Page 23 of Misadventures with a Duke

It was the hottest no-fuck climax I’ve ever had.

No. It was the hottest climax I’ve ever had, period.

What would it be like to actually have the man ride me until he came? To ride him until I did the same?

Nate Archibald and Chuck Bass don’t stand a chance against my new fantasies. Sorry not sorry, boys.

For the first time in my existence, I understand why some women emphasize the word man. Exactly what those underlines—and sayings like them—mean. Stuff like wet till it hurts and weak in the knees. So weak, I forgot I had knees.

Is this why so many people do the historical reenactment stuff? I mean, if everyone knew that the hottest sexual secrets of history have been stowed in the eighteenth century and then were given a way to start yanking the men out of there, what would that do to world history?

Though I’m pretty sure my eighteenth-century god doesn’t know he’s leapfrogged over the last two hundred and something years.

But how to tell him?

It’s not like I can text Allie and ask her. After Max’s jump, he was the one who had to convince her about the truth. Instinct tells me that won’t be the case this time—which is why I’m here, counting last night’s “sleep” as a total bust between web searches on my phone. Absconding from the bedroom either of my other devices wasn’t an option, once I realized they were both stuck at the foot of the bed after Bastien and I made new dents in the mattress.

Oh my God. Bastien De Leon.

Just typing his name now is an invitation for every tingle in the building to visit the juncture of my thighs. I do it carefully, so as to avoid any conflicts with the search.

But I get no hits on the search. None that make sense, anyway.

Maximilian De Leon brother

Better hits but wrong results. Most of the listings are about Max’s wild success on the Hemline channel, as a guest commentator on other shows as well as his hit partnership with Allie. Turns out the modern world is in love with charming time travelers, even if they don’t quite know it for themselves. None of the articles mention a brother.

De Leon family France + 18th century

Another list of clickables, though every link leads to the basics I already know. That the De Leons once owned massive lands in Loire, which were seized once the Jacobins and the Revolution inundated the countryside. That the family was given the land back once Napoleon took the throne, though a great deal of the family wasn’t accounted for. Maximilian, Bastien, and their parents were seized early during the insurrections. The elder De Leons were executed at once. The next day, Bastien followed them to the executioner’s block.

My chest hurts. My throat tightens. Still, I force my fingers to type in a new search string.

Bastien De Leon execution

I grimace but force myself to click the search bar.

The first results aren’t enough to erase my tension. But I do indulge a long breath while scanning the page. Then another, as soon as I peruse the subject’s second and third pages.

Once I hit the fourth, I allow myself to breathe easy again. For about ten seconds. “Doesn’t mean a thing,” I remind myself in a mumble. “Wasn’t like Robespierre and his posse were logging every execution and then selling it for demographics.”

So there’s still a reasonable chance that Bastien’s head rolled into a basket back then. But how does that explain the very beautiful head, attached to the equally stunning body, still snoring in the bedroom? And I mean snoring. The deep, lusty rumble actually makes me smile on the upbeats. The man can’t even slumber without intensity.

On this day, in this time, Bastien De Leon is definitely not dead.

That opens up a few more possibilities. Crazy ones, but options I have to consider.

He’s a substantial ghost. Or a soul reincarnated. Or a zombie. Okay that one’s kind of cool, though he’d have to be categorized as a pretty zombie. Like that kid from Warm Bodies or the hottie king in Army of the Dead. But he’d likely rock the crap out of gory zombie too.

But that’s probably not the case. Because I already hear what logic is screaming at me.

Like his brother before him, the man has been propelled through time. So that means he escaped or avoided prison. After that, he probably learned about the fastest way out of the country and vanished into Germany or Prussia. Maybe he even found a way to hop la Manche to England.

I’m so lost in a vision of him doing that, heart aching while I envision him trudging alone into strange countries, that his snoring dims from awareness. Once I realize he’s stopped, the man is standing next to me.

Correction. Looming over me.

Holy shit.