Page 81 of The Duke of Deceit

She didn’t dare move, her fingers gripping the seat edge on both sides of her and her heart leaping into her throat. To go to him, to let herself fall into his arms, to let him kiss and caress her… Her pulse spiked at the temptation, the racing of her heart pounding like a beckoning drumbeat.

But a cooler head prevailed. “We need to go back,” she protested, calling on all her resolve to stay right where she was. “Immediately. I can’t be alone with you in your coach.”

“Why not?”

“It’s scandalous.”

“We’re engaged, remember? All the gossip rags say so. It’s not improper for an engaged miss to go riding with her fiancé.”

“You arenotmy fiancé.” Oh, how much it hurt to utter those words!

“But I could be.” Casually, he reached up to close the curtains on both sides of the compartment. “I very much want to be.” He gently removed her clenched hands from their death grip on the seat and tugged her across the compartment to him. “I very much wantyou.”

He brought her onto his lap. With affection shimmering in the green depths of his eyes, he caressed her cheek.

“Do you still love me, Jessamyn?” he murmured, his velvet voice seeping into her and swirling an ache in its wake. “Because I still love you.”

When he brushed his thumb along her jaw, her resistance snapped. The temptation of him was simply too great, and she brought her mouth to his in a kiss so full of longing and need that a pained whimper tore from her.

Not caring that they were rolling through the streets of Mayfair, Jess cupped his face between her hands and held his head still while she kissed him with all the yearning bubbling inside her. In response, his hand slid a long caress up her spine to her neck, where his skilled fingers began to knead at her nape.It was a simple massage, not at all intimate, yet the way his fingers worked at the knot of tension there felt shamefully erotic. And oh, so very good.

What they were doing was wanton and reckless, and she simply didn’t care. She thrilled with excitement and desire, with the sheer joy of being back in his arms. Only Lucien could draw out the feminine need from her like this, a need that made her head swim and her body ache to be possessed. His deep groan rumbled onto her lips and reverberated into her chest, making her breasts grow instantly heavy. Still kissing him, she slipped her arms around his neck to stay close to him in the swaying carriage and ran her fingers through his hair, knocking his hat off to the floor and not caring that she did.

But what a fabulous idea—undressing him. So her hands made quick work of unknotting his cravat, until he stopped her.

She blinked down at him, bewildered. “But I thought…don’t you?”

With a chuckle at her confusing question, he rose up to kiss her. “Oh, I do. Iverymuch, do.”

To prove it, he slipped his tongue between her lips in a heated promise of thrusts and swirling retreats, mimicking the way his body had possessed hers that night in Ealing when they’d surrendered completely to each other. When she finally moved her mouth away to catch her breath and collapsed weakly upon his chest, he buried his face in her hair, his large hands drawing slow, poignant circles across her back and down to her bottom.

“No need to undress me, though.You, on the other hand…” His hands slid further down to her legs and tugged up her skirt. “But only what’s necessary.” He shifted her on his lap until he could push her skirt all the way up around her waist, then turned her until she straddled him. His hands swept along her inner thighs and sent a ripple of goosebumps over her heatedbare flesh exposed so wantonly to his eyes, and another groan of desire fell from his lips. “Absolutelynecessary.”

He touched the throbbing ache between her legs.

Jess closed her eyes and let her head roll back as his fingers toyed with her wet warmth. Spread wide with her knees resting on the bench on both sides of his hips, she reveled in the possessive way he stroked and teased at her. Against the noise of the rolling carriage rocking beneath them, she begged him shamelessly with wordless whimpers to satisfy the mounting ache he stirred at his fingertips and give her the release she craved. Appeasing her, he slid the side of his hand back and forth into her slick crevice, making her impossibly wetter, hotter, and throbbing with feminine arousal. His thumb delved down beneath the engorged hood and pressed the little knot of nerves throbbing there in time to her heartbeat.

With a shudder, she collapsed forward against his chest and buried her face in his neck. Sweet heavens, how much she loved him! There was no hiding that truth. She loved the way he made her feel alive and so very alluring, loved the soft sounds of desire she drew from him, loved the way he stroked her in caresses that were impossibly both tender and eager at the same time. Most of all, she loved that he let her take the lead in their intimacies, content simply to be brought along with her.

She stiffened when his fingers plunged inside her tight warmth, then relaxed around him with a shudder. She ran her hands through his silky hair and tangled it between her fingers, bringing his head down to her bosom so he could bury his mouth against her breasts. She inwardly groaned in frustration at still being clad in layers of clothing, at not having his hot mouth suckling at her bare nipple. But what he was doing between her thighs…heavenly!

“More,” she panted out as his fingers thrust in wonderful little pulses inside her.

“Gladly,” he murmured.

Yet instead of bringing her to release with his fingers, he withdrew from her in an agonizingly smooth retreat that left her bereft.

A soft cry of frustration rose from her throat, and she arched her back to bring her pelvis against him, only for the cry to transform into a moan at the feel of his large erection pushing up beneath his trousers. Shamelessly, driven by need, she bore down on him and slid her groove back and forth along the hard ridge beneath his trousers. The friction created by the kerseymere rubbing against her most sensitive place shuddered in hot waves though her. Yet it still wasn’t enough.

“Oh, please, Lucien.” She sank her fingertips into the hard muscle of his shoulders. “Give me more of you…please!”

He wiggled his hand down between them to unbutton his fall. “Take all of me you want, my love.”

With trembling fingers, she reached down to stroke his hard length. She caressed him in alternating squeezes and strokes, pumping his flesh and priming him until he was steely hard and evidence of his desire gathered in a tiny drop at his tip. She rubbed it against her palm and smeared it over him until he was wet and glistening in the muted afternoon sunlight filtering in through the closed curtains.

She brought her mouth down to his in a blistering kiss, then slid her mouth to his ear and whispered hotly, “I want you inside me—now.”

He reached between them to position the tip of his erection against her folds. With a lift of his hips, he slid himself just barely into her, then groaned as her muscles tightened around his head in an attempt to take him deeper. Holding himself there, with only his tip penetrating her, he put his hands around her hips and stared into her eyes.