“Yes,” she whispered.
Her fingers guided him. She rolled to her tiptoes. Their mouths met, hungry, hot, and open. On a groan, he sank his tongue past her lips, and he knew for certain in that moment of feverish capitulation he would not rest until he was inside her. Until she was his. The instincts that had infallibly guided him through years of war—instincts he had ignored on the godawful day he’d lost his best friend—had never betrayed him.
He could make her his mistress, grant her carte blanche. Although he had never offered his protection to anyone before her, he knew having her once or even a handful of furtive times would never satisfy him. Her tongue tangled with his. God, yes. He could find another damned governess. This woman was his and his alone. His sisters could not possibly require her as much as he did.
He hummed his satisfaction into her mouth, knowing he had found the perfect solution, and deepened the kiss.
Chapter Eight
The Duke of Whitley kissed the way he did everything. Full-force. Blistering. Unpredictable and wild. His mouth upon hers was passionate and demanding, a conflagration of the unwanted pull between them from the moment she had first entered his study. His kiss owned her. It savaged her. Left her reeling.
Heat blossomed low in her belly, mingling with desire and a raw, frenzied need. The restless sensations he sparked within her were real and insistent though she did not want to acknowledge them. The barbarous molding of his lips to hers both shocked and enthralled her. He kissed as if he claimed her, hot and hungry, and such a disparity from his cold, harsh mien.
Caution and warning attempted to intrude. But she had plainly taken leave of her senses. That was the only explanation for the grave mistake she had made in kissing the Duke of Whitley.
In continuing to kiss him now.
In running her tongue along his, tasting him—bitter coffee with a hint of ruthlessness—in plunging her fingers into his hair. Merciful heavens, the strands were soft and thick and lustrous. She gripped handfuls and held him in place, angling his head so he would apply the pressure of his lips to hers in the fashion she preferred.
But Whitley was not a man who could be controlled, and just as quickly, his large hand cupped the base of her skull, holding her still so he could ravage her lips to his satisfaction. He took command. Groaned into her mouth. His free hand clamped to her waist. He spun them about as one, moving her backward without once breaking the drugging kiss she could not resist.
The hard edge of his desk pressed into her bottom. He lifted her effortlessly, his arm tightening like a band, and deposited her on the hard, polished expanse of intimidating mahogany. When she had first been seated opposite the exquisitely carved piece of furniture, she had never imagined she might one day be settled upon it as the Duke of Whitley kissed her more thoroughly than she had ever been kissed in her life.
She met him with an ardor she could not explain, with a fervor that shamed her. Some wicked part of her, the part that wanted more of the sin the Duke of Whitley offered, longed for this wild moment of abandon to never end. How she wished they were different people, in a different time and place, free to pursue the madness flaring to life between them.
Somehow, without taking his mouth from hers, he settled between her thighs. The voluminous draping of her skirt accommodated his intrusion. Her legs parted naturally, and her body was traitorously eager for the invasion. Her core ached and pulsed. The need spiraling through her was frightening. She had never wanted another man as she wanted the Duke of Whitley.
Not even James.
It stood against all reason. Against all logic, for Whitley was the enigma she was bound to deceive. If the accusations hurled against him were to be believed, he had betrayed his best friend. He was a traitor. And if rumor was to be trusted, he was also a depraved rakehell, returned from war with an insatiable hunger for thirst and ladies of ill repute.
But another possibility had been niggling at her with increasing certainty. What if Kilross was wrong about Whitley? The papers she had found thus far certainly did nothing to indicate his guilt. He did not feel like a monster in her arms.
No indeed. Quite the opposite.
She scooted forward on the desk, seeking more of him. His groin came into contact with hers. Even with the barrier of her skirts and his breeches, she could feel the hard, thick length of him. His arousal spurred an answering pulse of want within her.
Jacinda told herself she could allow one more kiss before putting an end to her ill-advised lack of inhibition. She could not afford to make herself vulnerable to him in this fashion, and even if she were not charged with uncovering his darkest, most damning secrets, she could never in good conscience carry on with such a lack of respect for her charges. She had not come to Whitley House to be seduced by the Duke of Whitley. Kissing him, allowing his hands to freely roam her body, had never been part of her task here.
He bit her lower lip. She could not suppress a moan as he kissed a path over her flesh. His wicked mouth found her ear. He nibbled the lobe. Licked a particularly sensitive patch of skin. Buried his nose in her hair and inhaled.
“I want you.”
His guttural admission settled in her belly like molten honey. Her nipples tightened. The part of her pressing against his manhood ached. It had been so long since she had been touched intimately. Since she had been desired. Since she’d been kissed. Needs she had buried along with her husband’s memory woke from years of dormancy.
That was why she didn’t protest when he snagged her lace fichu and removed it. Why she didn’t even notice his hand had moved from her nape to the buttons on the back of her serviceable gown until she felt them sliding from their moorings one by one.
She did not move to stop him or to escape.
Mindless longing had taken control of her faculties.
“Do you want me, Jacinda?”
Jacinda.
It was the first time he had used her given name, and the intimacy of it slid over her like a caress. His wicked mouth did not stop its decadent exploration, trailing down her throat. His tongue flitted to the hollow where her heart thumped madly.
“Tell me,” he urged, kissing his way across her collarbone. “Do you want me?”
Yes, and desperately.
No, because she ought not to want him. Ought not to allow him to affect her at all.
She had promised Kilross she would obtain the information he needed. She had a duty to uphold to Father. So very much depended upon the outcome of her month at Whitley House.
Everything, it would seem.
But when the duke dragged those sinful lips across her breast, and when her gown, chemise, and stays lowered in one swift tug, she could do nothing but arch her back. Her fingers tightened in his thick, dark brown hair.
Still, she would not capitulate. Nor would he give her what she wanted without her affirmation. He stilled, glanced up at her with his unnatural gray gaze that cut straight through her. Now was the time to put an end to this. To brace her palms on his shoulders and shove him away.
He blew a long, hot breath over her nipple, never taking his eyes from hers. “One word. Say it. Your body already speaks for you.”
Her breasts had stiffened into taut peaks over breakfast, and they craved his mouth. She craved it. Merciful heavens, what had he done to her? Perhaps the Duke of Whitley truly was the devil Kilross would have her believe.
“Yes.”
The whisper fled her lips before she could contain it. The duke flicked his tongue over her. “Louder.”
He was such a demanding man. She should not be surprised his arrogance extended to lovemaking. And though her marriage bed with James had been soft and gentle, tentative and sweet, something in the savage dominance of the Duke of Whitley made her weak. She wanted to battle him. She wanted to let him have his wicked way with her. She wanted to have her wicked way with him.
Lord, how she wanted.
“Yes,” she repeated.
“I could not hear you.” His
tongue swirled over her areola. “When you are settled, I want you to be as loud as you bloody please. I won’t stop until you’re screaming the roof off the damned place.”
When you are settled.
The words lanced the haze of lust fogging her mind. Conscience and guilt returned to her, and in a moment of blinding clarity, she felt nothing but disgust for herself. How had she allowed the Duke of Whitley, a man she did not like, a man she was meant to condemn, to remove half her gown and undergarments, to bare her breasts to his gaze, to use his tongue upon her flesh?
“No,” she said with as much vehemence as she could muster. She gripped her bodice and assorted layers and hauled them back into place. He thought to make her his mistress, and the shame of her actions, of the assumptions he had made about her, stung. He thought she could be bought. That her honor and her body could be claimed with a house and some pretty baubles.
He straightened, a thunderous frown forming between his brows. “I beg your pardon?”
She supposed the almighty Duke of Whitley was not accustomed to being denied. Jacinda raised her chin. “I will not be your mistress.”
He sneered. “I do not recall asking, Miss Governess.”
His cruelty should not surprise her, but it stung all the same. The heat fled from her, leaving her only cold and shocked at her lack of care for her honor, her loyalty to Father and James, her own body. How had she even countenanced the duke’s touch? How could she have betrayed the memory of the beautiful love she had shared with her husband by engaging in such despicable lechery?
She felt ill.
Would she have lain with him?
Allowed him to couple with her upon his desk?
What had she been thinking? This man was her enemy. He had never even exhibited a capacity for kindness or compassion. He was depraved. He drowned himself in drink, brought women of loose morals to his very home. He had betrayed his best friend.
Jacinda shoved at the great wall of Whitley’s chest. “Your words suggested an assumption. An assumption I cannot allow.”
His lip curled even more, his features hardening. “Your actions suggested otherwise.”
Her cheeks flamed. She leapt from his desk, reached behind her to tug the parted sides of her bodice upward so she could reach the buttons he had undone. “You coerced me. I was held in your thrall for a brief moment, but it is over now and the mistake shan’t be repeated.”
The duke clenched his jaw, raking her form with a dismissive gaze. “Yes, a mistake. I see that now. I suppose this is how I am repaid for attempting to show a dowdy spinster in shapeless sacks that there is more to life than being a pinch-lipped harpy.”
A dowdy spinster? A pinch-lipped harpy?
Her mouth fell open. She struggled with her buttons, not caring what a ridiculous sight she must make. She would not ask for his assistance. “How dare you?”
“Oh, I dare quite a bit, Miss Governess.” He took a step forward, crowding her with his big, powerful form once more. “Unlike some who are afraid to dare anything.”
If only he knew how much she dared.
But if he did, he would likely wrap his hands around her throat and choke the life from her.
She tipped up her chin in a show of defiance she little felt. “That is where you are wrong about me, Your Grace, for I can assure you, I fear nothing.”
Having nothing left to lose tended to render one foolishly brave, and Jacinda was no exception. Still, how she wished she could remove herself from his employ and his household. No one in her life had ever been so disrupting. So upsetting. So enraging. So bitterly tempting.
Blast. She would not dwell upon the last, disconcerting fact. Not whilst the grim Duke of Whitley scowled at her as she attempted to hook her buttons. And after he had dismissed her with such calculating viciousness. It was true, she dressed to be ignored. But she was neither a spinster nor a harpy.
She was…
The truth walloped her as she stood there in ignominy in the Duke of Whitley’s study. She didn’t know who she was any longer. She didn’t even recognize herself. Once, she had been a wife with an open heart and a future. Now, she was a bitter, broken-hearted widow consigned to a quiet life with her father.
This wicked interlude had been an aberration. One that would not be repeated. One she could not dare to repeat. She struggled with the last of her buttons, mortified she could not sink them within their moorings. Perhaps it was his intense regard that flustered her. Perhaps it was the unwanted thoughts unraveling in her mind.
Either way, she needed his aid.
He moved nearer still, bringing with him his heat and the muscled distraction of his masculine form, the scent of him. Good God, she would never again be able to look upon him without recalling the sensation of his tongue upon her breast.
“Turn about,” he directed in clipped tones still redolent with his combined disapproval and dismissal.
Surely he could not think to seduce her once more? “Your Grace, I have already made amply apparent to you I do not wish for a… dalliance.”
“Your buttons, Miss Governess,” came his sibilant explanation, curt as ever. “As I am the one who undid them, it seems the responsibility to fasten them falls upon me as well.”
“No.” Her lips firmed into a forbidding line as she frowned at him. She did not want him to get any closer. To touch her again. Something about this man made her weak. “I shall fasten them on my own.”
He muttered something beneath his breath that sounded suspiciously like stubborn bloody wench, but she hadn’t the time to reflect upon it for his hands clamped on her waist. He spun her to face the wall opposite him, and then his fingers—nimble and long and tapered as she had not failed to notice—skipped along the line of buttons as if he were a lady’s maid born and bred. In a trice, he had her refastened.
Strong hands clasped her waist once more. He spun her to face him. His countenance was hard, harsh, and expressionless. She swallowed, wishing she had never lost her wits. That she had never fallen so precariously into his arms and kisses.
“Have we reached an understanding then, Your Grace?” she queried softly, because it was necessary. Perhaps her foolishness would land her on the street, and she would need to beg Kilross for mercy. She would shoulder the blame for her own injudiciousness. No one had forced her to give into her wicked longings. She would face Father and confess all if need be. And she would make amends.
Whitley raised an imperious brow, looking as majestic and forbidding as any king in that moment. “We have not. As I distinctly recall, I required this dialogue so I could reprimand you for the lack of progress I see in Lady Honora and Lady Constance.”
If anything, there had been a wealth of progress, and she was willing to wager he knew it just as well as she did. Her frown sharpened. “Forgive me, but I fail to see the lack of progress you allude to.”
A second brow joined the first. “Either you are foolishly comfortable in your position here or you are mad, Miss Governess. Do you dare to gainsay me?”
She supposed she was being unaccountably forward for a servant in his employ and at his mercy. But they had already crossed firm boundaries, and she could not stymy her self-defense now that it had emerged, glorious and bold in a way the real Jacinda was not. Or at least the Jacinda she ordinarily was. She had almost become a different person, it seemed since her arrival at Whitley House, so that she no longer knew where one Jacinda ended and the other began.
The duke continued to stare her down, awaiting her response. Her gaze flicked to his mouth of its own accord, watching as the finely molded lips quirked into a knowing grin.
Shame stole over her cheeks in a heated flush as she snapped her eyes back to his, unflinching. “Do not forget, Your Grace, you were gone for nearly half the time I have been in your employ. I hardly think the limited amount of time you have spent in Lady Constance and Lady Honora’s presences can imbue you with the necessary judgment.”
He caught her chin in his grip, not h
ard enough to hurt but firm enough that he reminded her of his larger size, his well-muscled frame. He could easily overpower her. Force her to do his bidding. “Enlighten me, Miss Governess. Prove to me you are deserving of maintaining your position.”
How dare he? Anyone could see his sisters had been hellions absent of even a modicum of direction. Their parents had been dead for years, their previous guardian had been a drunkard who choked to death on his supper, and their closest living family member and guardian was a degenerate rakehell who spent his time alternately drinking and wenching for days. Until he passed out and began the cycle anew, that was. How were young ladies meant to thrive when everything in their world was arranged to their severe disadvantage?
Fury soared through her, replacing the witless lust he had inspired. Fury for her charges. Fury at herself for her damnable weakness for this man. Fury at his arrogance and condemnation. Fury she had allowed him such shocking liberties.
Regret that she had stopped him.
No. She scrubbed that rogue feeling from her being at once and plowed forward with what must be done. She clenched her muslin skirt to blunt the sting of her aggression and took a deep breath before responding with a poise and calm that shocked even her. “If you truly wish for me to prove myself to you, then I challenge you to put forth an effort. Cease disappearing and drowning yourself in spirits. Be present for your sisters. Observe how far they have come since the day I arrived to find them sledding down the staircase upon silver salvers whilst your horrified domestics looked helplessly on.”
He ground his jaw, glaring. “Hiring them a bloody governess is putting forth an effort. As is tolerating their hoydenish ways.”
How little he knew about the human heart if he believed his cold, limited interaction with his sisters was sufficient. A sadness she was not meant to feel cut through her. In that moment of utter clarity, she saw him in a way she had not before. He and Lady Honora and Lady Constance had lost everyone but each other. And yet he kept himself apart, buried himself in whisky and demons. Beneath his icy aloofness and arrogant cruelty lay a man who carried his scars on the inside. He was hurting, and it seemed the Duke of Whitley either did not know how to heal himself or had not the desire to try.
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