Page 92 of The Governess and the Brooding Duke

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She could not have explained it if asked.

But she was grounded in the moment because of it. In him.

And then he pulled her down hard, impaling her entirely on his length. A real growl escaped her lips, at the same time as one escaped his.

What were they? They were like the beasts in the forest around Attingham.

They were hardly human in that moment.

He gripped the back of her head, pulling her up off the mattress and pressing her forehead against his. ‘Yes,’ he said.

She nodded, unsure of what she was agreeing to, only knowing that she did.

He began to move, his thrusts animalistic, rough and glorious. She was slick with need.

She was ready for him.

She wanted him.

And this was what it was supposed to be.

Strength it gave.

Strength that fed your soul.

That stoked desire.

It took nothing.

Over and over again, he filled her.

One hand holding firmly to her hip, the other on her head, his fingers gripping her hair tight.

And she had been so focused on what it meant for her, that she had not paused to think what it meant for him.

This man who was so perfectly composed in all ways. To be a beast like this.

And yes, she took for granted that he had done this before, but this was... A side of him. Something that she had never seen.

There was a thrill to that. To the fact that she knew this man with clothes on. Knew him as Your Grace. Knew him behind his desk.

But she knew him as a man who had looked lost in the kitchen that day, as she had fed the bairn that wasn’t his but that he was forced to claim as his own.

That she had never seen him, naked and raw, and he was in her body, seeking his own pleasure even as he gave out hers.

‘West,’ she said, broken.

And he began to drive into her harder, pushing her up the mattress, her head coming into contact with the headboard behind her.

Over and over again, with each and every thrust.

And it was perfect.

‘Tell me,’ he growled, ‘tell me that you are mine.’

‘I’m yours, Your Grace,’ she said, the words broken, but no less true for it.

‘Good girl.’

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