Page 51 of Duke with a Deception
They hadn’t had last night, but she kept that to herself. She had already forgiven him for leaving, and she understood the reason. Although he presented himself to the world as if he were cold and precise, incapable of feeling, she knew the tender heart that beat within his chest, the answer to hers.
“I missed you,” she breathed instead, a whisper and a prayer and a plea all at once. “I did not like sleeping alone.”
She didn’t want to lose him again as she had last night, when he had shut her out and disappeared. He had been so harsh and angry, so closed off in a way she had never known. In a way that frightened her. But now again, he was her King. Charming in the moonlight, holding her in his arms as if he never wanted to let her go.
She rose on her toes and pressed her mouth to his, showing him with deeds rather than words how precious he was to her.
“Bloody hell,” he muttered against her lips. “I missed you more.”
He deepened the kiss at once, and she clung to him, kissing him back with all the pent-up emotion she had been keeping from him. Her love for him sometimes terrified her. It was so strong, so ferocious and all-consuming. The nights before they had wed, she had lain awake in her bed with a yearning that had kept her from sleep. Last night had been no different. He had been next door—or so she had thought—but every bit as out of reach.
She would have to do everything she could to show him the depth of her emotions. How much she needed him. He was hersnow, and yet she still knew that same, restless longing, that worry he could never truly belong to her.
He growled low in his throat, licking into her mouth as if she herself were the dessert to be savored instead of the cream ice they had abandoned. Her tongue slid against his, and his hand glided lower to cup her breast. Though the layers of her gown, undergarments, and corset separated her from his touch, her nipples hardened. How she ached to be alone with him in his bedroom. To be naked.
“Perhaps we’ve seen enough of the gardens,” she suggested breathlessly against his lips.
His head lifted, his eyes glittering down at her. “What are you suggesting, wife?”
Wife.
Oh, how she adored that word. How she loved being his.
“Take me upstairs,” she said.
The walkfrom the garden to his bedroom was a blur of simmering desire. He didn’t know which affected him more, Verity or spirits. Last night, he had been drunk on gin, trying to drown his demons. Tonight, he was drunk on her.
And although they had already made love, he felt as eager as he had the first time. More so, even. His hands trembled as he helped her out of her gown and corset.
Slow down, you fool, he reminded himself sternly as his finger fumbled over tapes and knots and hooks.
She had forgiven him, but he still needed to make amends the only way he knew how, by giving her so much pleasureshe couldn’t think of anything else. Until he replaced all her misgivings with desire.
He was so desperate to please her that he couldn’t resist dropping to his knees when he had her drawers pooled on the Axminster. She still wore her chemise, and it was easily enough rucked up to her waist as he sought his prize. He hooked her leg over his shoulder. One of her hands settled on his shoulder, the other atop his head, her fingers threading through his hair.
“What are you intending?” she asked softly.
He was shocking her, he was sure. But he was beyond caring.
“Pleasuring you,” he murmured.
“Standing up?”
“And a hundred other ways. I’ll show them all to you. But first, I need you to come on my face.”
Her lips parted, her eyes going glassy. She wanted this every bit as much as he needed it. Needed to lose himself in her, in the desire they shared. Needed to make both their pasts fade away until there was nothing but the two of them.
“You do?” she repeated, her voice husky.
“God yes, sweetness.” He nuzzled her mound, inhaling the musky, floral scent of her, soap and perfume blending with desire.
And then he cupped her bottom and licked her seam, pleased to find she was already soaked from the kisses they had shared in the garden. He licked into her again and again, his mouth full of perfect, pink, glistening cunny. Licked her until she writhed against him, her fingers tightening in his hair. She tasted so good. He was drowning in pleasure, in longing.
It didn’t matter.
Nothing mattered but her.
He found the demanding bud of her clitoris and sucked hard, and her hips bucked. Alternating between licking and suckling, he sank a finger into her tight heat. She was drenched, the gripof her cunny enough to make him groan. He couldn’t wait to be inside her. Had he ever been this desperate?
