A Duke For All Seasons

by Mia Marlowe

  Please God, she couldn't even let herself think of an end.

  She plunged her hands into his trousers to hold his shaft. Long, thick, like a column of granite encased in smooth male skin. The very thought of taking him in made her weak and strong at once.

  After he relieved her of her stays and chemise, he reached around her, his muscular arms beneath her bum, and lifted her off the floor. He carried her toward a waiting couch, toying with her nipple with his lips and tongue while he moved toward their goal.

  He laid her on the overstuffed leather and looked down at her. His hair was wild. His eyes even wilder, glinting with the same lunatic light one saw in a stallion when the mares were in season. His trousers were slung low on his hips, ready to succumb to gravity, his splendid maleness on aching display.

  “This has nothing to do with anything else,” he said, his voice harsh, ragged with need. He yanked off his boots and let his trousers and small clothes pool at his ankles. “Not the damned envelope or anything I might do about it on your behalf.”

  “Or your damned contract,” she countered.

  He nodded curtly. “I realize I can't purchase you, Bella,” he said. “You give yourself to me freely or not at all.”

  She extended her arms to him, but he caught up her wrists and held her fast.

  “That means this isn't about what I'll do for your daughter either. I will help you in any case,” he said darkly. “I don't want you to let me take you because you're grateful.” He spat the word out as if it left a bitter taste in his mouth.

  She ached to hold him, to engulf him. She'd go mad if he didn't do something soon. “I'm feeling many things right now, Sebastian. Grateful is not one of them.”

  He lowered himself and the insanity of lust began.

  “No matter how delightful a woman’s company may be in the boudoir, if she complicates a gentleman’s life outside it, she ought to be dismissed and summarily shunned as if she were a case of the pox.”

  ~ A Gentleman’s Guide to Keeping a Mistress

  Chapter 9

  This is lunacy, Sebastian thought. Stark, raving madness.

  But for the life of him, he couldn’t stop. Her silken limbs, her softness, the sweet mound of her belly and the tender triangle of pale red-gold curls at the apex of her thighs—every bit of her called to him like a siren on the rocks.

  And, unlike Ulysses, he hadn’t had the forethought to order Cobb to strap him to the mast.

  He reveled in the sight of every secret part of her. He tugged on her nipples, suckling hard and biting down enough to make her cry out. He rubbed his face between her legs, drunk on her scent. Her small noises of need tightened his ballocks and primed his cock to throbbing hardness with each little sigh and every hitched breath.

  Her hands roamed over him, teasing and prodding. When she bit his shoulder, he sank into her. Some of his past mistresses had complained of his generous size. He slid into Arabella’s velvet tightness slowly in the hope that she could bear to engulf all of him.

  She hooked her heels at the small of his back and urged him deeper. He rammed himself home, sheathed to the balls.

  Her eyes flared, but she whispered his name and rocked against him.

  The whole world went suddenly hot and liquid. Sebastian forgot himself in pure animal joy. At one point, he was vaguely aware that they’d slid off the couch and were coupling on the thick bearskin before the crackling fire, but he couldn’t be bothered to care that the 8th Duke of Winterhaven shouldn’t writhe on the floor like a mindless beast.

  They rolled in a tangle of arms and legs and Bella ended up astraddle him. He usually preferred to be on top, but when she arched her spine, offering her breasts to him, he couldn’t refuse. He claimed them both, rolling her taut nipples between his thumbs and forefingers.

  Bella groaned and tilted her pelvis against him, her wetness slicking his belly, as she set an urgent rhythm in their joining. They strained against each other, driving each other to aching fury. He slid a hand down and thumbed her most sensitive spot, luxuriating in her responsive warmth.

  “Oh,” escaped her lips and she stopped moving to let his fingers whip her into a shuddering frenzy.

  His balls clenched when she started panting. She sang an incoherent song of lust in short gasps and soft cries and deep moans. She cupped his face with both hands and stared into his eyes, daring him to look away. Then her body stiffened and her insides rioted in deep spasms around his cock.

  A gentleman would withdraw, but Sebastian was past feeling human, let alone like a man who followed any code of “oughtness.” He arched his hips and his release pounded into her.

  All that was right in his world was wrapped up in this woman, this joining, this bond that made them one flesh.

  He could no more sever their connection than he could order his heart to stop beating.

  * * * * *

  The man beneath her bared his teeth in a feral grimace. As she’d hoped, Sebastian Blake had finally lost control of himself. He was wild and fierce and magnificent all at once. Bella reveled in his bone-jarring release almost as much as her own. She squeezed all her inner muscles and reached around herself to fondle his tight balls, willing his joy to last as long as possible.

  When the last pulse died, she collapsed onto his chest, content to gasp for breath and listen to his heart thunder beneath her ear. There was still much she didn’t understand about Sebastian, how he’d come to be so self-contained when there was a raging fire inside him clamoring to burst out, but her body knew him now.

  And his knew her.

  It was a start.

  “Well, Your Grace, that was...” She licked his nipple and blew a steady stream of air across it while she searched for the right superlative. “...monumental.”

  “Your Grace? You dispensed with that formality during our first meal together and this is no time to resurrect it.” His belly jiggled in a deep chuckle. “Is ‘monumental’ a reference to my size?”

  She gave his chest a playful swat and met his gaze. “No, though you are most impressive. I was thinking more in terms of why people erect monuments—to stake a claim of remembrance.” She kissed his neck. “If I live to be a hundred, Sebastian, I will not forget you.”

  He stroked her hair from root to the long tips, his fingertips running along her spine and staying long enough to trace a small circle just above the cleft of her bum. His chest rose with a deep inhalation. “And I’ll remember you, Bella.”

  “Good.” She rose up a bit and met his gaze. “And in case your next mistress asks, my eyes are brown.”

  “My next mistress? Dare I hope that means you’ve consented to become my current mistress?”

  She forced a laugh. Why had she started the conversation down that road? The thought of him having a ‘next mistress’ bothered her more than she wanted him to know.

  “You may hope, but you’d be wrong,” she said, twirling the ends of her hair around one of his nipples. “I’m your lover, Sebastian, as I promised I’d be. But since you made it clear this isn’t about anything beyond this moment, I still won’t sign that contract.”

  She leaned down to kiss him. What started as a playful brush of lips quickly became a passionate challenge. He rolled her over and pinned her beneath him.

  “The contract benefits you as well, you know,” he said when their lips finally parted. “Why do you insist on thwarting me?”

  “Because someone needs to.”

  Evidently, he was the sort of man who responded to a challenge. He’d started to soften inside her, but now his maleness roared back to life. She rocked her hips beneath him, welcoming a second round of loving.

  “You’re a powerful man, in every sense. You give a command and it happens.” The ache that had been so lately assuaged started deep inside her again. “But it’s not good for you, you know. No one should be in total control of every aspect of their life.”

  “And you’ve decided to be the one person I can’t command.”

&nb
sp; She smiled up at him and squeezed him with her inner muscles again. “As I said, someone needs to.”

  He withdrew and stood over her, still rampantly male. Looking up at the hard lines, the corded muscle and smooth skin of him made her resolve waiver a bit.

  “Have I offended you, Sebastian?”

  “No. I simply want to take my lover,” he emphasized the word with a verbal caress, “to the bed in this hunting lodge.” He bent down and scooped her up into his arms as if she were feather-light. “Unless, of course, she objects to down pillows and satin sheets.”

  “Not at all.” She draped her arms around his neck. “We find ourselves in complete accord.” Bella nipped his earlobe. “This time.”

  * * * * *

  Sebastian and Arabella dallied in the hunting lodge for the remainder of the afternoon while rain fell in blinding sheets beyond the leaded window panes. They took turns tormenting each other with need, withholding and giving release. Sebastian rode her hard, pounding into her from behind while she balanced on her knees, clutching the iron headboard to remain steady. They both growled out their pleasure in unrestrained joy. Then after a brief respite, he joined his hard body to hers a third time with such heart-stopping gentleness, her insides melted with tenderness for him.

  Then sometime during their gasping, whispered pillow talk, he drifted off between one sentence and the next. In the relaxation of sleep, the hard line between his brows softened and he looked years younger. Arabella drank her fill of him now that he couldn’t catch her doing it.

  If Sebastian were awake, he might see the wistfulness she tried to hide.

  Physically, they were perfectly attuned. They both enjoyed the act of love in wide variety—tough and tender, heart-poundingly fast and tortuously slow.

  When had she started longing for something more? Something from his heart instead of just his magnificent body.

  But that wish was a receipt for disaster with a man like Sebastian. Anyone who felt he had to insulate his heart from involvement with a written contract limiting the scope and duration of a relationship wasn’t the sort to give his affection just for the asking.

  For the sake of her heart, she’d do well to remember it and guard herself from the pain of their inevitable parting.

  I’ll revel in the moment with him, Arabella decided. And be thankful for his protection of Lisette and his help in dealing with Fernand.

  When the time came for their ways to part—and she’d take pains to see that she was the one who decided when that time had arrived—she would call upon her stage experience and make a dignified, dry-eyed exit.

  So why did the sight of his sleeping face make tears gather now?

  Sebastian stirred, so she rolled over quickly lest he catch her with glistening eyes. He spooned around her, pulling her close. His breath feathered warmly on her nape.

  “You smell so good,” he said drowsily.

  She snuggled into his embrace, pressing her bum against his groin. “It’s stopped raining.”

  “Damn,” he said. “That means we ought to return to the main house before our absence becomes remarkable.”

  “You’re concerned for my reputation?”

  “Of course. As you’re so fond of reminding me, you’re not my mistress. You’re my lover.” He dropped a kiss on her shoulder and rolled out of bed. “As far as my household is concerned, you’re my guest. So long as we were caught in the lodge by the elements, who can say we did anything but wait here for the storm to pass?”

  He strode from the room, heedless of his nakedness, and returned with their discarded clothing.

  “They’re nearly dry,” Sebastian said as he jerked on his smallclothes.

  Arabella followed his example and dressed quickly.

  “Ready?” he asked as she pinned her slightly bedraggled hat to her head.

  “Almost.” She crossed the room, stood tiptoe and kissed him. “I had a lovely time, Sebastian.”

  “So did I.” He drew her close. “I’m sorry I fell asleep on you. This may surprise you, but I’ve actually never done that with a woman before.”

  “I can’t say I’m shocked.” She tugged on her riding gloves. “I expect you’re the sort who feels he must leave as soon as possible after the deed is done.”

  His mouth twitched. “Guilty as charged. I always felt that if ever there’s a time for a woman to make excessive demands on a man, it’s immediately after the act of love.”

  “Perhaps,” she said with a shrug. “Or maybe it’s because sleep makes a person vulnerable. You never felt you could trust your mistresses enough to sleep in their presence.”

  Given the way she’d hidden the existence of the envelope from him at the start, she realized she ought not to have mentioned trust. A wall rose behind his eyes and she knew she’d taken a misstep.

  “And you think I should trust you,” he said, weighing every word.

  “You already have.” She patted his cheek, trying to keep the mood light. “Don’t worry, Sebastian. It’s safe to sleep with a lover. And I have no intention of making demands on you.”

  They stepped out of the hunting lodge into the waning moments of the day. The sun broke beneath a layer of gray clouds and cut through the forest. Its final rays cast long shadows across the rolling hills. The air held a whiff of coming evening, cool and green and rain-washed. The horses were ready for a gallop, but Arabella and Sebastian kept them to a walk on the sodden turf.

  They didn’t speak, but the quiet wasn’t oppressive. Bella resisted the urge to fill the silence, deciding they both could use a bit of time to collect themselves and determine how the afternoon had changed matters between them. She was surprised, and more than a little glad, when Sebastian reached over to hold her hand at one point when their mounts fell into a steady gait beside each other.

  She’d spent enough time on stage to know that words were ephemeral, not always to be trusted. That simple linking of their fingers was more reassuring of Sebastian’s regard for her than a thousand sonnets.

  When they crested the final rise, they reined in their horses so they could view the manor house framed by a golden sunset. A coach rolled to a stop at the front door of the imposing edifice. Sebastian swore softly, breaking their companionable silence.

  “It appears my other guests have arrived a day early. Yes, there’s Granger. That’s my aunt and sister he’s handing down now. And there’s his fiancée and her mother. And Granger’s mother,” Sebastian said as the last woman emerged from the enclosed coach. “So much for a day in the country to ourselves.”

  “We’ve had quite a day, thank you very much,” Arabella said, arching a brow at him. “Though I do wonder at so many ladies in one place. Usually a house party is divided between the genders with more even handedness. This gathering seems a bit one-sided.”

  “That’s because they’re here to plan Granger’s wedding, God help him.”

  “Indeed. Then I’ll be delighted to suggest some suitable music for the event. Why didn’t you tell me?” She nudged her mount into a walk down the hillock. “I might have brought some sheet music with me.”

  “So you’re infected with wedding pox too. I don’t know why I thought you’d be different.” Sebastian drew even with her. “Is there a woman alive who doesn’t become maudlin and starry-eyed over the prospect of a man being leg-shackled for life?”

  “Do you think that’s how Lord Granger sees his coming nuptials?”

  “No.”

  “Then why shouldn’t we join him and his fiancée in their joy?”

  “Because their joy will be so fleeting,” Sebastian said gruffly. “Don’t misunderstand. His Christine is a fine girl and no doubt, Neville is enraptured with her now. But no matter whom one marries, one eventually discovers one is married to someone else entirely.”

  “That’s rather cynical.”

  “No, it’s rather accurate,” he said stone-faced. “Can you name a truly happy wedded couple?”

  “That’s not fair,” Arabel
la said. “Naturally, unhappy liaisons will garner more attention if the couple is indiscreet enough to make their differences public. No one knows the condition of someone else’s marriage except the parties involved.”

  “And their children,” she thought she heard him say. But when she cut her gaze toward him sharply, he looked away.

  “Well, I’m under no compulsion to marry, Sebastian. In fact, given my profession, it’s best if I remain unwed since the hours required for performances and rehearsals leave little time for the running of a household. And I can’t imagine exchanging singing for ordering menus and managing a staff,” she said. “But unfortunately for you, you’ll be expected to wed at some point.”

  He responded with a sound that might charitably be called a grunt.

  “I daresay you’ve been schooled on your duty to produce an heir and continue your line. The time will come when you must choose a duchess,” she said, determined for some reason to force him to admit it. “Marriage is not something you can ignore indefinitely.”

  “No, it’s not. Someday I’ll have to entrust a woman with my name and my title and my honor.” Judging strictly from his tone, Bella would have guessed Sebastian was discussing a trip to the rack instead of the altar. “I’ll have to fill a nursery with heirs and hope to heaven there isn’t a cuckoo’s egg among them.”

  “That’s rather odd. I wouldn’t have thought you’d worry about being cuckolded,” she said.

  He snorted. “There’s never any dispute about a babe’s mother, but it’s the wise child, they say, that knows his sire,” Sebastian said. “I’ll have to marry eventually, but until the time rears its ugly head and refuses further delay, let me leave it alone.”

  He dug his heels into his horse’s flanks and bolted down the hill as if he were fleeing an approaching horde of Huns.