The Duke of Desire

by Michaels, Jess

  Adelaide’s sighs were not so lost. Katherine peeked out to find that Graham was now taking her, hard and fast. He let out a garbled groan and then he collapsed over her. Her hands smoothed over his back and their panting breaths were the only sound in the quiet room.

  Roseford’s hand stilled, he pulled away, his lips sliding to Katherine’s neck as she froze. They’d be heard if they did anything now.

  Graham flopped on the settee next to his wife. They were fixing themselves, tucking in, rolling down. Adelaide’s hair would not be repairable, of course. But her wide smile told Katherine she didn’t care.

  “How is Maddie?” Graham asked, referring to their daughter.

  Adelaide’s face lit up. “She is well, as always. Beautiful. But she has missed you. I cannot wait to see the look on her face when she wakes to find you here in the morning.”

  Graham’s smile widened. “I want to go upstairs and look in on her. Once I have, wife, I want to do what we just did all over again,” he said as he leaned in to kiss her. “All night.”

  She pulled away, cupping his cheeks, searching his face. “And you don’t care if everyone knows we snuck out so you could ravish me?” she asked, her tone laced with teasing and love and connection that made Katherine shiver.

  “I would take it as a wound to my honor if they didn’t think I couldn’t wait to ravish you,” he teased back. He got to his feet and tugged her to hers. For a moment, they stood, face to face, eyes locked. Then he leaned in and kissed her. It was gentler this time. “I love you.”

  She lifted on her tiptoes and kissed him harder. “You and you and you forever. Now take me upstairs.”

  He caught her hand and the two fled the room like young lovers, rather than a respectable duke and his bride of several years. Katherine remained where she was, frozen in place by their passion and their love. Unwilling to move away from the man who still had his hands on her.

  “They closed the door,” Robert said.

  She nodded. “Yes.”

  He stroked his fingers between her legs. She rocked against him. “Say it again. Mean it. Or tell me no, Katherine, and I’ll walk away.”

  Chapter Eight

  Katherine licked her lips. Roseford was offering her two devilish options. Say yes and give herself over, even a tiny bit, to his schemes. His wager. Say no and walk away from the kind of passion he inspired. The kind she had just witnessed and longed for in the core of herself.

  He was the first person who had ever told her that the longing wasn’t wrong or dirty or something to cover in shame.

  Could she do either?

  “Say it,” he repeated, his breath warm on her skin. “Say something.”

  She swallowed hard and turned to face him. In the dim light behind the curtain, his face was shadowy. Wicked. She should have backed into the light, away from all he would do and say and make her feel. Instead she caught his hand and gently lifted it, setting it against her bare neck, gliding it lower so it closed over her breast.

  He shook his head. “It has to be yes or no, Katherine,” he pushed. “I can’t have questions. You have to tell me what you want.”

  “To come,” she gasped out, her cheeks so on fire that she felt like she might glow in the darkness. “I want you to make me come.”

  His eyes lit up and he motioned his head toward the settee where Graham and Adelaide had made love. “Like he did?”

  Her breath shuddered in. She had never had that pleasure, a man’s mouth on her. She jerked out a nod. “Yes. Like he did. With his…his tongue.”

  He said nothing else. He teased no more. He simply used the hand on her breast to gently guide her through the curtain into the brighter parlor. He pushed her back onto the settee and she fell into place, staring up at him as he crossed to the door and locked it.

  Her heart was beating wildly as he watched him stride back to her. He stood over her, blocking the firelight. A dark outline of male virility and promises of passion unlike any she’d ever known.

  A promise of all she’d ached for and thought she couldn’t have.

  That was all this was. It didn’t have to be anything more. It wouldn’t ever be anything more. It was a moment, and she would walk away from him. She knew what he was—it couldn’t be that hard.

  He dropped down on his knees, like she’d watched Graham do with Adelaide. Slowly, he caged her in with his arms and leaned up, brushing his lips back and forth against hers until she parted them and offered herself. He chuckled as he took, kissing her once more. This time it was different, though. He traced her lips, flicked his tongue in. He was showing her how he would kiss her in that other place.

  She squirmed at the realization, lifting to meet him, opening her legs to give him more space there. He ignored the invitations and just glided his mouth down her throat. Over the revealed skin below her collarbone. He traced the neckline of her gown, then put his hands beneath it again. He teased her nipple, lifting her, and suddenly the warm air in the room was against her skin.

  She looked down and watched as he traced her exposed nipple with just the tip of his tongue. He looked up at her, smiling as he teased her. Smiling as she gasped with electric pleasure that jolted down between her legs and made her hot and needy for him.

  He didn’t linger, though. He crested lower, his mouth warm even through the silk of her gown as he pressed his lips along her stomach. He was hitching her skirts up as he did so. She felt the warmth of the fire against her calves, her knees, her thighs.

  Finally, he pulled away and looked into her eyes. He held there, his expression daring her to refuse. Daring her to end this. She didn’t. She couldn’t. She was on fire and she needed him to extinguish the flame. To show her how because there was no way but him.

  He caught her knees, cupping the backs of them with firm enough pressure that she felt the weight of every finger. He stroked her, making her body shake with sensation. And when she gasped out pleasure, he slid her forward on the settee. Her backside came to the edge and her legs fell open. He looked down at last, smiling as he saw her drawers. They were flimsy, silky things, and in this position they were parted so they did very little to cover her. Still, he tugged and they came off. He tossed them aside and she was bared to him.

  She should have felt shame in that, she supposed. Her husband had seen her this way, of course. She’d always felt ashamed then. Humiliation came with the ache, she knew that.

  But she felt none of that now. Roseford stared down at her, licking his lips, his eyes wide and his hand trembling ever so slightly as he reached out to trace her sex with just the tips of his fingers.

  “So lovely,” he muttered, she thought more to himself than to her. It didn’t matter anyway, because when his fingertips stroked her naked flesh, her mind emptied of any questions, all concerns, all doubts.

  She lifted against him, pressing his hand harder, forcing his fingers past her lips just a fraction and increasing the heat of his touch. He smiled, not mocking, but accepting. Pleased.

  “You’ve waited a long time, I think,” he whispered, almost soothing. “I won’t make you wait anymore.”

  He bent his head. His fingers pressed her open, holding her in place. And then his mouth closed over her. She cried out at the heat of him steaming over that sensitive flesh. His tongue was firm as he pressed it to her, stroking her entire slit in one long lick.

  She spasmed at the outrageous pleasure that ricocheted through her body. Her fingers dug into his hair, holding him steady, pushing him away, urging him on all at once. He smiled against her—she felt the expression. His hands held her still and he devoured her. Every lick woke that wicked part of her she’d always tried to hide, control, destroy. As if he knew that, he moved harder, faster, sucking her clitoris and sending her body to ever rushing heights.

  But it was when he added his fingers that she lost all control. He glided two inside her long-empty sheath, stretching the channel, reawakening any pleasure she’d ever
found from sex. She bucked against him, dropped her head back as the orgasm began from deep inside of her. He licked her through it, tormenting her with pleasure as she cried out again and again and again.

  It was only when she went utterly limp against the settee, her shudders subsiding slowly, that he ceased his tongue’s exploration, withdrew his fingers and stared up at her with a satisfied smile.

  “I hope that was worth the wait,” he said as he leaned over her body, kissing her. She tasted her release on his tongue, and her body quaked with renewed desire at that salty-and-sweet flavor.

  He drew back and looked down at her, exploring her face like he was trying to see something, find something. And in that instant, her relaxed, lazy pleasure faded and was replaced by something else. She remembered what he was. Remembered what he wanted. He hadn’t pleasured her as some selfless act. He wanted more. To win his little wager, to claim that he could have the woman who had killed with pleasure.

  She pressed her hands to his chest and pushed. His brow wrinkled, but he drew back from her and watched as she got to her feet, shoving her skirts down and spinning away from him so she’d no longer have to look at that thick hair she’d mussed or those wet lips that had touched her so intimately.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  She refused to look at him as she moved to the mirror above the sideboard and looked at herself. She was still mostly in place, save for a few wrinkles in her gown and some strands of hair that had fallen from her chignon. But she was flushed with pleasure, her expression wanton. If anyone saw her…they would know. They would know what she did.

  And even if they didn’t, she would.

  “Katherine,” he said, sharper.

  She faced him, forcing calm onto her expression. Forcing coldness and collected boredom, like what had happened meant nothing.

  “That was a mistake,” she said, hardly able to form the words.

  His lips parted. “I’m sorry?”

  “I was overwrought after what I witnessed,” she explained, hating that her cheeks filled with color. “And swept away by…by everything. But I should not have allowed you such liberties, Your Grace.”

  He folded his arms, his irritation clear on his face. “I think it’s a bit late for formality. Robert will suffice.”

  She tensed. She’d never thought of this man as anything but Roseford. Until now she hadn’t realized how much that title was a safety net for her. A barrier. Robert was a man. A man who had pleasured her in a parlor with a hundred people just down the hall.

  She didn’t want to think of him as Robert.

  “Roseford, don’t make this harder,” she said. “We did what we did. But it is not something we shall ever repeat.”

  She moved toward the door, tensing for the moment when he would follow. Would catch her arm. Would demand or yell or even force. After all, she had left him in a state. She’d seen the outline of his hard cock against his trousers. She knew what he wanted. What he likely thought he’d earned.

  And yet he didn’t do any of those things. He stood exactly where she’d left him, staring at her as she unlocked the door and fled the chamber. She was too cowardly to look back. Not just because she feared the rage she might find on his face.

  But because if she did, there was a good possibility she would go back, fall into his arms, and give him the prize he’d wagered on. And that would be a colossal mistake. So she escaped, like a thief in the night, and had no idea what the consequences of her foolish surrender would be later.

  Robert stared as Katherine left the room, her shoulders straight and her stride certain. He was…stunned. He’d spent a life as a libertine. Some used that word as a slur, but he’d always embraced it. Pleasure was not a negative, no matter what Society tried to argue. He gave, he received, no one got hurt. In fact, some were even advanced by their affiliation with him, found longer term lovers who provided well for them.

  He didn’t pursue women who were innocent. Partly because he had no interest in the noose of marriage. Mostly because he didn’t think they could adequately make a decision about whether or not they wanted something they’d never experienced. Something that could ruin them.

  And so, because he was choosy and careful, he had never had a lady refuse him. At least not like this. The occasional woman who was loyal to her current lover, certainly. But not an unattached woman who clearly wanted him. Not a woman to whom he had given oral delights upon a settee, certainly.

  And yet Katherine had looked him in the eye, her stare as cold as ice, her tone even more bitter, and told him it was a mistake. That she didn’t want him, at least not for more than what she’d already gotten thanks to his tongue.

  She sounded like she meant it, too. Like she was dismissing a servant who had brought cold tea, not a man offering to be her lover. Offering to give her all the pleasure she could stand and more.

  It was utterly confusing. The dichotomy of her vocal and enthusiastic orgasm and her harsh dismissal. The first was why he was still rock hard. Her body was a pleasure. She was so damned responsive. Just the graze of his hand or the touch of his tongue and she was arched beneath him, begging, panting, whimpering. He’d always like a woman who came hard. He liked watching his lovers take pleasure. That was nearly as satisfying as taking his own.

  Now, as he relived those moments of her beneath him, his cock throbbed.

  “Fuck,” he muttered, exiting the room at a swift clip. He strode down the hall, up the back stair and down the hall to the room where he had been placed by Emma and James. He burst inside, barely taking in his surroundings. He kicked the door shut, moved to the bed and unfastened the placard of his trousers.

  He spit on his palm before he stroked himself. His body twitched and he leaned against the high mattress with one hand as he worked his shaft swiftly and with purpose. When he shut his eyes, he pictured Katherine, leaning against him, her body gently grinding as they watched Graham and Adelaide’s passionate reunion.

  Katherine spread out before him, her sex glistening with desire as he bent his head to lick her. Her flavor still burst on his tongue, and he increased the pace of his hand as he relived the power of bringing her to powerful completion.

  And then his mind took him to fantasy. Of sliding up her body and pushing into that sweet, still rippling channel. Of pounding into her until she screamed down the house. Of marking her with his mouth and his hands and pouring every drop of his release deep inside of her.

  The pleasure he imagined in that act combined with the pleasure of his hand, and he grunted as his seed spurted from his cock, relieving, at least for a moment, the tension of need that Katherine had stoked in him down in the parlor.

  When his mind stopped spinning, he pushed from his slumped position against the side of the bed and tucked himself back into place. He glanced in the mirror, tidying up his tangled hair, rearranging his twisted waistcoat. Eventually he looked like himself, rather than an animal who had just rutted out back.

  He blinked at his reflection. In his own eyes, he saw need still there. He felt it in his edgy body. It wouldn’t be satisfied until he felt Katherine ripple around him in powerful release.

  An odd thing considering how he had been so soundly set down not a quarter of an hour before.

  “Bollocks,” he muttered, and exited the room to return to the ball and act like none of it had ever happened. If that was what Katherine was doing, he could certainly manage it.

  And yet, he still needed to purge her from his blood. Which meant he had to figure out why in the world the woman hated him so much.

  Chapter Nine

  Katherine stood at the window in her chamber, looking out over the lovely view of the orchard. There was something soothing about that tangled grove of trees that were just starting to drop their leaves. As if she could just step into the sheltering darkness of their branches and disappear. Away from the prying eyes of Society, away from the watchful stare of Roseford and away from her own mem
ories of what she had allowed him to do to her twelve hours before.

  “Eat your scone, my dear!”

  She turned from the scene outside and forced a smile for Aunt Bethany. She had been doting over Katherine since she claimed a headache the night before that had allowed her escape from the ball before Robert returned. Thankfully, she had been left alone since then.

  Alone with her memories of last night. Her dreams. And this morning, alone with her hand. Not that she had been even remotely as satisfied with touching herself as she had been beneath his mouth.

  Dastardly man.

  “Honestly, you look as though you’ve seen a ghost,” Bethany said, patting a seat at the small table in the corner of Katherine’s room. “Sit down and eat before I request a doctor to check you for a fever.”

  Katherine pursed her lips and did as she’d been told. Bethany gave the scone before her a stern glance, and Katherine laughed as she tugged a piece of the pastry free and popped it in her mouth.

  “Good,” Bethany said with a sigh. “And while you eat, I think you and I should have a talk.”

  “A talk?” Katherine said, pushing away troubling thoughts and trying to focus on Bethany. She always liked her talks with her aunt, though this one sounded ominous, indeed.

  “I realize it is none of my business. After all, you and I have only been reunited as aunt and niece for a few years.”

  Katherine reached out to touch her hand. “And I feel close to you. You may speak to me about anything. Goodness knows we’ve talked about a great many intimate things in the past year since Gregory died.”

  Bethany cleared her throat and shifted in her seat. She glanced over her shoulder, as if she wanted to be certain the room was empty. “I have noticed several of your exchanges with the Duke of Roseford.”