The Wolf Duke

by K. J. Jackson

  Reiner nipped at her finger again.

  Shaking her head, her look pinned him. “Actually, Milly, will you tell the driver of the carriage we’re to be delayed for a day? I will pay him for his patience. I’ll knock on your door when I’m ready to eat.”

  “Are ye well, miss?” The door jiggled. “Should I—”

  Her gaze swung to the door. “No, Milly. I am fine. I would just prefer to be alone for a spell.”

  “As ye wish, my lady.” Footsteps echoed down the hallway.

  Sloane waited, frozen in Reiner’s arms with her hand across his mouth until the footsteps disappeared and a full minute passed.

  When she finally turned her gaze to him, his eyebrows cocked.

  “What?”

  He glanced down pointedly at her hand still covering his mouth.

  She dropped her fingers from his lips.

  “I have you alone—truly alone—since you fell into my life, and you’re only giving me an hour? Maybe two?”

  She chuckled. “How much time do you want?”

  His hand lifted, his thumb dragging along her bottom lip. “Your lips, your body, and I could get lost for a lifetime.” His face lost all levity, his gaze burning her with the intensity of a blacksmith’s forge. “Do you truly want this, Sloane? For there is no going back. Tell me to leave and I will.”

  It wasn’t even a decision.

  Her course had been set the second she stepped out into the hallway and chased after him.

  She met his gaze, his golden brown eyes intense on her. “I don’t want to go back—I cannot. Only forward.”

  His thumb dropped from her lips to make way for his mouth capturing hers. Searing her with all the wanton need that surged through his blood the same as it surged through hers.

  He stepped in closer, locking her into place against the wall as his fingers tugged down the bodice of her black dress. His fingers weren’t satisfied until her stays, her chemise dropped as well, baring her nipples to the air.

  His look dipped and a rumble echoed from deep in his chest. “Bloody exquisite.” His mouth dropped and took her left breast in between his lips, his teeth raking the sensitive nub.

  The ache deep in her core started to throb, started to demand more and more with each swipe of his tongue on her nipple. The world closing in on her, nothing but pleasure from Reiner and all he was doing to her seeped through her body.

  His tongue trailed a line to her other breast and lavished it with attention until it was hard, straining into his mouth.

  “Do what you did, before.”

  He chuckled into her skin. “I thought you would never ask.”

  His hands went down and he bunched her skirts, lifting them. Air hit her bare thighs, sending her skin to prickle and a burning pang through her core.

  His mouth still on her nipple, his right fingers went to the inside of her left thigh, brushing the skin with the lightest caress that shouldn’t have existed from his large hands.

  Upward. Upward.

  His fingers reached her folds and slid into the wetness.

  The touch shocked her body into full attention, no longer reveling in the ministrations of his lips on her breasts.

  Her body wanted more. Demanded more.

  Her fingers tight in his hair, her head fell back, clunking onto the wall.

  The circles he swiped along her nubbin sent her body into a frenzy. Something she couldn’t control. Hell—she could never control this—never control how her body reacted to his.

  The build was fast this time. Faster than the last time, as though her body knew exactly what was in store for her and was in a rush to get there. But she needed more.

  For a second, rational thought flashed through her brain. Every scold, every word, every reminder she’d heard throughout her life about giving up her body to a man. Rational thought that couldn’t find roots. For this wasn’t any man. This was Reiner. There was no stopping this—not now. Whatever blasted thing this was between them needed to happen.

  “Don’t stop—I want more.” Her words came out heated, unrecognizable as her own. “I want you in me.”

  “You are positive?”

  “You—you into me—take me there, Reiner.”

  A raw rumble slipped from his lips and he freed the front fall of his trousers and set his hand under her backside. He lifted her, propping her against the wall, and he set the smooth tip of his member at her entrance. The thought of the size of it entering her body should have given her pause, but she couldn’t think on it, for he swiped her folds with his thumb and all words, all thoughts left her.

  She was lost. Lost again in a dark world with a thousand points of lights flashing through her brain. Her body twisting, releasing all the sweet agony flowing through her into her core.

  His shaft broke upward, breaking through her barrier, and he froze. “Hell, Sloane, I didn’t think you were—”

  She fought her way through the fog to him. “I—I am—was.” Her fingers clawed at his back, her words jumbled. Even with the pain she wasn’t ready for it to be done. “More. Don’t stop.” Her words desperate, her hips swiveled on their own accord, urging him onward. “Don’t stop, Reiner.”

  An incoherent blasphemy exhaled from his lips and he eased out of her.

  “More. I think I need you deep inside.”

  The blasphemy turned into a growl and he drove up into her. The sheer determination of attempting to not wreck her body sent the cords of muscles along his neck straining. He eased out and in again. “I don’t know how long I can take this care.”

  “Then don’t.” She grabbed the back of his head, pulling his face to hers. “It doesn’t hurt, not now.” Her lips met his in a brutal kiss that told him just how much she needed him to be driving into her.

  He withdrew, thrusting into her again and again until he swelled deep within her. A guttural roar shook his chest as he pulled from her lips and buried his head along her neck. The pulsating shudders of his body blanketed her as he reached the same pinnacle she was immersed in.

  There was no going back.

  Not for either of them.

  { Chapter 12 }

  It was the exact proof he needed. Even as he lifted Sloane’s skirts, he wasn’t sure what he was going to find. A masterful courtesan. Possibly a lady who had tumbled in the hay a number of times but not experienced. A woman somewhere along the gamut between the two.

  A virgin was not one of them.

  But to him, it was proof. Proof that she wasn’t another actress sent by Falsted. She wasn’t a whore sent to ruin him with some elaborate ruse.

  Sloane wanted revenge, yes—was dead set on it. That single-mindedness had set her up to be used by Falsted. And now she was an innocent being tossed about as a pawn.

  Which was worse.

  Much worse.

  For now he was going to have to make Falsted pay for his part in using Sloane.

  Still embedded deep in her, he opened his eyes. A sheen glistened across her brow and her breath came in short pants that didn’t fully reach into her lungs.

  Her body wedged tight between him and the wall with her legs wrapped around his waist, he lifted his left hand from her backside to clasp her head, his fingers threading into her hair. He swallowed hard against his own labored breathing. “Damn, Sloane, you should have told me you were a virgin.”

  She laughed, expelling what little air she had managed into her chest. She had to gasp a breath before she could talk. “You assumed I was a loose woman?”

  “I didn’t know what you were—for how you came to Wolfbridge was so suspect. And then it is how your body reacts to mine—just like it did in the library at Wolfbridge. The way you twist under my hands. It is…practiced.”

  Her eyes snapped open to him, a flush filling her cheeks. “It is wrong—what I do? I didn’t—”

  His mouth covered hers, cutting off her words. He kissed her, long and lazy, his tongue exploring the taste of her just for the sake of discovery.

&nbs
p; He broke away, his forehead tilting forward to touch hers. “What you do is exactly right. Everything. From that little scream that gets caught in your throat when my lips are on your nipples, to the way you gasp and tighten around me when you come. Right. Perfect. All of it.”

  Relief filled her blue eyes, the dash of amber in her left iris sparking to life. “Good. I cannot control it. Not with you. I’ve never had that problem with other suitors—controlling myself—but with you, Reiner…”

  “With me, what?”

  She sighed. “With you my body does things my mind would normally refuse.”

  “We’ll marry as soon as we can—we’re in Scotland so it will only require a willing man to do so.”

  Her eyes flew wide. “Married? I—no.”

  “No?” He shook his head, not quite believing he had just heard the word. “What did you think this was, Sloane? I said there would be no going back.”

  “You didn’t say anything about marriage.” Her eyes closed for a long moment. When her lashes fluttered open, her look went upward toward the ceiling. “I assumed…ever since the fire…”

  “What did you assume?”

  Her blue eyes dropped to meet his gaze. “I assumed I would never marry.”

  His brow furrowed. “Never marry—why not?”

  The words unable to breach her lips, she lifted her left arm, still covered from fingertips to her upper arm in that blasted glove.

  “Your arm? The scars?”

  She nodded, her voice catching. “I am damaged. Unmarriageable. That is what my grandfather said.”

  “Your grandfather—”

  “Only spoke a truth most are too polite to say out loud. But it is a truth nonetheless.”

  “Truth only bears weight if it is believed. Me—I believe a different truth. That you are marriageable. What else would this be? What else could this be?” His fingertips curled against her scalp and his throat tightened. “Tell me this was not a mistake.”

  “That is just it. I don’t ken what this is.” Her hands moved from the death grip they had on his shoulders to wrap around his neck. “My body reacts, and my mind goes right along for the journey. I don’t ken why it is that I seem to lose all sense around you, Reiner.”

  He exhaled a long breath. “And that is why I wasn’t sure what I would meet here—as all common sense appears to elude me as well when it comes to you.”

  “So it is that we do not trust each other?” she asked.

  As much as he didn’t want to, he unthreaded his fingers from her hair and lifted her body off of his. He took a step backward and her skirts fell down between them. Turning to the side, he watched her out of the corner of his eye as he pulled his trousers into place and buttoned them. “You have to understand, Sloane, there was one before you—six months ago.”

  “One what?”

  “One sent to ruin me.” He sighed and walked away from her, stopping at the table to refill a tumbler of brandy. He took a long sip, letting it roll slowly on his tongue before looking to her. “There was a woman before you. She was sent by Falsted to ruin me. A mistress that plied her trade very well—had me fooled until the day I caught her searching my room.”

  “Lord Falsted sent her? She was there for the book?”

  His eyebrow cocked at her. He hadn’t mentioned the book. Not yet. “She was. It didn’t take much cajoling to get her to admit to her true purpose for being at Wolfbridge. She was an actress and a whore. Nothing more.” He shook his head, then swallowed the rest of the dram. “I am still coming to acceptance of the fact that you were not just another harlot sent to steal from me.”

  Her back still splayed against the wall of the room, her head snapped back and thunked against the plaster. “You think this is a farce—what we just did? What I let you do?”

  A flush filled her cheeks to flaming. Fury or indignation or guilt—he wasn’t sure.

  Best to tread lightly. “Truthfully, yes, it is still in my mind. The possibility that you are trying to bamboozle me and you will stop at nothing to see me ruined.”

  Her palm flat on her belly, her lips pulled inward for a long moment. She shook her head, her look going to the ceiling. With a deep exhale, she looked at him. “An honest answer. One I do not think I can begrudge you. Not if there was another similar to me. But I…”

  He waited in silence, waited for her to continue.

  “I would never trade my body for vengeance, Reiner. Never. There are levels I would stoop to—but that—that is unthinkable.”

  “Is it?”

  “Yes.”

  “I understand what you lost, but revenge is a slippery slope, Sloane. You compromise on one moral. Then another. Then another. Pieces of you are lost bit by bit until you lose all perspective and are praying you are still on the side of right.”

  “What do you ken of it?”

  “Enough.”

  She pushed herself from the wall and smoothed the front of her skirts as she walked over to him. He poured a fresh dram in the tumbler and set it in front of her on the table.

  She didn’t take it, her blue eyes intent on him. “What is the book for? Why is it so important?”

  “So you do have it?”

  She shrugged. “Maybe.”

  “But you still don’t trust me.”

  “I am trying, Reiner. I am trying to place all of this. Not but an hour ago I still thought you were the man that killed my brother. I was still trying to reconcile the reality of how I feel about you with the reality of how I should feel about you.”

  His eyebrow quirked. “How should you feel about me?”

  “I should hate you, through and through. Stop at nothing to destroy you.”

  “But what is it you truly feel?”

  “The opposite of that. And then you appear out of nowhere and tell me you’re not the abhorrent man I thought you were. That maybe what I was truly feeling wasn’t tainted. That it was right—that it could be right. So much so that I needed your body in mine.” She sighed, resigned, then grabbed the glass and took a sip of the brandy. “And I don’t yet ken what to think about any of it.”

  For how easy it had been to find her—to follow her from Wolfbridge, as she hadn’t been careful at all—she wanted him to find her. Wanted it from the moment she left, whether she would admit to it or not.

  He would have to chance it—the truth.

  “The book…there is treason in it. Evidence of a smuggling scheme like this country has never seen. Who the sellers are. Who the buyers are. Where things are moved to and from. Persons smuggled in and out of France during the war. The gangs involved. What is stolen. Coining. It involves people from the lowest dockhands to the most high-bred peers. From London to the Highlands, this operation is insidious and has brutal tentacles that reach across the land.”

  Her jaw dropped. “You’re a smuggler?”

  “No. Make no mistake about that. After I discovered the scheme’s existence, I was encouraged by the crown to infiltrate it. I have the resources. The connections. I have been in the perfect position to gather evidence—to gather the names that need to be gathered. I am incredibly close to discovering the last peer that is involved—that man that directs the whole operation.” His voice hardened. “And once I have him, all of them will pay for their crimes.”

  Her head snapped back. “You’re angry—viciously angry. What is it you’re not telling me?”

  Of course she would drag this out of him. She was too observant not to.

  He inhaled a seething breath. “You remember my sister’s midwife did not make it to Wolfbridge in time to save my sister?”

  Sloane nodded.

  “She was on the journey north when she was killed.”

  Her hand flew to her throat. “Killed?”

  “It was one of the smuggling gangs. The midwife had taken a mail coach to get to Wolfbridge in the quickest possible way, but the coach was stopped in Huntingdonshire. The smugglers were after counterfeit silver coins on board and apparently there was s
truggle. They killed everyone in the coach.”

  He had to unclench his fists before he continued. “So I went after the bastards, and what I discovered when I did was one guilty man after the next. Each one leads to another. The number of deaths by their hands are untold—and each death they need to pay for. On top of that list, I put Corentine.”

  Sloane sank onto the chair by her legs, her eyes glossed over. For a long breath, she didn’t move, didn’t speak. She shook her head and then looked up at him. “You’re saying all of this to get the book back.”

  A flash of boiling indignation swept through his veins, heating his skin. “I’m not here for the damn book, Sloane. I’m here for you. Keep the blasted book, and if I’m a smuggler, I’ll be brought down eventually. With or without the book.”

  “I’ve just been told something so very different about the book, Reiner. And you’ve told me none of this—none of this until now.” Her fingers went to her forehead, rubbing. “How can I trust what you’re saying?”

  His look sliced into her. “I walk out of here.”

  “You what?”

  “I walk out of here. And this time, I walk fast. I leave the book with you so you can do what you will with it. Can you say that about Lord Falsted? Do you even know he’s in the book? That he’s an integral part of the scheme? What would he do in this situation—snatch the book from you the moment it was within his reach? Then what? What would he do with you? Discard you—kill you now that your purpose was served? You’re being used, Sloane, why can’t you see that?”

  “I—” She shook her head, cutting off her own words. Her hands flustered, she stood. “I think my body may be playing tricks upon my mind and I don’t ken what I believe anymore, Reiner.”

  He stepped in, closing the distance between them. “I have every reason not to, Sloane, but I believe what’s in front of me. Whatever blasted thing this is that has happened between us. I believe in that over what you thought to do to me.”