Page 63 of Tamed By her Duke

She’d worn the scandalous one again, the one that had been part of her trousseau.

“Jesus Christ,” he breathed, drinking in the sight of her.

“No, just Grace,” she quipped.

That ferocious frown. “If ye’ve enough thought in yer head to make jokes,” he said sternly, “then I’m no’ doin’ my job.”

Her smile became a gasp as he stood, lifting her into his arms with the same ease that he’d displayed the night prior. This time, however, he didn’t let her tuck her head demurely into the crook of his neck. Instead, he pressed his mouth to a soft, tender spot behind her ear and nipped and licked at it as he strode down the hall to her bedchamber.

He put her down like he was sorry to let her go, his hands lingering over her hair, her face and briefly—thrillingly—the valley between her breasts.

When he pulled back, he did not go far. He stood, his hands moving up to his cravat.

“Stay,” he ordered her. “Daenae move. Not one inch.”

As if Grace could. She was far too transfixed by the sight of his hands as they deftly unwound the long strip of fabric from around his throat, revealing him by increments. His throat,the bump of his Adam’s apple, bobbing as he swallowed. The slightest notch of collarbone.

This was, alas, all she was destined to see, as Caleb paused hisdeshabillementto take the cravat, still warm from his body, and wrap it around her eyes, knotting it securely at the back of his head.

“What—” she asked, even as her body seemed to sink, even more deeply against the cushions, seemed to grow even more languid and comfortable, with her eyesight denied her.

“Ye daenae need to look,leannan,” her husband murmured, grazing a touch—the back of his fingertips, she realized—against her jaw. “Just feel, aye? There’s naught else to concern yerself about, not just now.”

There was something about that promise—that she didn’t need to worry, that shecouldn’tworry, if only for a little while—that called to something Grace had long since buried deep within her. How long had it been since she’d trusted that things were going to be all right—since she’d trusted someone else to render them so? Had she ever felt that kind of trust?

But Caleb had said it, gruff and impatient and utterly him.

I will protect ye, Grace, whether ye like it or not.

Just now, she found she liked it quite a bit.

And so she focused on feeling as he guided her limbs out of her dressing gown, then her nightgown. She hummed her approval as he explored her with his hands, feeling the scrape of calluses against places that seemed uncommonly sensitive: her ribcage, the inside of her elbow, the curve of her calf.

It was somehow easy to be patient like this, when all she had to do was feel, and when everything she felt was just so lovely. The bedding was cool and crisp. Her pillow was soft and perfectly molded to her head. And Caleb was there, warm and reassuring.

When he finally laid atop her, bare skin against bare skin, she felt so hazy with languid pleasure that she could not manage more than a wordless murmur of encouragement.

“Ye know,” he said, nose skimming along her collarbone, the slight prickle of whiskers on his chin teasing the skin at the very top of her breast, “if I’d known this was all it took to make ye so agreeable, I’d have done it straight away.”

“You are an awful man,” she said, but the effect was diminished by the moan that came from her as he shifted so that she could feel the hot brand of him, ready against her thigh.

“Am I, then?” he asked lightly, fingers coming to play where she, too, was ready, slippery and wanting.

She bit her lip and shook her head, not truly denial, but encouragement.

“No,” she gasped as he slid a probing finger inside her. “Not awful at all.”

Except perhaps hewasa bit awful, she amended a few minutes later, when those slow, deliberate movements stopped feeling soothing and started feeling liketorture.

“Caleb,” she whimpered.

“Daenae rush me,leannan,” he said, voice thick. “I’ve waited for this, as ye’ll recall. Let me have my pleasure.”

This was, Grace thought, all very well and good—except, naturally, for the part where she was going to combust like a firework and burn down this ancient castle they called home.

Lacking the mental clarity to articulate this, Grace groped blindly, seized a handful of her husband’s hair, and used it to try to yank him toward her. He, in return, bit her shoulder—not hard enough to hurt, not really, but hard enough to send a jolt through her that nearly sent her tumbling into her crisis.

It wasn’tquiteenough, but her reaction was obvious. As she gasped and clenched, her husband let out a stream of Gaelic that was very obviously swearing, even if she couldn’t understand a word of it.

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