He groaned and encouraged while Anne trailed her fingers over the flat nipples that puckered under her attention. Harry sucked in a breath. He gently undid the fastenings of her robe and tossed it atop a heap of rapidly growing garments. He reached for the hem of her robe.
She pulled away, more aware than ever before of the vast difference between her and the voluptuous, scandalous women to come before. “Don’t,” he commanded when she folded her arms across her chest. He pulled the nightshift over her head and dislodged her arms. Silence reigned. She shifted, her body heated with embarrassment at Harry’s silent perusal. She kicked him with her toes.
He winced. “What was that for?”
“You aren’t doing anything.” And then mortified heat promptly coursed through her body at the bold-sounding words. “That is…What I’d meant to say is—”
He kissed her into silence.
She moaned and reached her arms up about his neck. “Must you always do that?” she managed to rasp as he came down over her and trailed his lips down her neck. “Must you…?” He closed his lips over the turgid peak of one breast and she cried out. He drew the fortunate nipple deep in his mouth and sucked. Oh you must. You really must. Anne’s hips shot off the bed and he lowered his hand between her legs. Harry found her center and proceeded to work her with his clever fingers
She tugged at his hair and forced his attention to her other breast. Hardly fair to leave one so horribly neglected…ohhh… “Harry,” she cried out as he slipped another finger inside her. “I’m…” Going to shatter into a million shards of nothing.
“Yes?” he asked, his gruff tone hinted at the thin shred of control he retained.
And somehow that empowered Anne and filled her with a wanton desire to show him the same pleasure he now showed her. She reached between them instinctively and stroked her hand over the swell in his breeches.
Harry groaned. He shifted away and she moaned in protest at the loss of him, but he merely shed his breeches and tossed them aside.
Her mouth went dry and she stared unblinking at the enormous shaft stretched eagerly toward her. “What are you going to do with that?” she blurted. Because the much needed lesson given her that morning by her two sisters seemed vastly more daunting and…quite impossible.
Harry grinned. He took her hand and guided it to his manhood. His smile faded as his flesh leaped involuntarily at her gentle caress.
Anne’s reservations slipped aside as she explored the length of him. She ran her fingers over the length of him then took him in a fist and worked him. Up and down. Up and down. Harry’s head fell back and he arched into her hand.
“Ah, God, you need to stop, love.” His voice came out garbled, desperate and pleading, and hot desire flooded her center at the sight of him finding his pleasure at her hands.
She continued to work him and her efforts were rewarded when he reached between them and found her center once more. Then Harry shifted his weight atop of hers. He braced himself upon his elbows and thrust a knee between her legs. “Forgive me, Anne,” he whispered.
She brushed back the moisture from his brow with a tremulous hand and gave him a soft smile. “There is nothing to—”Her eyes flew wide as he thrust deep inside her. “Bloody hell,” she gasped. She gave his shoulders a nudge. “That is quite not well-done of you, Harry,” she charged as pain throbbed at her center.
He remained frozen above her, his eyes clenched tightly. A faint muscle ticked at the corner of his mouth and her annoyance fled in the face of Harry’s tenderness. She touched his cheek until his eyes opened. “It will be all right, Harry,” she promised. She couldn’t be absolutely certain of that, but… She frowned. “Are you laughing at me?” His shoulders shook and it certainly appeared as though he were. She gave him another nudge. “How—?”
Her words ended on a breathless gasp as he flexed his hips and began to move inside her and all the earlier discomfort melted away to be replaced by the most exquisite, desperate rightness of his loving. His strokes grew deeper, longer, and she arched her hips aching to know…something…that her body would know once it found it. Harry’s brow remained furrowed as if in deep concentration as he thrust inside her. Again. Thrust. And again. “Oh, dear, Harry.” She bit her lip.
“Yes, love, come for me.”
She wanted to. She really wanted to. Except she feared if she plunged over the precipice she now clung to, she’d dissolve into a puddle of nothingness she could never recover from. Then he stroked her center. “I love you, Harry,” she whispered and then shattered in a fiery explosion of color and light.
Harry groaned and poured himself into her; his hot seed flooded her center and she wanted the moment to go on and on. Their cries blended together in a sweet song until he collapsed atop her. His chest heaved up and down from the force of his release.
Anne folded her arms about his broad back and stroked her fingernails lightly over his sweat-dampened skin. A smile played about her lips. “That was quite splendid.”
He rolled off her and carried her with him, pulling her into the curve of his arm. “Indeed it was.” He touched a finger to her lips. “I love you, Anne,” he whispered, raising her hand to his mouth. He kissed her wrist. Delicious shivers raced from the point of contact and spiraled throughout her body. He fixed his gaze on the heart pendant he’d gifted her that she now wore about her neck. “I know you desired the heart of a duke. I know Crawford, or any other duke, would have made you a better husband and yet, selfishly, I could not live without you.”
How could he possibly believe that? She swallowed hard. How could he not realize he was all she wanted? All she’d ever wanted? Losing him to Lady Margaret would have sucked the very soul from her and left her a wispy shell of a creature who’d once loved and lost. Anne touched her fingertips to his cheek. “Oh, you silly man. Surely by now you realize?”
Emotion roughed his voice. “Realize what?”
A smile played about her lips. “How could I have ever wanted Crawford, when I have more than a duke?”
He touched his brow to hers. “And what is that?”
She brushed her lips against his. “I have you,” she whispered.
The End
Dedication
To My Readers
Thank you for your beautiful support and the laughter you bring into my life. And an extra special thank you for all the times you ‘kick me off’ social media so I can keep telling my stories! Hugs
Acknowledgements
To Jillian and Sarah
Thank you for your tireless efforts in turning my work into a finished product.
Biography
Christi Caldwell is the USA Today Bestselling author of historical romance novels set in the Regency era. Christi blames Judith McNaught's "Whitney, My Love," for luring her into the world of historical romance. While sitting in her graduate school apartment at the University of Connecticut, Christi decided to set aside her notes and try her hand at writing romance. She believes the most perfect heroes and heroines have imperfections and rather enjoys tormenting them before crafting a well-deserved happily ever after!
When Christi isn’t writing the stories of flawed heroes and heroines, she can be found in her Southern Connecticut home chasing around her feisty six-year-old son, and caring for twin princesses-in-training!
Visit www.christicaldwellauthor.com to learn more about what Christi is working on, or join her on Facebook at Christi Caldwell Author (for frequent updates, excerpts, and posts about her fun as a fulltime mom and writer) and Twitter @ChristiCaldwell (which she is still quite dreadful with).
Other Books by Christi Caldwell
“Winning a Lady’s Heart”
A Danby Novella
Author's Note: This is a novella that was originally available in A Summons From The Castle (The Regency Christmas Summons Collection). It is being published as an individual novella.
For Lady Alexandra, being the source of a cold, calculated wager is bad enough...but when it is waged b
y Nathaniel Michael Winters, 5th Earl of Pembroke, the man she's in love with, it results in a broken heart, the scandal of the season, and a summons from her grandfather – the Duke of Danby.
To escape Society's gossip, she hurries to her meeting with the duke, determined to put memories of the earl far behind. Except the duke has other plans for Alexandra...plans which include the 5th Earl of Pembroke!
“A Season of Hope”
A Danby Novella
Five years ago when her love, Marcus Wheatley, failed to return from fighting Napoleon’s forces, Lady Olivia Foster buried her heart. Unable to betray Marcus’s memory, Olivia has gone out of her way to run off prospective suitors. At three and twenty she considers herself firmly on the shelf. Her father, however, disagrees and accepts an offer for Olivia’s hand in marriage. Yet it’s Christmas, when anything can happen…
Olivia receives a well-timed summons from her grandfather, the Duke of Danby, and eagerly embraces the reprieve from her betrothal.
Only, when Olivia arrives at Danby Castle she realizes the Christmas season represents hope, second chances, and even miracles.
“Forever Betrothed, Never the Bride”
Book 1 in the Scandalous Seasons Series
Hopeless romantic Lady Emmaline Fitzhugh is tired of sitting with the wallflowers, waiting for her betrothed to come to his senses and marry her. When Emmaline reads one too many reports of his scandalous liaisons in the gossip rags, she takes matters into her own hands.
War-torn veteran Lord Drake devotes himself to forgetting his days on the Peninsula through an endless round of meaningless associations. He no longer wants to feel anything, but Lady Emmaline is making it hard to maintain a state of numbness. With her zest for life, she awakens his passion and desire for love.
The one woman Drake has spent the better part of his life avoiding is now the only woman he needs, but he is no longer a man worthy of his Emmaline. It is up to her to show him the healing power of love.
“Never Courted, Suddenly Wed”
Book 2 in the Scandalous Seasons Series
Christopher Ansley, Earl of Waxham, has constructed a perfect image for the ton–the ladies love him and his company is desired by all. Only two people know the truth about Waxham’s secret. Unfortunately, one of them is Miss Sophie Winters.
Sophie Winters has known Christopher since she was in leading strings. As children, they delighted in tormenting each other. Now at two and twenty, she still has a tendency to find herself in scrapes, and her marital prospects are slim.
When his father threatens to expose his shame to the ton, unless he weds Sophie for her dowry, Christopher concocts a plan to remain a bachelor. What he didn't plan on was falling in love with the lively, impetuous Sophie. As secrets are exposed, will Christopher’s love be enough when she discovers his role in his father’s scheme?
“Always Proper, Suddenly Scandalous”
Book 3 in the Scandalous Seasons Series
Geoffrey Winters, Viscount Redbrooke was not always the hard, unrelenting lord driven by propriety. After a tragic mistake, he resolved to honor his responsibility to the Redbrooke line and live a life, free of scandal. Knowing his duty is to wed a proper, respectable English miss, he selects Lady Beatrice Dennington, daughter of the Duke of Somerset, the perfect woman for him. Until he meets Miss Abigail Stone...
To distance herself from a personal scandal, Abigail Stone flees America to visit her uncle, the Duke of Somerset. Determined to never trust a man again, she is helplessly intrigued by the hard, too-proper Geoffrey. With his strict appreciation for decorum and order, he is nothing like the man' she's always dreamed of.
Abigail is everything Geoffrey does not need. She upends his carefully ordered world at every encounter. As they begin to care for one another, Abigail carefully guards the secret that resulted in her journey to England.
Only, if Geoffrey learns the truth about Abigail, he must decide which he holds most dear: his place in Society or Abigail's place in his heart.
“Always a Rogue, Forever Her Love”
Book 4 in the Scandalous Seasons Series
Miss Juliet Marshville is spitting mad. With one guardian missing, and the other singularly uninterested in her fate, she is at the mercy of her wastrel brother who loses her beloved childhood home to a man known as Sin. Determined to reclaim control of Rosecliff Cottage and her own fate, Juliet arranges a meeting with the notorious rogue and demands the return of her property.
Jonathan Tidemore, 5th Earl of Sinclair, known to the ton as Sin, is exceptionally lucky in life and at the gaming tables. He has just one problem. Well…four, really. His incorrigible sisters have driven off yet another governess. This time, however, his mother demands he find an appropriate replacement.
When Miss Juliet Marshville boldly demands the return of her precious cottage, he takes advantage of his sudden good fortune and puts an offer to her; turn his sisters into proper English ladies, and he’ll return Rosecliff Cottage to Juliet's possession.
Jonathan comes to appreciate Juliet’s spirit, courage, and clever wit, and decides to claim the fiery beauty as his mistress. Juliet, however, will be mistress for no man. Nor could she ever love a man who callously stole her home in a game of cards. As Jonathan begins to see Juliet as more than a spirited beauty to warm his bed, he realizes she could be a lady he could love the rest of his life, if only he can convince the proud Juliet that he's worthy of her hand and heart.
“A Marquess For Christmas”
Book 5 in the Scandalous Seasons Series
Lady Patrina Tidemore gave up on the ridiculous notion of true love after having her heart shattered and her trust destroyed by a black-hearted cad. Used as a pawn in a game of revenge against her brother, Patrina returns to London from a failed elopement with a tattered reputation and little hope for a respectable match. The only peace she finds is in her solitude on the cold winter days at Hyde Park. And even that is yanked from her by two little hellions who just happen to have a devastatingly handsome, but coldly aloof father, the Marquess of Beaufort. Something about the lord stirs the dreams she’d once carried for an honorable gentleman’s love.
Weston Aldridge, the 4th Marquess of Beaufort was deceived and betrayed by his late wife. In her faithlessness, he’s come to view women as self-serving, indulgent creatures. Except, after a series of chance encounters with Patrina, he comes to appreciate how uniquely different she is than all women he’s ever known.
At the Christmastide season, a time of hope and new beginnings, Patrina and Weston, unexpectedly learn true love in one another. However, as Patrina’s scandalous past threatens their future and the happiness of his children, they are both left to determine if love is enough.
“In Need of a Duke”
A Prequel Novella to “The Heart of a Duke” Series by Christi Caldwell
In Need of a Duke: (Author's Note: This is a prequel novella to "The Heart of a Duke" series by Christi Caldwell. It was originally available in "The Heart of a Duke" Collection and is now being published as an individual novella.
~*~
It features a new prologue and epilogue.
Years earlier, a gypsy woman passed to Lady Aldora Adamson and her friends a heart pendant that promised them each the heart of a duke.
Now, a young lady, with her family facing ruin and scandal, Lady Aldora doesn't have time for mythical stories about cheap baubles. She needs to save her sisters and brother by marrying a titled gentleman with wealth and power to his name. She sets her bespectacled sights upon the Marquess of St. James.
Turned out by his father after a tragic scandal, Lord Michael Knightly has grown into a powerful, but self-made man. With the whispers and stares that still follow him, he would rather be anywhere but London...
Until he meets Lady Aldora, a young woman who mistakes him for his brother, the Marquess of St. James. The connection between Aldora and Michael is immediate and as they come to know one another, Aldora's feelings for Michael war with her sisterl
y responsibilities. With her family's dire situation, a man of Michael's scandalous past will never do.
Ultimately, Aldora must choose between her responsibilities as a sister and her love for Michael.
First Full-Length Book in the “Heart of a Duke” Series by Christi Caldwell
“For Love of the Duke”
More Than a Duke (Heart of a Duke Book 2) Page 31
