Page 23 of Good Duke Gone Hard

“That’s okay. I do.”

“So tell me. What would he do?” His hand flowed up her nightgown to her calf, and he heard a catch in her breath. He looked up to lust over her shuddering breasts. “Would he do this?” As his hand drifted up under her knee, he moved his whole body toward her until her legs were draped over his thigh.

Margaret dipped her head.

“And what about this? Would he do this?” He pushed himself as close as he could get to her. “And this?” He reached under her luscious bottom and pulled her to straddle himself. He could feel his arousal reaching toward her, almost touching her. And then she moaned. And all hell broke loose.

Her neck was a long, pale column, inviting him to draw his tongue up its endless length until he found her sweet taste of peaches, on her own tongue. She clashed her tongue against his.

“Jonathan,” breathless, she pleaded, “Take me. Make me yours.” He felt her nails digging into his shoulders, clawing for a way underneath his layers. Posthaste, he removed his cravat, jacket, waistcoat, and shirt.

It was a mistake. It was too much. Her fingers blitzed a wide swath all over his torso, and he was undone. He couldn’t untangle himself from her limbs if he wanted to, thank God he most certainly did not want to.

And then he felt her press her bosom into his chest and he wished he could remove her nightgown. If he had known it was the night for wishes to come true, he might have dedicated more time to making them, but he didn’t have time. He had now. And now Margaret had slipped out of her nightgown. She shivered against him, as if to burrow herself further into him.

He lowered his head and licked around her breast until he dipped further, heeding the directions from her moans, and took a nipple between his lips. He sucked, and she arched into him.

Holy hell, she was a goddess, purely formed and wholly formable under his touch.

Everything in him that he knew, and so much more that he couldn’t recognize was drawing him to her. He needed her soft supple body crushed to him. He needed those long legs draped around him. He needed those lush lips pressed against him.

She was life, breath, passion, and everything he didn’t know he had been needing so desperately. So he let a hand roam her body and explore her world. He pushed a hand gently into her hair and pulled back softly, opening her up to him more.

“Jonathan, touch me like only you know how to do.”

Forgetting that he didn’t know what she was expecting, he played on instincts and gently brought his thumb between her folds, to the holy nub waiting to blossom. She groaned into his mouth and took his tongue captive with her mouth.

Her moans mounted against him until she stole his breath with her panting and then returned it to him when she slumped against his lust filled body. Only, it was something a little bit more than lust now.

His soul felt bared before her, and he didn’t care. It felt safe, despite the lack of answers. At least he had one answer.

Chapter 9

MARGARETCOULDN’TDENYITany longer. No matter where she sat looking at the Jonathan situation, her body would not allow her mind the covetous control it needed.

She had tried sitting and painting candidly at every angle of the drawing room until her mother, exasperated, told her to pick a seat and stay there. She had tried the angle a ways behind Lyle, watching Jonathan think about his next move, but all she imagined was him in his spectacles. With nothing else. So she tried the angle further behind Jonathan, but she couldn’t think, nevermind paint, anything beyond his broad shoulders which she was sure bore the marks of her fingernails.

She needed his lips of today to kiss away any pain from the distant past still lingering. She pulled the corner of her bottom lip into her mouth, imagining the teeth sliding up over it to be his.

And even as she thought about his warm body against hers, she remembered his awareness of her body and mind. He was more than her adolescent sweetheart. He knew her for who she truly was, a zany chit with an eye for art and a heart to climb higher.

And a body to ride harder.

She extinguished the steaming thoughts from her mind and instead recalled the afternoon paint session they had enjoyed together. It had sparked more than just desire for him. Somehow it had triggered a memory in Jonathan, unfortunately one of the few memories Margaret didn’t want him to recollect. For if he could remember that, he would remember everything that followed. Their whole blissfully happy then blindingly lost relationship.

There was one unexpected blessing that came from their encounter though. Since he had experienced a breakthrough of sorts, maybe she could use art to help others. Perhaps Margaret had accidentally sat through and discovered a new purpose she could pursue. If only she could be as courageous as her best friend Mary who became a playwright this past summer, she might find a greater purpose as well.

Ironically, Margaret was always considered the brave one. The social one. The impulsive one. The one waving her arms about, twirling around, and loosing twinkling smiles at all passersby. But could she chart a new course for her life? And on a whim, more or less?

The thought was to be taken up later because at the moment, Jonathan had stood up from the chess game and was stretching overhead. Nothing else mattered. Was there even anything else? She watched his long, solidly threaded arms arch into the sky and then come down to massage a shoulder.

Unawares, she began dragging her bottom lip into her wet mouth.

“Margaret,” her mother softly reprimanded. “You’re dripping.”

Startled, Margaret’s eyes flew to her mother’s. Had she read her thoughts?

“Paint. On the Aubusson.” And then as if talking to a child, “You’re dripping paint on the rug, dear.”

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