt this foreign desire in his chest. Something unexpected and unwanted and unwarranted given his plans for her. He felt a need to follow her. To comfort her. To somehow soothe the pain in her face and in her heart.

  And that had nothing to do with seduction or wagers or need. It had to do with something else.

  He tried to fight it. Tried to ignore it and put Katherine out of his mind. But it didn’t take sixty seconds before he swore and followed her same path out of the ballroom. He had to find her.

  And once he did, perhaps he’d know what to do.

  Katherine’s hands shook as she staggered down the long hall and into the first parlor she found unlocked. She pushed the door shut behind her and moved across the room. The curtains were shut, so she shoved them aside and revealed a bay window that jutted out from the house. Stepping into the space there, she looked out into the moonlit garden and tried to breathe again.

  Her eyes stung with the tears she didn’t want to shed, with the feelings she didn’t want to feel. She liked the duchesses. She truly did. And despite the fiasco of Roseford being here, she appreciated their attempts to assist her.

  And yet, being around them made her so very aware of the emptiness of her life. They all had love, families, futures. The abstract of that was painful. The concrete? The very real exchange she had just witnessed in the reunion of Graham and Adelaide?

  That was excruciating, for it highlighted all she had secretly wanted in her life. All she had been denied. All she had pretended didn’t truly exist. And yet there it was, played out in color as Adelaide and Northfield rushed to each other in a reunion that didn’t care who was watching.

  She gripped the edge of the curtain with her fist and bent her head.

  “Katherine.”

  She stiffened. Roseford. Of course he was here. To see her in this most vulnerable of moments.

  “Oh, please,” she whispered, hating how her voice cracked. “Please stop following me.”

  He was silent for a moment, t
hen she heard him move closer. Felt him move. Felt his presence. “You are not on a terrace,” he said, his tone very gentle. “I thought my not following you was limited to terraces.”

  She spun toward him. “Do you mock me?”

  “No,” he said, and to her surprise his normally cocky expression softened. With the edge off, he looked a different person, almost. Warmer, younger. “No. You were upset. I wanted…I wanted to know that you were well.”

  She blinked, for the hesitation in his voice told her he wasn’t accustomed to such kindnesses. Which made her wonder why he was extending them now. Part of his never-ending game? Another chapter in his seduction? Pretend to care and make a fool of a lady?

  She lifted her chin. “Stop troubling yourself.”

  He didn’t leave, of course. He moved closer. Why did he have to keep doing that? Cutting off half the room, looming up in her line of vision like he was the only thing that mattered?

  “Adelaide and Graham’s reunion…it bothered you,” he said softly.

  She fought not to let the truth cascade over her face. She would not be vulnerable with this man. Not now. Now ever. “Of course not,” she snapped. “Why would it?”

  He arched a brow. “You are a terrible liar, Katherine.”

  “And you are a good one,” she said, but some of the heat was gone from her voice. She was simply too exhausted by all of this to stoke it. “What is your point?”

  He stopped moving then. It had been all she’d hoped for, and yet now that he stood, more than an arm’s length away, she wished he’d edge closer. And she hated herself for that.

  “You look and see their connection.”

  “Everyone sees their connection,” she argued. “Everyone with eyes. They do not hide it.”

  “But it makes you long for something, Katherine,” he said, his voice so soft it barely carried. “Something in your blood.”

  She tried to draw breath but found very little. The room felt off kilter now, hot. He was pressing into her boundaries without even touching her, and she found herself allowing it. Even though she knew how foolish that was.

  “Their love,” she blurted out, saying the one thing she doubted Roseford wanted anything to do with. “Who wouldn’t be envious of that?”

  He arched a brow and a shadow of a smile crossed his face. “That isn’t what you feel in your stomach. That isn’t what makes your hands shake at your sides as they are doing now.”

  Katherine glanced down and scowled at the betraying shudder of her fingers. She shoved them behind her back and glared at him.

  “How long has it been since anyone touched you?”

  She caught her breath at the direct, wildly inappropriate question. The one that made her legs shake beneath her gown, her thighs clench together with awareness of the wetness that was already pooling there.

  “Y-you h-have no right,” she gasped out, hardly able to say the words.

  He stared at her a beat, then stepped closer once more, and now he could touch her even though he didn’t. Now she could touch him even though she shouldn’t. She looked up into his eyes, dark as pitch they were dilated so wide with desire. He was ridiculously handsome and she wanted him. She hated him and wanted him all at once.

  “Unless you grant me the right,” he said. “How long?”

  She was backed into the alcove of the window now, her backside so close to the glass that she could feel the cold of it through her skirt. There was nowhere to run. Oh, perhaps she could push around him. He’d let her flee his presence.

  But there was nowhere to run from the question. It would hang between them until she answered. And she did, voice shaking. “Since his death.”

  He nodded. “And how long since you were satisfied by a man?”

  Her lips parted and any breath she had left in her lungs dissipated. He edged in closer, his body brushing hers.

  “Before his death?” he asked, his fingers reaching up to trace her jawline. “Months? Years?”

  She heard a gasp escape her mouth. Felt herself nod. Betray herself, give in to him. And he smiled, softly, gently.

  “I can change that, Katherine,” he murmured.

  He lowered his lips and she tensed. They’d been here before. Twice. But he’d never kissed her. And then he was. His mouth pressed to hers as he caught her waist and gently pulled her against him.

  His lips were soft and just as full as they looked from a distance. He held them firm against hers, allowing a moment to pass between them where he let her become accustomed to his touch. She couldn’t help the gasp, the sigh, that escaped her lips. They parted on it and he deepened the kiss.

  His tongue breached her and she gripped for his arms to remain steady. He stroked her, tasting her, savoring her, drawing her in, coaxing her pleasure. In that moment, she understood, in a way she never had before, just why he had the reputation for pleasure.

  This was pleasure. She’d never experienced anything like it, and it promised, darkly and sweetly, a deeper sensation if she surrendered. Just surrender. Her body screamed it, her mind pulsed at it, and he wrote it on her tongue with his as he cupped the back of her head with one hand and angled her for better access.

  She was flush against him, lifting her hips even though she hadn’t told herself to do so. She was gripping his sleeves in her fists, trying to mold herself tighter.

  And on and on he kissed her, pressing her fully back against the window as he learned her mouth thoroughly.

  What would have happened next, she had no idea. Perhaps she would have given herself to him. Perhaps they would have kissed until the world stopped turning. Perhaps she would have found the strength to turn away, to remember herself and their past and why she didn’t trust him.

  She didn’t get a chance to discover what would happen. Behind them, there were voices in the hall. Muffled, but getting louder.

  Katherine’s eyes went wide and she pulled away from Roseford in an instant. “Someone is coming,” she gasped out, hardly able to stand up straight when she was shaking so hard.

  He shrugged. “Let them come.”

  She glared at him. “I have enough troubles,” she growled. “Wouldn’t you like to deepen them by having me found with the biggest cad in London?”

  With that, she caught the edge of the curtains and yanked them shut, closing them in together in the little alcove, blocking their view of the main parlor except for a sliver of space between the curtains.

  The door to the parlor opened and Katherine watched as Graham and Adelaide staggered in together. They were kissing, more deeply and passionately than they had been out in the ballroom. Her hands dug into his hair, and long blond locks fell from the queue and around his handsome face as he shoved the door shut and pressed her hard against it.

  Roseford leaned down and his hot breath swirled around the shell of her ears as he whispered, “In a moment, it will be too late to reveal yourself.”

  She glared at him and lifted her finger to her lips to silently hush him. He smiled, wicked, and then pointed to the part in the curtain fabric.

  Graham was pressed against Adelaide, dragging her hair down around them. He only pulled away to smile at her. “Thank God,” he murmured.

  That elicited a giggle from his wife. She caught his lapels and dragged him to the settee.

  “Good show leaving a room open for us,” Graham panted as he flopped her onto the cushions and went down on his knees before her. They were half-hidden now, for the settee was faced partially away from the window. Katherine could see Graham inching her skirts up, see Adelaide’s pretty stockings on long legs as he revealed her.

  “As if I could wait once I saw you,” she whispered. When Adelaide sat up and dragged him in for another kiss, Katherine caught a glimpse of her face. Pure love, deepest passion. Everything that stung Katherine with regret.

  And yet she couldn’t turn away. Nor could she ignore that Roseford was standing halfway behind her now, his body touching
hers as they watched his friends through that dastardly narrow parting of the curtain.

  Graham pushed Adelaide back and leaned in, disappearing from view behind the arm of the settee. But there was no doubt what he was doing as he draped one of his wife’s long legs over a shoulder.

  Adelaide let out a little cry in the silent room.

  Katherine shut her eyes. This was wrong to look at. Wrong to spy. But it didn’t matter if her eyes were opened or closed. She could picture Graham’s mouth pleasuring Adelaide. Picture how a man’s tongue would feel there where everything tingled right now.

  Only it wasn’t Graham she pictured. Great God, no. It was Roseford. She found herself leaning back, shamefully letting her body press into his. He was still for a moment, then his arms came around her from behind. One pressed into her belly, his fingers splayed. The other cupped her breast through the gown, and she ground back against him with a gasp.

  He chuckled softly, then slid his hand up from her breast and covered her mouth with it. Not hard. Just a weight there that reminded her to be quiet. Reminded her that he was in control.

  She opened her eyes, watching as Graham’s broad shoulders moved, his hair popping in and out from behind the couch. Adelaide’s breath was shorter and shorter now, her cries growing in earnest as her hands clawed at his shoulders.

  Robert’s fingers stroked at her stomach, slow and hypnotic, gliding up and down. And each time he stroked down, he went lower. The back of his hand caressed her hip, around to her thigh, and then he cupped her sex.

  She froze and so did he. He was touching her. Through her gown, yes, but touching her nonetheless. She felt the weight of every finger. The warmth of his skin. The anticipation of what he would do with that talented hand.

  Adelaide jolted, her toes pointing as she shook and her cries filled the room. Graham was wrestling with the placard of his trousers now, and Katherine turned her face so she wouldn’t see his body. Roseford leaned in from behind and his hand moved away, replaced by his mouth. He kissed her, deep and probing as he lifted his hand against her mound. She ground back against him, pleasure arcing immediately. He lifted, fingers curling against her as he let his other hand slip beneath the bodice of her gown. He touched her bare breast and she shuddered against him, her sigh lost in his mouth.