by Eva Devon
He gripped the thin chemise, pulling upward, but stopping at her thigh. Her hands splayed over his shoulders, even if her mind barely registered what he was doing.
It was all so shockingly overwhelming. All the books, all the pictures in those books of heroines being dragged off by heroes, their clothing in disarray, were nothing like this sinfully marvelous moment. This was soft and tender and wicked and wonderful. If she did not allow her thoughts to overtake her, she realized that she was enjoying this incredibly.
When her thoughts began to whisper that she mustn't give way to pure pleasure and its dangers, she pushed them back, for she could not have a repetition of the other night.
No, she would not pull back from him this time.
This time, she was going to do as a wife should and give in. Besides, she was so curious, so very curious about what a powerful, strong man like him could do with a young lady like herself. So, when he began to lead her to his bed, slowly, deliberately, she followed easily even if her insides quaked at the unknown.
As he carefully helped her up onto the counterpane, she held her breath.
What would he do next?
He stood before her, the fire behind him silhouetting his body. And then, oh so slowly, he reached into the waistband of his breeches, pulled out his linen shirt, then whipped it over his head, revealing a chest which rivaled any Grecian statue that had been brought home from a Grand Tour.
Languid in his comfort with his body, he easily tossed his clothing to the floor.
The amber glow of candles and the firelight caressed his bared torso, highlighting the hills and valleys of the smooth muscles of his chest and arms.
It was like staring at a Greek god from ancient myth.
She longed to reach out to touch him, just as she would have longed to reach out to touch marble in a gallery. But in those long galleries filled with prized artifacts in the homes of so many lords, she'd never been allowed to touch, and here she felt like she was not quite allowed to either.
Until slowly, deliberately, he took her hand in his and brought it to his chest.
"Is that what you wish?" he asked.
"How did you know?” she breathed, stunned by the feel of his warm skin over his hard muscles.
"I see it in your eyes,” he replied quietly. “Go ahead then, Augusta. Touch me."
And so she did.
She traced her fingers over his tempting skin, taking in the feel of his defined body and the strength of him beneath her touch.
He straddled the bed with one knee, tilted her head back again and took her mouth with a harsh growl, as if he wished to devour her whole.
She gave in to him. To her own desires.
Augusta arched against his body, letting her hands rove over his strong back as if somehow she could make them one.
“Damnation, Augusta,” he growled. “What you do to me. . .”
“What do I do?” she whispered against his mouth.
“You drive me mad. Mad with need.” He kissed her again, biting her lower lip ever so lightly. “I cannot bear it. I must have you.”
“Then have me,” she replied, as she leaned back and offered her body up to him.
It was perhaps the boldest thing she had ever done and it was both terrifying and liberating.
His eyes flared with desire.
Tenderly, but driven, he took her chemise in his hands, raked it up her body, lifted her, and divested her of it in one swift move.
She gasped at how easily he stripped her naked.
At the touch of the air and under his now half-lidded gaze, her skin tingled with anticipation and a deep need started to ache between her thighs.
It was the strangest, most delicious sensation.
And somehow, she knew that he had the answer to that ache.
Hunger took hold of him and he lowered himself over her body, kissing the hollow of her neck.
He wound his hands with hers, then kissed lower, tracing her collar bones. Deliberately, he tasted the place between her beasts before he lingered over one of her taut nipples. He studied it for a long moment.
“Beautiful,” he breathed. And then he took it into his mouth, teasing it with his hot tongue.
A cry of surprise and delight slipped from her mouth.
She closed her eyes as she arched her back.
Pure satisfaction rippled from him as he worked his way down her belly.
What was he doing? Her mind raced, wild, trying to countenance it. But in this? This she trusted he knew exactly what he was about.
He paused, lingering over her hips.
“Look at me, Augusta,” he ordered softly.
She drew in a ragged breath, then opened her eyes and met his gaze.
The sight of him, his dark eyes wicked with desire and yet. . . Soft with the need to please her. . . Her heart did something terrifying. It warmed to him. Because in this moment, it was impossible to deny that he wished her pleasure more than his own.
And that had never happened to her in her whole life.
Tears stung her eyes.
“Mine,” he rumbled, even as that single word seemed to stun them both.
And then his mouth was on her inner thighs, skimming over her. She jolted but nothing prepared her for his mouth on the softest part of her body.
His tongue found a spot she’d not even known existed and she bucked beneath him, shocked by the profound pulses of pleasure he evoked.
He was relentless, kissing, teasing, circling.
She could not draw in enough breath. Her entire body coiled as he pushed her higher and higher. Biting down on her lower lip, she moaned.
“Don’t fight it,” he said, before resuming his seduction of her body.
And as if those words freed her, she did indeed stop fighting. And as he kept at his tasting and caressing of that impossibly, glorious place between her legs, a ripple so intense washed over her that she cried out his name.
Again and again, that wave washed over her body. Her mind could think of nothing but him. And she felt. Oh, how she felt!
Just as she began to draw slow breaths again, he knelt over her and slid his breeches down his legs and threw them over the side of the bed.
He stroked her tangled locks back from her face. “You’re certain?”
She licked her lips, barely able to think but knowing that he’d given her pleasure first to make this easier. Her husband was the oddest of men, and suddenly she felt as if she was beginning to know him.
She could not form words. Liquid and almost senseless, she dared to bring her hands to his face, palming his hard jaw. She nodded.
Only then did she notice the strain to his sinew. Tight as a metal string on a pianoforte, ready to be struck, he was holding himself as if at any moment he might break.
He needed her.
So, she parted her thighs further.
His chest expanded in a rugged breath. He understood her. And with that, he carefully eased between her legs.
“I wish to be gentle, but God I want you, Augusta,” he rasped.
“I’m strong,” she assured.
A groan tore from his throat. “I know it well.”
Much to her amazement, he palmed his sex. . . She had no other word for it. And he caressed her slick, hot center with it.
It was a perfect feeling. It caressed her and then teased her opening.
She gazed up at him, knowing what was about to happen, but her nerves danced, for one could only do this the first time once.
And as he gently rocked against her, she was amazed to find that her body was once again tossing upward, for he teased her most sensitive spot with the rounded tip of his sex.
A low cry of want slipped past her lips and just at that moment, he thrust forward.
Her low cry turned into a yelp of dismay.
It was. . . Unpleasant.
He paused.
She gazed up at him as her mind and body attempted to understand what had just happened. He felt. . . Too la
rge. Too strange.
Panting slightly, she wiggled beneath him.
A groan of sheer torture wrenched out of him, but he did not continue. Instead, he held absolutely still.
“I. . . I can stop,” he ground out.
She contemplated her odd situation, struggling slightly. Half her mind urged her to run from this. . . But something deeper, something more powerful, urged her to tilt her hips. And so that was what she did, and a sigh of relief whispered from her,and she teased, “Don’t you dare.”
He gazed down on her with wonder, then oh so slowly began thrusting deeper into her welcoming body.
With each retreat then thrust forward, Augusta stared up at him, taking in the way his face transformed in their union. He looked. . . Powerful, determined, and yet so full of restraint until finally. . .
Augusta followed her instincts and lifted her legs, wrapping them around his hips.
She took his face in her hands and said to him, “Don’t fight it.”
A look of sheer wonder crossed his face then and he did just as she urged, as she had done for him.
He circled his fingers over that place at the apex of her thighs and just as she crested into pleasure, he shuddered against her, his body wild as he drove his fingers into her hair and took her mouth in the most wicked kiss she had ever known.
Chapter 18
Augusta buttered her toast, grinning before she realized that she'd put far too much of it on her perfectly browned bread.
Feeling rather splendid and lost in her surprisingly pleasant thoughts, she’d slathered it as if there was no tomorrow.
Then again, perhaps since she was a small girl, this was the first time she'd been given free rein to such a wide variety of food.
Adam sat easily at the other end of the exceptionally long, polished mahogany breakfast table, consumed in a stack of papers and a perfectly ironed news sheet.
The table, she felt, was far too long for breakfast. Perhaps it would do for dinner, a large party, but not for breakfast, surely! But then again, he was a duke. And dukes did have exceptionally large parties.
He gave her no heed as she contemplated him and the breadth of his table. It was a miracle she could see him at all, for the table was covered in artfully arranged lilacs, greenery, and silver serving dishes.
She masticated her toast slowly, savoring the rich taste of the butter upon the perfectly toasted bread.
She and her sisters had rationed their butter.
She almost swooned with happiness despite the fact that she felt uneasy with him at the other end. After all, it seemed that in the light of day, he had little interest in her at all.
Surprise should never have occurred to her. They didn’t like each other, after all.
She took a sip of her perfectly steeped black tea, which she drank plain. It needed no accoutrement. Unlike her own tea which had been steeped more than once, this was a rich beverage, layered with nuances of India. A country she could only imagine from the books she had read and paintings she had seen.
As she drank in the scent, she nearly swooned with happiness.
When she contemplated the rashers of bacon and eggs upon her plate, she could have perished with happiness upon the spot. How was she was going to survive without gaining a stone?
The only things which inhibited her perfect happiness was the fact that she was living with a man that she was essentially estranged from. Despite the decided intimacy of the night before.
It was all most strange.
The duke, for she did still struggle to think of him as something so familiar as Adam, flicked his paper.
As if he’d felt her intense scrutiny, he lifted his dark gaze and studied her plate and then her beautifully painted blue and orange porcelain cup.
"Are you drinking tea?" he inquired.
She stared at her cup, mystified by his question. "I am indeed. The blend is delicious. Thank you very much."
He gave her an odd stare. “You needn’t thank me. It's your tea now, Augusta.”
She swallowed. Her tea. Her cups. Her table. Her food. Her vast house filled with more rooms than a palace. It was a difficult thing to reconcile with, given she could not buy sugar or a new gown but a few weeks before.
He arched a dark brow and then folded his paper. “Have you ever tried coffee?”
"I must confess, I have not.” She eyed her tea, enjoying it thoroughly enough not to wish to part with it just yet. And then there was the truth. “My uncle drank it but he did not share it with us. It is not, I think, a young lady’s drink.”
"I think you should try it,” he said. “Most drink it in the coffee houses, but I like to have it when I break my fast. It’s a very invigorating beverage."
The bizarre notion, invigorating like yourself, danced through her head. But she managed to keep that to herself, because she wasn't interested in shocking him over the breakfast table.
The previous evening had been quite enough, thank you very much, for a lifetime of shocks. She still could hardly countenance what had happened.
He spoke to her as if they were strangers now.
Which of course they were.
"Here, let me pour you some." He stood and crossed to the silver coffee pot. Given it was breakfast, there was no footman.
Easily, accustomed to so many luxuries, he picked it up, then cut the distance down the long table and gave her a fresh porcelain cup. He poured liberally.
The black liquid positively steamed from the silver urn as it spilled from one vessel to the next.
She peered at the ominous looking beverage. "How do I drink it?"
“Like it comes,” he replied, standing back, watching her.
She lifted the cup to her lips, catching the deep scent before she tasted the dark liquid.
She coughed.
It filled her mouth and teased her throat with a rich darkness. But then she took another sip and found herself desiring more.
Coffee was very much like the duke, she surmised. Hot, dark, strong, yet leaving one wanting more despite the slight bitterness.
He gazed down at her, smiling. “I’m most impressed. The reports are false, Augusta. You do like the pleasures of this life."
She blushed at that, certain he was not only referring to her enjoyment of the coffee.
"I suppose so,” she confessed. "I've never tasted anything like it."
"I do think that ladies should be allowed to drink it with as much gusto as gentlemen. It is a wonderful beverage to get one up and about in the morning. And ladies are required to be up and facing the world just as their male counterparts.”
"You must know a great deal about late nights, Your Grace, to need such a thing upon waking."
"I do indeed know a great many things about late nights but not, perhaps, for the reasons you seem to surmise." He strode back to his seat, picked up his news sheet, then crossed back to her. He dropped it beside her plate. He pointed to a long column. "Here, you say you enjoy reading news sheets. Read that."
She let her gaze rest on the blocked letters crammed tightly into the area of the news sheet, stunned to find that his indication led to an article about a housing scandal in the East End.
Quickly, she raced along the words, taking in the information. It seemed that several houses had been erected far too quickly by a dubious builder who cared for nothing but profits.
Now, the homes were falling apart. Literally. Walls were leaning out into the narrow roads, tumbling down, leaving those inside homeless.
"My goodness,” she exclaimed. "Whatever can be done?"
"I'm going to attempt to do something about it in Parliament today.”
"You are?"
"Yes, Augusta. I don't spend my entire life drinking gin and dancing waltzes in the arms of actresses,” he teased. “Is that what you thought?"
She grinned at his humorous and rather dramatic description of himself. "I suppose it was, yes."
"Even rakes like me have work to do."
"Of course, I knew that you gave speeches in Parliament. I'd read about those, but I had no idea that your day was so preoccupied." "You'll be lucky if you see me for an hour a day,” he warned, taking up his paper and folding it again. "I usually am up before dawn and am in my study doing research about what needs to be taken care of in government, the entirety of the country, or for my estates."
A slightly pained look crossed his face. “I'll have to take you out there soon so that you'll see what you're managing."
Goodness, was she going to manage his houses? Of course she was. She was his duchess. That was what duchesses did.
She hoped that she would prove able for such a large undertaking. She certainly hoped she could. She'd been capable of managing a falling apart estate for some time now. Managing one that was already well run, well, surely that would be much simpler. Except, it suddenly hit her, it wouldn't be one. It would likely be several country houses and his London house.
She drew in a slow breath at the daunting prospect.
"If the idea of it gives you pause," he offered, "Lady Montcrief would be happy to teach you anything that you feel that you need to know."
She wasn't fool enough to turn such an offer away out of hand. "Thank you, Adam. I think that would be marvelous."
He cocked his head to the side. “Truly, you're open to having her assist you?”
“I think I’d be an idiot not take up her assistance. Lady Montcrief is a font of knowledge.”
He smiled then. "You struck me as someone who would wish to do everything yourself."
"Oh, in general,” she agreed. “If I think I'm capable, I absolutely do wish to do it myself, but only fools do not recognize when they need assistance in a task. I have a strong feeling that your estate is not a few acres, one large house, and a few sheep and cows." A booming laugh poured out of him. "Correct, Augusta. In essence, I own thousands of acres, supervise two counties, and we will likely spend our year rotating between six houses. You shall have your work cut out for you, should you choose to take it up.”
"In all honesty, I'm glad that you wish me to help,” she enthused, delighted to have something to do. “I was concerned you were going to relegate me to a non-existent life, doing little but stare out the window and go for long walks to entertain myself."
