Page 90 of The Duke
The duke slid down the door and came to rest sitting on the floor. It brought their faces even with one another, and for once, Celine just looked at her. For as long as she liked. She watched her irises slowly contract so that her eyes became pearlescent again. Watched her sober, her thinking mind returning, and all of it turned on her.
She felt a fearful premonition that in this naked moment, the duke would ask the direct question.
But the duke came slowly forward and, never breaking eye contact, lifted Celine’s chin and licked it. Broad, hot sweeps of the duke’s tongue cleaning her chin, encompassing her greedy lips.
When the kiss came, it was soft, but somehow annihilating. As though the duke had held herself separate from Celine for as long as she possibly could and, with grim endurance, even past it. As though she could no longer be separate.
Neither of them closed their eyes. Celine met and held the duke’s gaze—glanced off and came back—as they made the intimate attempt to merge. Something deep within her began to unwind.
The duke pulled back with a gasp, then brought her forehead to Celine’s again. “I need to make you come,” she growled, “and then I need to make you my wife.” Celine said nothing.
The duke stood and buttoned her breeches, then put out her hand. “We’re going home. Now.”
“We can’t go home,” Celine said, scandalised. “I’m the guest of honour at theDemi Lux.”
Tall, autocratic, and flushed with arousal, the duke glowered down at her. “You can go willingly,” the duke said, “or you can go over my shoulder. I will not wait another minute to have you.”
She couldn’t see a way around it. She didn’twanta way around it. “Then perhaps the excitement has made me faint,” she said with a conspiratorial wink, yelping when the duke scooped her up off the floor. Her heart beat and swooned, and she snuggled contentedly into the duke’s arms, closing her eyes as though unconscious. “Don’t say anything about my engagement,” she murmured. It was the last, necessary precaution. “It will only spawn a thousand questions that will delay our departure.”
The duke gathered her close and pressed a searing kiss to her mouth. “Not a word of our engagement shall pass my lips,” the duke swore, “until tomorrow.”
Celine didn’t correct her.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Kate carried Celine out of the Demi Lux, the long train of Celine’s dress like a glittering waterfall over her arm.Quite overcome… Requires rest and quiet… An overwhelming honour for any young woman…Their exit perfected the evening’s success: It would give tomorrow’s gossips something worth getting out of bed for. A wave of concerned well-wishers bore them to the door and down the front steps, and to Kate, it was all background noise. Only one person could hold her attention, and that person was in her arms.
She climbed into the carriage and took her seat. The door shut. The carriage departed. A deep peace came over her. Pragmatically, she reached over to close the curtain, and as her shoulder dipped, Celine’s head went with it, all her weight fully taken by Kate’s body as though she had in truth fainted away.
Kate knew Celine was merely enjoying, as she was, the sense of every constraint having disappeared—even down to a certain individualism or physical autonomy.
It invited liberties, and she buried her face in Celine’s neck. She remembered with amazement how distressed she’d felt on the drive here, sitting across from Celine, unable to properly make her out, sure something bad was going to happen. She tightened her arms around the bundle of heaven in her lap, which was now her right.
How she had ever convinced herself Celine would become engaged to Lord Burnley, she didn’t know. An expansive sense of time filled her, time without end. It was a strange, twisted history that had brought them to each other, but she was grateful for all ofit. Celine was hers, and now nothing and no one could part them. She was taking her love home.
Celine made a long sound of acquiescence and put her hand around the back of Kate’s head, completing the embrace. Kate was still wet inside her breeches from the kiss Celine had given her. That thorough seeing-to.
She saw again Celine on her knees, felt the way her palm had encompassed the curve at the top of Celine’s spine, her fingertips pushing under the tight seam of Celine’s dress. Celine’s skin had been so soft, so unbelievably soft, and hot with blood.
In the carriage, the quality of their embrace changed. Her breathing came faster as awareness stirred between them. It wasn’t only love she felt. She wanted to explore every hot crevice, every wet hole; she wanted to make Celine’s thighs blush. How had she remained apart from Celine these past weeks? How had she not had Celine in her arms every minute of every day?
The physical drive to consummate began to overwhelm every other sense or thought.
Celine’s satin-gloved hand came to her cheek, gently urging her head up. Celine’s limpid green eyes sought hers.
“Shall I tell you,” Celine said, “what I felt when I walked into Bastien’s study and saw you, all those years ago?”
The words arrested her. She had so rarely let herself think of that long-ago night, but found she recalled the moment perfectly: The long, blue satin train of Celine’s dress sweeping an arc across the floor as Celine leaned forward to close the door without making any noise. The stillness in Celine’s body when she turned and realised she wasn’t alone. The first interesting look at Celine’s mouth.
Celine said, “It felt like someone had rung a bell inside my chest. Have I told you yet that I love you? I think I already loved you then.”
She had thought Celine must love her, at least a little, but hearing Celine say it made her whole body seize in pleasure. She used her teeth to draw off her glove and stroked her fingertips over Celine’s face.
“I mistook the feeling,” Celine said, “and thought I was afraid of you. You looked at me like you were looking beneath my skin, a sensation I had never felt before.”
Her sensitive fingertips drank pleasure from Celine’s skin; her sensitive mind drank pleasure from Celine’s words. Actively, she and Celine were taking each other deeper.
“I don’t think it a shallow love, for having coming upon me so quickly,” Celine said. “I think my clever heart simply knew.”
