It turned out that was no protection. Not when she closed the door, put her back to it and smiled up at him, her pupils dilated with want, her hand warm in his, so beautiful that he almost couldn’t breathe when he looked at her. Silently, she reached behind and opened the door, drawing him back into the chamber.
“Stoke the fire, will you?” she asked.
He blinked, for until she said those words it was like he’d been under a spell. Now he looked around. The chamber was dark since her servant hadn’t come to prepare it, but not so dark that he couldn’t see the bed. Her bed. Where she intended to…
He should leave. He knew that in his throbbing heart. But he didn’t. He simply walked forward and began to stir the embers and add logs to the flames. He heard her close the door behind him as he did so, heard her turn the key in the lock to ensure that no one would interrupt them.
As the light lifted in the room, he turned and found her still at the door, watching him through a hooded gaze. But he knew her, and he could see that despite all the confidence she was portraying in this moment, she was nervous. Her hands shook just a little. Her gaze darted over him like she wasn’t certain where to look.
And that somehow gave him some strength. He moved toward her, giving in to what was going to happen. He pushed her back against the door gently and ducked his head to kiss her once more. She lifted against him immediately, his name passing from her lips as she opened to him. He drove his tongue into her mouth, this time letting the heat wash over him. This time really accepting that this was happening.
He’d pictured this moment so many times. He’d dreamed about it. But it was so much better as a reality than a fantasy. His body was on fire as he drove his fingers into her hair, forcing the pins that held her style to clatter on the floor around them. He’d never touched her hair before and it was soft as silk. When it fell around them, that scent of lemon and vanilla filled his nostrils and made him even harder with desire than he had been a moment before.
He pushed into her out of instinct, rocking his hips to hers, and she tilted her head back with a gasp of pleasure.
“My God,” she grunted as he glided his mouth to her throat. “I can already feel how big you are.”
He smiled against her skin. He might not know much, but he recognized that was a compliment. Right now he couldn’t think of anything except fitting himself inside of her. Of doing what he’d fantasized about for years as he lay in his bed alone. How many times had he come thinking about this woman beneath him? Around him? He wasn’t sure he’d last a minute once fantasy became reality.
She placed her hands on his chest and pushed, backing him away. “Take off your clothes,” she breathed. “I want to see you.”
He hesitated a moment, then nodded. He shoved out of his jacket and tossed it aside, then began to work on the buttons of his waistcoat as she just stood there, watching, her eyes intently focused. His fingers felt too thick, too clumsy as he tried to free himself.
At last she chuckled. “Perhaps undressing you is better after all,” she whispered, and stepped back into his space.
She looked up at him even as she pushed his hands away and began to unfasten his waistcoat. Her fingers pressed against him through the fabric as she glided it away and then went to work unknotting and uncoiling his cravat. Slowly, she peeled away all the layers of clothes, all the protection he kept between himself and exposure.
Rather a metaphor for their relationship. She was the only one who’d ever truly seen him for who he was. Even the rest of his friends, the duke club that had accepted him like a brother, didn’t know as much as she did. Now she stripped his shirt open and pushed it aside to leave him naked from the waist up.
He expected her to go to work on his trousers, but as she dropped his shirt to the floor, she merely stared at what she had revealed. Her mouth was slightly open and her eyes were wide as she reverently reached out and touched his chest.
“My God,” she hissed as her fingers touched his hot skin. “How do you keep so…muscular?”
He looked down, watching her fingers trace the hard slopes and valleys along his chest and stomach. He knew he looked different from other men of his rank. Most of them didn’t avoid Society or work their own land.
He did when it was required. He liked it, truth be told. It felt real. It didn’t require words.
“Work,” he signed simply.
She stared up into his face, and then a slow smile curled her lips. “Of course,” she murmured. “You are so very unique, my love.”
He might have responded, for her words hit him right in the stomach, but she didn’t allow it. She leaned forward to brush her lips against his chest and all thoughts emptied from his mind as hard, heavy, wild sensation rushed through him. She was licking him. His chest, swirling her tongue around a nipple while her hands dragged lower, down his stomach, and then along the front of his trousers to trace the length of his swollen cock.
She made a sound in her throat, one of pleasure and approval, and he swore he grew hard enough to drive a nail. She continued to stroke as she licked lower, lower, and then her mouth met her fingers as she dropped to her knees in front of him. She looked up to meet his gaze as she unfastened his trousers and they fell around his feet.
She was eye to eye with his cock and heat flooded his cheeks. Embarrassment at being so physically exposed, excitement at having her hands on him, her mouth on him, it all washed over him in waves. His mind was spinning, thoughts attacking him from all angles.
And then she lifted up on her knees a fraction and drew him between her lips. He almost buckled as sensation shot up his cock and flowed through his entire shaking body. He’d taken himself in hand before, of course. Almost always it was to forbidden fantasies of the very woman who now stroked her mouth over him.
But that had never been like this. She worked him slowly, her gaze holding his as she took him into her throat and back out again, as she gripped the root of his staff and gently worked her hand in time.
His hand came down. He meant to push her away to make the powerful sensation less, but somehow his fingers tangled in her hair instead and he held there, feeling her head bob back and forth against his palm as she took him and took him and took him.
He felt his seed moving, the telltale ache that grew and blossomed and told him he was going to come. But he didn’t want to do it like this.
Somehow he found the strength to thrust her away, to yank her to her feet and kiss her again, this time rough as he backed her toward her bed. She was still fully clothed, and his fingers fumbled along the back of her dress, tugging at buttons, popping a few to scatter across the floor until he tugged the gown forward and left her standing in only her chemise.
He drew in a few long breaths as he stepped away from her. He wanted to look at her. He needed to look at her. After all, this was likely the only time he would see her like this. He wanted to savor every moment so he’d never forget a one.
She didn’t move to force his hand. She simply stood before him, her white silk chemise clinging to full breasts, to a slender waist, to the swell of her hips. It was short, so he got a full glimpse of long, lean legs swathed in rather sheer stockings.
He shuddered, filled with as much need and pleasure as he had been when she sucked him. Looking at her was that good. And he wanted more.
He flicked his hand at her and she smiled, a rather wicked smile at that. “Is the Duke of Donburrow requesting that I remove my chemise?” she teased.
He nodded his head ferociously and her smile turned into a throaty laugh.
“You want this?” she asked as she slid one strap of the chemise down her shoulder off her arm. “And this?” she pressed as she repeated the action on the other strap. She kept a hand at the neckline of the chemise, though—she wasn’t really revealed.
He pursed his lips and glared at her. The look didn’t deter her. If anything, his frustration and his drive only emboldened her.
&n
bsp; “Perhaps this?” She tugged and the gown slipped a few inches, revealing her cleavage, almost enough but not quite.
“More,” he signed in desperation.
She cocked her head, examining his face in the glow of the firelight. Then she slowly, silently, dragged her chemise down to the waist and lowered her hands.
His legs nearly went out from under him. She was perfect. Charlotte was tall, so her full breasts fit her long, lean body. Her nipples were the color of dusky roses and they were hard. She was sliding the chemise lower, over her hips, down and down until it pooled at her feet and she kicked it away.
She stood naked before him, clad only in those sheer stockings, and all he could do was stare in shock, in awe, in rapture.
“You can do more than look,” she whispered, as if reading his mind. “I was made to be touched, Ewan. I was made to be yours.”
He wasn’t certain that was true. At least the part about her being made to be his. But made to be touched, oh yes, he could believe that. He stepped forward, clearing his mind of all the reasons why he shouldn’t be doing this, how he didn’t deserve this.
And he touched her. He cupped her breasts and heard a low, deep sound of pleasure come from somewhere in his chest. She tilted her head back with a gasp and it spurred him on. He began to circle her nipples with his thumbs, around and around as she reached up to grip his forearms.
“You certainly don’t let a lack of experience stop you,” she gasped.
He smiled and bent his head. He wanted to lick her, to taste her, and he did, tracing the shape of her nipple with the tip of his tongue. She cried out when he did so and he lifted his head to analyze if that was a sound of pleasure or dislike.
Pleasure, it seemed, for her eyes were squeezed shut and her body was quaking.
He returned his mouth to her, swirling his tongue around her over and over, and finally sucking the nub with just the slightest of force. Her fingers flew into his hair and she held him at her breast, mewling as he switched to the opposite nipple where he repeated the torment.
She was writhing now, her hips arching toward him, her sounds desperate and heated and he stared, mesmerized by her pleasure. He wanted to take his own, of course, but more than that, he wanted to give it to her. He wanted her to scream and wail and shake.
“Please,” she growled, catching his arms and tugging him closer. “Please.”
She pulled him and they fell onto her bed together. He covered her warm, soft body with his own and shivered despite the warmth of the room and the heat she inspired in him. She felt so perfect beneath him. Perfect and right, even if his mind kept trying to remind him that this was anything but right.
It didn’t matter anymore. This was a tidal wave. He couldn’t stop it. What would happen now was a force of nature. She pushed and he rolled onto his back, dragging her across him, lifting his mouth to hers. She drove her own kiss hard and he tasted her passion on her lips. Passion that mounted as she straddled his prone body, positioning her slick entrance over him until he felt the heat of her at the tip of his cock.
He pulled back, eyes wide, and watched as she lowered herself over him. Her soft folds parted to allow him entry and he gritted his teeth at the pure, animal pleasure of the act. She was wet and tight, gripping his sensitive cock like a glove that had been made to fit him. She let out a soft cry as she took him farther and farther, deeper into her ready channel until he was seated to the hilt, her body quivering around him.
He couldn’t find the words to sign as he stared up at her, and she smiled. “I know,” she whispered. “I know, Ewan. Just let it be, just let it happen.”
He nodded slowly and reached out to cup her hips. As his fingers pressed into her flesh, she began to ride him. She was slow at first, rolling her hips over him with control and purpose. She ground down on him, rubbing their pelvises together with every down stroke and ratcheting up the blinding pleasure that rushed through his blood and settled into every nerve ending of his being.
But the longer she went on, the more erratic her thrusts became. Her face twisted with pleasure, her legs shook against his sides as she gripped him, slammed over him, reaching and reaching. At last she let out a wild cry and her back arched as she shuddered over him.
And she had never been so beautiful as she was in that moment of pure, unadulterated pleasure. He stared at her face as she shivered against him, memorizing the way her lips parted, how her eyes were screwed shut, how her hands gripped in fists against his chest. He memorized how her sheath squeezed him, milking him toward his own pleasure that he felt building with more intensity than he’d ever felt it coming before.
As if she sensed the same thing, her eyes came open and she began to move faster over him. Harder. She kissed him as she took him, riding him toward an end he couldn’t control. One he wanted to take as she writhed over him.
And then it was there. He gripped her hips harder and flipped her over onto her back. He covered her, grinding down over her with thrust after thrust as she lifted to him with a keening cry that could have brought the house down but somehow didn’t.
It took everything in him not to spend deep within her. He pulled free just as the first spurts of his release began and pumped hot and hard into his hand. Finally, he collapsed down next to her and dragged her against him to hold her as close and as tight as he could.
Chapter Four
When she was a girl, Charlotte had dreamed of her future with Ewan, and it had been all sunshine and flowers and castles on the hill. As she got older, she’d wanted his kiss or to hold his hand.
Womanhood had changed all that. Her marriage had taught her something about pleasure, and her heated dreams had turned to Ewan’s hands on her. His mouth on her. Their bodies tangled in sweaty, pounding passion.
But never, not in all the years she had wanted him and loved him, had she ever dared to hope for as much tenderness and pleasure as she had just experienced. Ewan might have been a virgin before that night, but his natural talent made up for any lack of experience.
And now she lay in his arms, her naked legs tangled in his, her body still trembling from two powerful orgasms, and she dared to hope that she could have flowers and castles, kisses and held hands and all the passion that boiled between them.
That is, until he moved. Slowly he detangled himself from her and sat up, putting his back to her as he sat on the edge of the bed. His shoulders were rolled, his back slightly hunched. It was a posture of pain. Of defeat, and her heart hurt as she stared at him this way.
She sat up and reached for him. Her hand touched his shoulder and he flinched before he turned to look at her. His dark eyes were empty as he signed, “I’m sorry, Charlotte.”
She shook her head as she joined him on the edge of the bed, swinging her bare legs so they hung just next to his. “Why?” she whispered, leaning in to kiss him.
He let her for a moment, his lips softening, his body edging toward the surrender she wanted so badly. But then he stiffened and pulled back. She looked at him in the fading firelight and saw the same expression on his face that he’d had the night she confessed her heart to him. The night he’d turned her away.
If she didn’t want a repeat of that horrible experience, she had to back off. Go slower. Take what he would give and ease him into more, rather than throwing herself at his feet and begging for it here and now.
She drew a deep, long breath. “Don’t back away from me, Ewan.”
His hands stirred to reply and she caught them so he couldn’t.
“Please,” she whispered. “This doesn’t have to be anything more than pleasure, does it? We want each other, don’t we?” She released his hands and let her fingers trace the harsh line of his jaw, smiling when his whiskers tickled her skin. “I feel it when I touch you. I see it when you look at me. Or would you deny that’s true?”
He sighed deeply and shook his head. “I wouldn’t sport with your intelligence, Charlotte, and try to deny what
you know.”
Her smile broadened at his admission. Tonight she’d gone so much further with him than she’d ever hoped to dream. That gave her hope she could have even more. If she were careful.
“I’m not trying to force anything more out of you,” she lied. “When the holidays are over, I will go back to London. Back on the marriage mart.”
His eyes widened and there was desperation that slashed across his face as he signed, “Why?”
She shrugged gently. “Money, Ewan. And it will be expected of me. So I know where my future lies—I know you won’t give me that. But right now I’m here with you. And I want you, just as I always have. There is only a little bit of time where we’ll be alone like this. Can’t we do this? Just this? Won’t you grant me that when you deny me everything else?”
He jerked his face toward her, and in that charged moment she saw that he wanted more than she asked for. He wanted all the same things she did. But then the expression changed—he pushed those wants away, buried them deep under a layer of self-recrimination and staunch belief that he had earned no happiness or future thanks to the silence he couldn’t control.
But she’d seen the truth, the one he’d always denied, and hope flared harder and hotter in her than it ever had before.
She leaned closer, brushing her lips against his shoulder, dragging them up his neck to dart her tongue against his ear. He tasted warm, he tasted perfect, and she felt him shiver at her touch. He turned into her, gathering her into his arms, dragging her across his lap.
She had her answer, and it was lost as she was swept back onto the pillows once more. His mouth ground down against her, heated and heady and sweet. She lifted into him, opening herself to everything he wanted, anything he desired. She would give him all that and more if it meant even a sliver of a chance to conquer the heart he guarded so jealously.
The Silent Duke Page 4
