Page 5 of A Flurry for a Duke

A gasp and a grunt collided. And then oh, good Lord, everything collided. Her naked body was sliding up and down and against a solid wall of muscle. Unadulterated, yet adultering, male. It was him. How he was there, why he was there, and why, for the love of God he was naked, she did not know. Something burst inside of her. If she didn’t know better, she would have thought that it exploded all over him, but nothing had changed. Her vision—what blurry vision she had—confirmed it. Everything was the same. The room. The tub. The man. The steam. God, the steam…All was the same as it had been. Externally, that is. Internally, everything had slid out of place.

“Isaac?” she gasped.

He grunted a reply. And when she looked up at his face, it looked to be in pain. His eyes were squeezed shut, and ragged breaths were slowly being drawn out of him.

His embrace was a steel trap, with his arms around her waist, one hand up between her shoulders and one hand laying claim to her lower back.

She could feel the light fuzz of his chest hair against her nipples. The conscious thought brought them to a peak. And that extra movement made her aware of a slight friction that was searing a trail of fire from her nipples to her core. And if she thought for a second that the fire was only inside of her, she was quickly disabused of that notion. His body was a raging inferno. She knew because she could feel his volcanic temperature through her hands that were pinned to his chest. Her elbows were tucked against her ribs. She could move, but she didn’t want to move, did she?

And then, maybe because she did wriggle a little bit, he made up her mind for her. “Don’t move,” his voice was hoarse and abrupt.

She had never heard such a harsh word from him. And so…gravelly. A million wings fluttered in her stomach. A dull ache pulsated between her legs.

“Don’t move,” he repeated. “I need to” —he dropped his head into the crook of her neck— “think.”

It was appalling to be this close to him, with so few—that is, no—layers between them. She had been quite close to him during the three-legged race they had done last summer. But it hadn’t felt anything like this. This…well, nothing had ever felt anything like this. Bliss. Heat. Aching. Need. A need for something she didn’t understand. But, if she thought she did understand, which was hard to admit, she certainly didn’t want it from Isaac, the laughing rake.

He wasn’t laughing right now though. And that might be the most complex part of this. If he had laughed it off and pushed her away, well, she was sure they could deal with that. It would be intensely awkward. Of course. Maybe she would avoid him for a day. Or a month. Yet it would have been but a momentary collision. That kind of moment she could have recovered from because her mind wouldn’t have had time to feel everything.Everything. And not just feel but contemplate everything. Every little tickling hair. Every beat from his heart. Every twitch of his thigh. Every soft breath from his lips. “Wouldn’t it be better if you let me go?” she whispered.

It took an eternity for him to reply. “Probably,” he mumbled. “But no. Then I’d see you. I think…feeling youis better.” He rubbed his head side to side against her neck. “Let me think.”

Another eternity passed. His hand started slipping down her bottom.

“Isaac,” her voice cracked. “You might need to think. But what exactly is your hand thinking about?”

He hummed into her neck, sending a shiver down her spine.

This was a moment flooded with newness, so she didn’t think it possible to make a distinction between something else new. Yet when that something new twitched against her belly…her heart pounded and her thighs squeezed together. It wasn’t contemplating every tickling hair that was excruciating, it was appreciating every big, bulging—

“What is… that…um…thinking about?” she squeaked out.

His nose pressed into her throat and she felt his soft, warm lips against the base of neck.

“Isaac?” She tried again in a throaty voice.

“Hope,” he growled. And his teeth were on her neck.

Chapter 4

HEWASSUPPOSEDTObe taking a bath to clean up after the dusty journey. It was an innocent activity. The kind a proper gentleman would do to ensure he was at his best when the time came to interact with guests.

Clean. Innocent. Proper.

So what the hell was he doing holding a naked Hope to his flaming chest? Why hadn’t he let her go? Why couldn’t he think straight? Or in any direction at all? He would take a zigzag at this point so long as it got him to where he needed to go. If he were a better man, he would have let her go when she first asked. If he were a decent man, he would have let her go the second or third time she hinted at it. So it made him out to be quite the cad that he was still holding her. And, well, not just holding her anymore.

Because really, and most importantly, he needed a clear answer as to what the hell his teeth were doing on her neck? If he had wanted to kiss her, he should have. He knew it was probably her first real kiss. She reeked of innocence. In the most alluring way. No other innocent had enticed him this way. He was a rake, but even he had principles. Innocents and married women were off limits. So knowing that this was her first kiss, he should have been gentle. Tender. Or at the very least, mauling her lips. Instead, he was attempting to take a bite out of her like she was a damn apple.

In the millisecond it took for his body to collide with hers, he knew he was damned. Because it wasn’t a collision at all. It was a cohesion. Her body struck and stuck to him. And it fit perfectly. Every part of his body that needed sensation was stimulated. From her round mound plied against him, fingers stealthily creeping up his chest, and her thighs affixed to his. There was an invisible glue that had splattered between them, bonding them.

If he let her go, he would see her in her fullness. He already knew enough about Hope. He didn’t need a vision of her that would forever be embossed in his mind. And he wouldn’t have closed his eyes, either. He had principles, but he wasn’t a monk.

No, he had the grand scheme of holding her, melding her to him. Yes, it was much wiser to emboss her body on his than to have a mental image of her forever.

But then she moved. The smallest wriggle. And his head exploded. Sparks flew out of his ears, and then he did have to close his eyes. If they hadn’t been closed already. He couldn’t remember. His senses were overloaded. He had to squeeze his eyes shut and will them to stay on lock down.

He had almost gathered his wits, from wherever they had veered off to, when she moved again. It was his complete undoing. What manner of man could resist the urge to take a bite out of perfection?

It wasn’t him. That’s all he knew.

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