One Fine Duke

by Lenora Bell

  “So that’s what the finishing looks like,” she said.

  He opened his eyes.

  She was still holding him, lightly stroking, and staring down in fascination.

  “I was wondering what it looked like. You moved away from the window before I could see.”

  He sighed, pleasure still coursing through his veins. “I really need that towel now.”

  Drew was drying himself by the fire. He hadn’t put his shirt on yet. He stood there in thin undergarments and bare chest, looking so delectable that Mina wanted to lick him dry with her tongue.

  Damn his moonlit eyes, he was handsome.

  All that long, lean male. She’d had him in her grip. The power of it had gone to her head. Made her feel drunk—languid and languorous—but with a greedy desire for more power. More pleasure.

  His . . . and hers.

  She knew this was a dangerous game, but she wanted more. She wanted to dance right on the edge of disaster, so she sat on the edge of his bed. There were chairs available but she was sleepy and dreamy and a bed seemed like the right choice.

  The sharp edges of life had been filed away, softened, and now really what was there to do but find a way to kiss Drew again?

  “Corbyn also gave me that jug of brandy on the table,” she pointed out.

  “That was to take the edge of tension away from all that traveling. I’m feeling much more relaxed now.”

  “Less tense?”

  “Minx. You know what you did.”

  “I’m feeling a little tense myself.” She lay back on the pillows.

  “Here, have some brandy.” He held out a glass.

  When she didn’t move, he scooped his arm under her neck and brought her to a seated position. “Brandy, Mina. Not beds.”

  “Beds are much nicer than brandy, wouldn’t you agree? So many wonderful things happen in beds.”

  “Chair.” He pointed at a chair. “Now.”

  She slid off the bed. He pulled a white shirt over his head, leaving it open at the neck. She wanted to pull it right back off.

  “We need to talk,” he said.

  “Oh Lord, here we go again.” She took a seat. “What are the new rules?”

  “I’m going to answer a question you asked me when we were in Rafe’s red room.”

  She sat up straighter. “About the kidnapping.”

  “You asked me how I rescued myself.” He sank to his heels and lifted the poker. He stirred the embers until they caught the edge of a piece of wood, licking into flames. “I told stories.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “At first I was too scared to talk. The man who kidnapped me was desperate. I could see it in his eyes when he chained me to the wall. He thought of me as a symbol, not a person. A symbol of the extreme inequality of the wealth distribution in our country.”

  “He was your father’s tenant?”

  “Former tenant. He’d lost everything. He had children to feed. He demanded that my father pay a ransom—it wasn’t even an extravagant amount of money—for my return. Every day my captor became angrier, more irrational. He said that my father refused to pay because if he paid one kidnapper, ten more would take his place.”

  “How cruel.”

  “The days stretched on. It was the uncertainty that was the worst. I was held in a ship’s hold. At any second the ship could set sail and I might never see England or my family again.”

  “Why would a farmer hold you in a ship?”

  “He struck a bargain with an unscrupulous privateer to split the proceeds of the ransom money for the use of his ship.”

  “I can’t imagine, Drew. I can’t imagine how scared you must have been.”

  “I was terrified. He only fed me a thin gruel and it wasn’t nearly enough for a growing boy. I began to grow weak. My kidnapper left for several days and a boy about my own age came to feed me. I realized that this was my one chance for escape. He’d been instructed not to speak to me, but I talked until he started listening. I talked about anything that came into my mind. Anything to make him see me as a human being, and not a symbol, or an animal.”

  “That must have been the best thing you could have done.”

  “It was. The boy and I became . . . friends, of sorts. His name was Silas. He was the kidnapper’s middle son. He told me all about his life. I told him about mine. We forged a bond and I was finally able to convince him to unlock my chains. I was too weak to run very far, but a constable found me and returned me to my father.”

  “You rescued yourself.”

  “No one else was going to. When I arrived home, my father immediately wanted me to lead him to the kidnapper but I pretended to be too weak to talk. I wanted . . . I know this is going to sound strange, but I wanted to give the man and his son time to escape. I didn’t want Silas to be arrested, to be tried and hung for something that wasn’t his fault. I don’t understand it to this day, how I could have forged a bond like that with someone who was keeping me captive.”

  “You sympathized with their plight. That’s why you’ve devoted yourself to improving conditions for the tenants on your estate.”

  “It’s almost some strange penance I must do. To expiate the sins of my father. Who will create change if not those at the top? The tenants will riot if we don’t find a better system.”

  He finished his heated brandy. “I’ve never told anyone about all of this, Mina. You’re the only person in the world who knows about Silas and how I escaped. I never told a soul about him. Eventually his father was caught, tried, and sent to Australia. They would have hung him if I hadn’t pleaded his case in court.”

  “What happened to Silas?”

  “I don’t know. He disappeared. I’ve never heard anything from him or about him.”

  “Quite possibly, you saved his life by never disclosing his role in your imprisonment.”

  “He saved mine. My father was ashamed of the whole ordeal. He told me never to speak of it.”

  “You had to be so strong. After it happened, you had to hide your emotions and pretend everything was normal. You don’t have to pretend with me, Drew. Trust me. I’m strong enough to share your pain.”

  “I’ve been remote and withdrawn from my family, my friends. I’ve been avoiding passion of any kind, avoiding warmth and affection. You make me crave everything I’ve been missing, but I don’t want you to be hurt. I’ve alienated everyone in my life who once cared about me. I didn’t even attend my own father’s funeral. I didn’t feel anything when he died. I should have been sad or angry. All I felt was this enormous void, this ocean of nothingness, and that’s when I understood that I wasn’t like other people, and I never would be.”

  “It’s not your fault. It’s because of the kidnapping.”

  He laid his hand over hers on the table. “Knowing the cause of my affliction doesn’t stop it from spreading.”

  The instant sweet relief of his touch. Momentary relief because then she wanted more.

  She lifted his hand and interlaced her fingers with his. “You can’t tell me that you don’t feel this . . . this energy between us. Our bodies . . . our minds. If you connected with your emotions, you’d feel it too.”

  “If I allow myself to feel too much, I have attacks. Moments of panic and disorientation. Mostly when I’m in London. Or in crowds, or in small, unfamiliar dark spaces like the room behind the bookshelf. Small things set off the attacks. At the ball, when you found me hiding in the garden shed, it was because a drop of wax fell on my cheek and it reminded me of something that happened to me during my captivity.”

  She nodded. “I’m beginning to understand you. You’re a puzzle and I’m putting together the pieces.”

  “I’m not a puzzle, I’m a dead-end street. Don’t feel sorry for me. I don’t want your pity. That’s why I don’t want people to know about my kidnapping. I hate the thought of people pitying me.”

  “I can feel you closing up,” she said.

  “I shouldn’t have told you, I should

n’t have talked about it.”

  “I do pity you, Drew, you’re right. But not the man in front of me, the boy you were. The one attending a celebration with his friends, happy and carefree, and then taken and locked away.”

  Her hand clasped in his, the strength in her eyes. The tug of his heart wanting to connect with hers.

  He’d confessed everything, his weakness, his mixed-up emotions, his fears and she still wanted him. It did feel good to talk about it, more than good.

  The relief was instant, sweet and clear as a drink of spring water on a hot summer’s day. The sweetness filled his mind, spilled over into his body.

  “I don’t want to burden you with my darkness,” he said.

  “My shoulders are strong. I want you,” she whispered.

  He groaned. “Mina, all I want to do is drag you into my arms. Hold you there, hold you so tightly.”

  “I want that too.”

  “I want it so badly it’s tearing me apart. I want you in my arms. My bed. I want to be inside you, know you, taste you.”

  “Our acquaintance began with a waltz that felt more like a war,” she said. “It progressed to pistols and you holding me against a wall, and from there it’s devolved into passionate kissing and . . . other activities. We can never have a conventional relationship. Stop trying to shape it into something that can be classified.”

  “It would only be a temporary closeness and in the morning we’d still have this quest we’re on. Everything would still be complicated,” he said, clinging to reason.

  “We’re both lonely people, Drew. There is emptiness inside me too. I wanted so badly for my parents and my uncle to love me, to need me, to give me praise. This brief time with you has been the most meaningful and fulfilling adventure of my life.”

  “It’s been unforgettable,” he agreed.

  “It doesn’t have to end. Don’t wall yourself away. Stay here with me. Give yourself to me.”

  Chapter 27

  Give yourself to me.

  Was he willing to take that risk? Was she willing, knowing everything that she knew about how damaged he was?

  “I crave you, Mina, I’m drawn to you, but I’ve lived for so long in this self-imposed prison. There are so many lines I never cross.”

  She was everything he’d been denying himself. Not just sex, unbridled laughter, small intimate moments, new insights, feeling drunk and not touching a drop of alcohol, feeling giddy, uncontrolled.

  Mina rose to her feet and he followed. She held out her hands to him, palms upward. “It’s all well and good to have high ideals, to be a provider, pay your brother’s debts, give your family a good life. It’s all wonderful and admirable. But what’s left for you? You’ve been living on crumbs because you feel like that’s all you deserve.”

  She was right.

  He’d been starved. Starving for her.

  “Consume me, Drew. I’m yours.”

  And that’s when his heart leapt off the cliff. He could build new walls tomorrow. Higher, stronger, thicker.

  Tonight he was going to be free.

  She knew him better than anyone in the world. He almost felt like she knew him better than he knew himself. And she wanted him.

  It was a miracle, because she’d seen the worst of him, she’d seen his weakness and his fears.

  The lusty look in her eyes thrilled him to his core.

  “I want to rip off your shirt, Drew,” she said. “I need to feel your hardness against me, in my hand, in my mouth, between my thighs.”

  Oh, God, she was going to kill him.

  “I’m so hard for you.” He opened the buttons of his smallclothes with a few practiced movements and freed his cock. “This is what you do to me. Every time I think about you, every time you look at me like that, every time we kiss, this is what happens.”

  “That’s all mine?”

  “All yours. Only yours.”

  “To play with?”

  “To do whatever you want with. Except no biting.”

  She giggled. “Not even a little love nip?”

  “Maybe just a light one.”

  She walked backward to the bed and fell across it. Spread her thighs. The slit in her drawers revealed everything, the curved, pink heart of her.

  He’d never seen anything so beautiful.

  “This is what you do to me.” She dipped a finger inside her sex. She brought it out, glistening with wetness.

  She licked the tip of her finger and he almost came then and there. “Christ. Mina. Where did you come from?”

  “I want to be wicked with you, Drew.”

  She wore a serviceable gray traveling gown that was easy to remove. She kicked off her own slippers.

  Lifting her into his arms was easy. She was so light in his arms, a small bundle of curves and silky skin. He sought her lips.

  She curled her arms around his neck, deepening the kiss. The soft approving noise she made in the back of her throat drove him to the edge of madness.

  He placed her in the center of the bed and peeled her white cotton shift up her body and over her arms, throwing it to the floor. He untied the string of her drawers and tugged them down her body.

  Her stockings came next.

  He wanted her completely naked. He was going to feast so well tonight.

  She was so luscious. Full breasts with erect pink nipples. The sight tied his stomach in knots and hardened his cock.

  The swooping curves of her, the shadows, the secret places he couldn’t see yet.

  The curling light brown hair over her sex.

  “You’re so beautiful,” he said.

  “Show me that taut body of yours. Preen for me like you did in the window,” she commanded.

  His shirt was over his head and his smalls around his ankles quicker than lightning.

  “You want a show, do you?” He flexed his arms, making the muscles bulge and pop.

  “You’re hired,” she said breathily.

  He knelt over her on the bed and kissed her breasts, exploring, teasing, worshipping.

  Sliding his tongue down the center of her body, he stopped to greet her navel, her hipbones, the curve of her belly. He slipped a finger inside her.

  He slid another finger inside her, stretching the silken walls. She was so wet.

  She sighed and squirmed beneath him, spreading her thighs wider. “Please,” she said. “More.”

  He was dying to take her, to be inside her, in her wetness and heat, in the embrace of her body. But first she had to come for him, moan his name.

  He angled his fingers into a curved shape inside her, fluttering them gently. He kept his fingers inside her as he bent forward and licked her clitoris.

  She gasped. “Drew. That’s . . . oh Lord. My new favorite thing.”

  He would have smiled but he was too busy licking, flicking, and sucking.

  The firm, gentle lapping of his tongue drove her wild. And his fingers kept finding new places inside her, coaxing new sensations.

  She closed her eyes, forgetting everything except what he was doing to her.

  She wanted his tongue to move faster now, harder, more pressure. If he moved slightly to the right and sucked in with his lips . . . but she couldn’t tell him that because it would ruin the moment, ruin her concentration.

  Perhaps if she nudged a little bit with her hips.

  He listened, shifting the angle of his mouth and sliding his tongue faster. Then he found exactly the right place.

  She held her breath, pleading silently for him to stay there. Just a little bit longer, please. A little longer . . .

  She came apart, bearing down on his fingers, bucking against his tongue.

  The wave of pleasure crested and continued to roll through her, carrying her mind into a night sky with bursts of gold, purple, and red.

  He slid back up her body. When he kissed her, she tasted herself on his tongue.

  The crown of his cock nudged between her thighs.

  “Are you sure you want this, Mina?”

  “All my life I’ve tried to please other people and I’ve never acted solely for myself. I want something for me. For my pleasure. I want you.”

  He pushed into her body. It stretched her, raw and real, and so much larger than his fingers.

  “Do you want me to stop?” he asked, his gaze intent on her face.

  “I need you inside me,” she said breathlessly. “Now.”

  Slowly, with one long controlled movement, he entered her to the hilt.

  His huge body made her feel small, but not helpless. She knew that she was fully in control. His arms circled her body, lifting her hips to meet his gentle thrusts. She was surrounded, enveloped. She loved surrendering to the rhythm he set.

  He moved forward, pushing into the center of her, kissing her deeply. Sweetly.

  “Wrap your legs around me. Find the angle that feels the best,” he said.

  That low, commanding voice of his melted her into a puddle.

  She lifted one leg and then the other, hooking them over his firm buttocks. He began to move again and this time it felt better, smoother.

  One of his hands moved behind her and cradled her skull in his large palm, his fingers spanning her neck.

  He made her feel so cherished. The way he looked at her as if she were the loveliest thing he’d ever seen.

  That look in his eyes, the one that told her she was enough, with all her flaws, her fears, and her rough edges.

  She was enough.

  He didn’t want anyone else. He didn’t want her to be anything else.

  All her life she’d been attempting to fit someone else’s mold. And for what? Because she craved this—approval, acceptance. Understanding.

  Communion. Togetherness.

  Their bodies moving together, linked into a whole.

  She was enough. More than enough.

  She basked in the knowledge, kissing his lips, tasting the brandy on his tongue and feeling replete . . . complete.

  “Mine, you’re mine. All mine,” she said fiercely, spreading her thighs wide, clasping his buttocks to her with her heels possessively. “Give yourself to me, Drew. Not just your body. Give me your emotions. Tell me what you’re feeling.”

  -->