Page 36 of The Duke's Only Desire

Her unexpected kiss mimicked the intensity of his, even daring to pry his lips open with her tongue and push inside for a wanton taste, just as he’d done to her. But somehow, she quickly lost the upper hand and found him once more controlling the kiss, once more stroking his tongue between her lips in a steady, sliding rhythm that pricked hot goosebumps across her skin. So she closed her lips around his tongue and sucked.

A deep groan tore from the back of his throat. His hands tightened around her hips, pulling her bottom away from the wall and tightly enough against him that she could feel the hardening ridge beneath his trousers press into her lower belly. He wanted her. There was no denying it.

“Make love to me,” she pleaded as she placed her mouth against his bare neck and felt the wild racing of his pulse against her lips.

He murmured a single, muffled word as he buried his face in her hair as if her offer were sheer torture. But her heart heard clearly—

No.

Before she could even think to blink away the instantaneous stinging in her eyes, he lowered himself in front of her. He kept his hands tightly around her hips to hold her still as his mouth placed kisses down her throat, over her breasts, and lower still to the seam where the lace bodice attached to the silk skirt.

“I can’t make love to you,” he told her, his eyes squeezing shut as if pained. “But I can give you this pleasure,” he whispered, his hand sliding down her body, “if nothing more.”

Confusion fought with growing desire inside her about what he meant, about why he now shook as much as she did. “I don’t unders—”

Her breath caught as he rested his hand against her lower belly, right where a thousand fluttering butterflies stirred to life. The heat in her veins flared into flames.

His hands slid beneath the skirt and caressed her bare thighs until the tips of his fingers brushed against the curls guarding her feminine folds. A tantalizingly torturous ache pulsed just below his fingertips. He pushed the skirt higher, up to her hips, where he gathered it out of his way as he combed his fingertips through the triangle of curls.

She caressed his temple, her fingers shaking. “Shay, I want—”

But before she could finish her new plea, he slipped his thumb down between her thighs and stole her words away. All she could do was give an incoherent murmur, too overcome by need to say anything else.

He began to stroke back and forth along the seam between her legs with the side of his hand. Sophie swallowed hard at the delicious caresses, and every sensation in her body concentrated rightthere.

His clever fingers teased at her folds as he delved deeper. He stirred such throbbing aches inside her as he fondled the soft petals, caressing and gently pinching in turn, that she clung fiercely to his shoulders to keep from sagging to the floor at his feet. His fingers teased and twirled, slipping and sliding through a wet arousal that brought a hot blush of embarrassment to her cheeks.

He expertly toyed with her but avoided the one place that throbbed and ached the fiercest, choosing instead to slowly circle the little nub in tightening circles—

Then he flicked his thumb over it. A jolt of electricity shot through her, and she gasped against his throat.

“Sophie…” His rasping voice gave only a second’s warning before his fingers slipped inside her warmth.

Her body flexed against his hand in response to this new sensation of having a part of him inside her. He paused only a moment to give her time to adjust before gliding in and out of her in a steady rhythm that rocked her to her toes. All of it was made even more unbearable by his thumb, which continued to give glancing touches to the aching nub buried in the top of her folds that sent hot pulses up her spine.

Then he slipped a second finger inside with the first, stretching her wider, filling her. His knuckle ground against the nub, and a moan of pleasure fell from her lips. His fingers played between her legs, curling into her and retreating in such increasingly deep strokes that she could barely remember to breathe.

“Shay!” she exclaimed. Her fingers dug into his hard shoulders until his muscles flexed beneath her hands, but he didn’t stop the wanton plunges and retreats that spiraled a wicked longing through her. Instead, he deepened them.

Unable to stand still, needing more of this intimate caress, she stepped her legs wider apart and wiggled her hips against his hand in an attempt to bring him harder against her, right against that hot and throbbing place that demanded his attention.

Capturing her mouth beneath his again, he gave a low groan of pleasure against her lips that reverberated through her and spun out to the tips of her fingers and toes.

His tongue plunged deep inside her mouth, then retreated, then did it again and again until a relentless rhythm built beneath his lips that matched the deep caresses between her legs. The throbbing heat inside her pulsed in time with his thrusts, and she clenched her fingers into his scalp as the tiny muscles inside her clenched around his fingers, as if to somehow draw him even deeper. Her greedy body matched his rhythm in squeezing and releasing, and begging whimpers of need dropped from her lips.

She felt as if she were running for a cliff, to fling herself over into the abyss. But he kept her there, just at the edge. His fingers again playing at the throbbing nub, yet not nearly hard enough, spun a delicious excitement through her until all of her shook violently, until he had to nudge her thighs apart with his knee to keep her from slamming her legs closed in response, until she was nearly sobbing.

“Please…” she panted out, barely audible against the shadows around them.Please love me! Give yourself to me, now and forever.“Oh, please, Shay.”

His thumb found the throbbing nub in her folds and pressed hard.

Her hips bucked against his hand, and Sophie cried out as breath-stealing pleasure broke over her. She spasmed against him as wave after wave of electric release slammed through her.

Every sensation in her entire body focused rightthere, right where his fingers continued to intimately caress her. He coaxed every bit of bliss from her as his finger once more slipped inside her, to give her greedy body something to hold onto as it squeezed and released in a fading pulsation that matched her slowing heartbeat.

When he finally slipped from her tight warmth, her strength left her, and she sank slowly toward the floor, only for Shay to stop her fall by sweeping her up into his arms. Her body was too numb, too spent, to do anything more than cling to him as he carried her into her bedroom. His body shook as violently as hers, and when she placed her lips to his neck, she could taste the salty perspiration of exertion and restraint.

He pulled back the bed covers with one hand, then laid her gently on the mattress. The sensation of the cold mattress hitting her backside while his heat still warmed her front jarred her, and she sucked in a deep breath just as he leaned over to kiss her. At finding her mouth open and inviting, he gave a groan, onlyto pull away without plundering her mouth again as he’d done before.