Page 67 of The Untamed Duke
“I want you to show me, Nicholas. Show me everything that comes with being yours. Show me what it's like to be possessed. To be loved. To be claimed and conquered. Tame me, if you dare try,” she breathed, pressing lightning hot kisses along his neck. It was corded tight with the effort of keeping himself from her. “Or perhaps I should tame you.”
Every muscle in his body snapped taut with her husky words. “Please,” he said, the words escaping on a jagged exhale of air, “stop.”
Grace smiled a secret smile. Victory was inevitable. He could not resist her, no matter his legendary self-control. With silken intent, her hand closed even more firmly about his flesh, her fingers gentle as a bluebird’s wings.
A strangled curse escaped Nicholas as he abruptly folded in surrender. He pulled her head to his, deepening the kiss, pouring his heart into hers, filling all the empty spaces of their souls until they both overflowed with desire and the need for more and more and more. His body shifted impatiently, demandingly, between her fingers. One rough hand held her head steady for the blooming arrows of his kiss, buried in the silk of her hair while the other dug into the tender flesh of her bottom, his fingers surely marking her with bruises. He yanked her into a position that flattened both his erection and her hand against the softness of her belly.
“You don’t know what you are asking of me, Grace,” he said in a final effort of resisting her.
The scars he carried inside him were not visible, but Grace saw them as clearly as the ones crisscrossing his back. Those internal wounds were thick and tender. They made him shy away from the slightest hint of true intimacy. Once, he’d been broken, and he put himself back together the best way he knew how...with an iron will and caustic wit. Holding the frayed edges of his soul together was a level of control preventing anyone from getting close. Until now.
Sadness overwhelmed Grace. She wanted to soothe him. Embrace him. Kiss away all his pain until the dark wings shrouding him were forced into recession. Forever.
“Come out of the shadows, Nicholas,” she said softly. “Come to me.”
In a husky voice, he replied, “You’d be wise to fear those shadows, honeybee. Should we continue, you will become one of them.”
His hand gripped the back of her neck. It was far from gentle, but Grace pressed closer, terrified she was losing him.
“Your shadows do not frighten me.” Her eyes welled with tears. “You have become all my thoughts. The ones I cannot erase in the hours before dawn, and those that brighten my days. I want you, Nicholas. All of you. Even...even the shadows.”
“There is a darkness inside me you cannot comprehend,” he grunted.
Grace nodded her head. She knew. She loved him anyway.
She kissed him then, tasting brandy and hope in his mouth, and Nicholas drank her in like a drowning man on the edge of a vast whirlpool of nothingness. She was the only thing keeping him from being sucked into the dark oblivion of a lonely existence.
When he pushed her back, Grace had the impression he both savored and hated the feel of her skin on his. His eyes closed, long, sooty eyelashes concealing the emerald lights in his eyes. She leaned into him, tracing the scratchy, stubbled jutt of his chin with her lips. God, he tasted of divine things. Mint and darkness, starlight and warm linen. Spiced brandy and the slightly crisp tang of evergreens.
“I would give up everything to be with you,” she whispered. “You draw me in so easily. Without effort. I scarcely know myself when I’m with you, as if you turn me into a stranger. I do and say things I never thought possible, and yet it feels right.Wefeel right. You make me whole, Nicholas. I’ve found a piece of myself I never knew was missing.” Grace shrugged, shoulders lifting with her own bewilderment. “I’m yours.”
With an audible grinding of his jaw, Nicholas jerked her off his lap.
Dislodged so quickly, Grace slipped between his legs. Down onto her knees, shoulder level with the juncture of his legs. Down where she still gripped the massive hardened steel of his body within trembling fingers.
Nicholas’s eyes narrowed. “Do you believe there’s been a moment since I met you when you were not mine? All the devils in hell are surely here now, torturing me with the thought of having you. It is madness for us to be together outside this infernal contract.”
Grace stared at him, her heart in her eyes.
“Let go.” The command was brutal in its harshness, but his eyes, burning a fiery path over her body where she crouched, left no doubt what he wanted. What he would do if she allowed it.
He would bury that impressive weapon between her legs. Make her cry out in a heady mix of pleasure and pain. Love her until she could not breathe without feeling him inside her, filling her. Possess her until there was nothing left in the world but the two of them. God, how she wanted that. She would love him enough for the both of them.
“Let go,”he repeated.
Grace slowly shook her head. “Tell me how to please you.”
“I won’t be able to keep myself from taking you...get up now.”
His voice was a low growl of need. Grace’s insides clenched. Silvery tremors raked her body until she was ravenous for him. She wanted him. So much that she was becoming reckless.
“No.”
Leaning forward, she covered him with her mouth, sliding her hands along his thighs. Whether she braced herself or it was a feeble attempt at keeping him in place, even she was unsure.
He tasted warm. Salty. Clean. Something undefinable. Maybe a spice. Experimentally, in the interest of gaining a better enlightenment, her tongue swirled around the broad head before she raked her teeth slightly down part of his length.
Desire flooded her, surprising in its intensity. Her legs clamped together in an attempt at suppressing it.
