Page 54 of Duke of Destruction
She closed her eyes, and a tear trickled out from between her lashes. It just felt sogood. She knew that the detonation was coming, and she could feel it gathering itself inside her. She simply couldn’t—couldn’t quite?—
She felt a touch at her entrance, and then one finger became two. She clamped her hands over her mouth as Percy moved those fingers inside, her pumping them, twisting themjustso, even as his mouth worked at her sensitive nub. She loomed closer and closer and then?—
And then finally she reached it, the wracking crisis that both made her aware of every part of her body and left her feeling somehow bigger than herself, like this feeling went beyond human limits for sensation.
Another tear leaked from her eye, then one more, as she sobbed out her release. She felt it drip down to join the disheveled hair at her temples as the last waves of pleasure moved through her.
Percy coaxed them out of her, the movement of both his hands and his mouth slowing, then ceasing. He caressed his thumb over her ankle as he sat back and withdrew his fingers.
She felt sated—satisfied, but a bit empty.
After taking a moment to catch her breath, she drew her legs back together, carefully testing out her body’s ability to move. Percy sat back on his heels, waiting patiently as she pressed herself up first to her elbows, then all the way to a seated position.
She felt strangely unabashed by her nudity as she looked down at him. He was beautiful. It almost hurt to look at him. She loathed that he was still wearing his trousers.
“Can I--?” she asked, gesturing to him.
She would have relished seeing him reach his pleasure, too. She hadn’t been paying enough attention that one time they’d come together on the verandah, had been too distracted by the unexpected encounter and her body’s unexpected response to pay attention to what he looked like when he came undone.
She knew even as she asked, though, that he would deny her. There was something final already hanging in the air.
She would have to be happy with the small, soft smile he gave her when he shook his head. She would add it to the hoard in her heart, like all the other expressions he had gifted her over this past week.
“No,” he said quietly, “I think it’s best we didn’t.”
She didn’t quite understand, but she didn’t quitenotunderstand, either. This thing between them…it had always been dangerous. If Percy had decided that the risk was too great, for whatever reason, she could do no less than to grant him her acceptance.
“Of course,” she said gently, hoping he read it in all the things she could not say. “I will dress and be on my way.”
He nodded. Catherine’s chest hurt.
He was enough of a gentleman to hand her her clothing, even to help her into it, though he was careful not to touch her as he did so. Catherine tied the belt of her dressing gown tight, then stepped carefully into her slippers.
There was nothing else to do but leave.
Still, she hesitated, just a bit, as her hand touched the doorknob.
“Goodnight, Percy,” she said. “I—thank you.”
She wished to snatch the words back as soon as she’d said them, worrying that they made the experience between them…cheap, somehow. But Percy, for better or for worse, seemed to understand her.
“It’s all right, Catherine,” he said, giving her that same sad smile. “Goodnight—goodbye.”
And that was about as final as things could be made, she mused as she made herself turn the knob, check the corridor, and slip out of the bedchamber. She moved mechanically through the dark house, not stopping to think and certainly not stopping tofeel.
She crushed everything down inside her, then crushed it down some more. By the time she made it back to her bedchamber, she had exhausted herself with the effort.
She drifted off to sleep, her final thought that she was rather proud of herself for not letting herself cry.
CHAPTER 14
“Perhaps I should marry,” Percy mused aloud as he sat in his library, about a week after returning from the house party.
David sat up sharply. Damn it all, Percy had practically forgotten he was there.
“Good God,why?” the Duke of Wilds asked, obviously appalled.
Percy shot his friend a sardonic glance. “Because I just find weddings so marvelously romantic,” he said. “Because I need an heir, you idiot. The same reason why anyone marries. The same reason you will marry, eventually.”
