Page 36 of Denying a Rakish Duke
Red blush flushed her pale cheeks. “I had thought to remove you from the arms of my competition … so that I could—” She huffed. It all sounded so silly now that she was saying it out loud. “So that I could stop hearing the words of every other woman in my head that I am somehow deficient because I cannot convince my husband to so much as return home— let alone speak with me!”
“Ah,” Joseph appeared crestfallen, “I had hoped that it might have something to do with your affection for me.”
Vanessa swallowed hard and looked up at him through her brows. She was not ready to tell him what her heart knew, not if she were alone in the truth of it. “I cannot deny that there has been attraction between us, certainly … but to what end?”
“I should not have left you … I simply desired you too much to be near you, and I did not wish to take your choice away.” He leveled her with his intense, piercing gaze— and his meaning felt so much heavier than just the words that he had spoken aloud.
She did not wish to misunderstand the subtext. She wanted the assurance— she wanted him to sweep her up into his arms and confess to her all of the things that she had been too proud to admit to wanting from him all along.
“I do not wish to share you, Joseph. Promise me.” Not with her sister, not with a mistress, not with any others, and certainly not when there was still so much yet to be said between them.
“I promise that I shall endeavor to be the best version of husband to you that I am capable of being.”
“I should also like to meet your friends at some point. I liked the way that Alice spoke very much.”
“You are a little peeping Tom after all.” But Joseph smiled as he spoke. He reached forward and hooked his index finger into the pocket of the riding trousers that she wore and pulled her closer to him. “I must say I do not dislike you in trousers, I can see the curves of you far easier than I can in those dresses.”
A heat spread over her, warming every bit of bare skin that his eyes roved over … but she wanted more. She wanted so much more than to be a pretty trinket that he kept on his Estate to warm his bed. She wanted to discuss things with him, to share experiences … how could she evenhopeto trust him with her heart whenever he only seemed capable of one thing.
The man that she had quarreled with in the conservatory was more dimensional than that … she had thought that in choosing her over any of the other beautiful women at his Estate, out of the whole ball, that it meant he wanted something more than a pretty face as well.
He gazed at her with admiration, and it was her undoing. She could not stop the way her knees weakened, and her pulse quickened. It was the look, those deep eyes of his, that had gotten her in such trouble in the first place. Her skin warmed and her heart fluttered the nearer that he came.
“Let me make up my absence to you. Please, Vanessa, let me apologize in the best way that I can and replace every lonely night that you have suffered because of my poor choices.” His hand flattened over her hip, rounding the toned muscle formed by countless hours of horseback riding, and slid up the bare skin of her middle to pull her closer to him. “Let me become a proper husband to you and make love to you until all of the unpleasantness of our past trials melts away into nothing.” He leaned down closer to her, hovering mere inches from her lips. He curled his other hand around a loose tendril of hair that was windblown around her face. “We can start anew from this night forward,” he whispered.
There was so much more to say, so many more questions that she wished to ask— but she could not bring herself to shatter the moment, frail as it felt between them.
Vanessa acted on impulse and grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him down to her, crushing her lips against his. She let her lips express every negative feeling that had welled up inside of her over the last few days, and he took it all. He housed it inside of himself as he started to unlace the back of her stays. All of the fear, the doubt, the pain surrounding their tenuous relationship pressed from her lips into his.
Fervent, erratic motions accompanied their path to the bedside where he loosed her stays and removed himself from her just far enough to slide the garment down her arms and allow the thing to fall to the floor.
Her fingers danced up the outsides of his arms and around to press into his firm chest, feeling the way that each muscle tensed and moved with his actions until she could find the opening and unlace it. She bunched the soft fabric up into her fists and pulled until it came loose from his trousers, and she could pull it up and over his head as he leaned down. Even parting from him for that single moment was too long. She tossed the shirt aside and gasped at the sensation of his warm chest pressed against hers.
Joseph bent and scooped her up into his arms easily; he wrapped her slender legs around his waist as their kiss deepened. He wanted his hands everywhere all at once. He could not get enough of her soft skin in his hands, finally able to touch her in the way that he had been dreaming about for so long. He had lain awake at night, curled up like a fool on his friend’s settee, wondering what she might be doing and how she was conducting her affairs. He was unable to tell her that she was all that he thought about, the only person who claimed his mind at every waking moment and had started to fill his dreams as well.
To have her here in his arms, half undressed and wrapped around him— he did not have words. Vanessa made everything feel possible— she did not shy away from his temper and was never afraid to speak her mind. It was a quality that he had not known that he needed so desperately.
He had never been gifted with conveying his true feelings and emotions— the barbed conversations that passed between the Dowager and himself were the only form of affection that he had ever known— outside of this. This was the only way he knew how to express his true feelings to her. The woman beneath him was his match in every way.
His knee pressed into the bedding, and he lowered them down onto the bed, covering her with his weight. She could feel the way that he pressed into her, pressing up into her at the junction of her thighs. The touch sent pulses of warmth happily through her in ways that she did not fully understand. He had told her to speak up if at any point it did not feel pleasurable for her— but apart from her skin feeling like it might catch on fire at any moment, she relished in the sensation of his lips against her skin as he traveled down the side of her neck, marking her skin as his own, claiming her as his and only his.
She was eager to do the same.
He firmly cupped her breast in one hand, his thumb brushing over the peaked surface before flicking the sensitive skin with his tongue. His lips captured it, pulling softly at the skin as she moaned in the back of his throat.
Leaning into his elbow, he snaked his other hand between their hips, cupping her in his hand— and Vanessa gasped in surprise. Sensations unlike anything she could have expected sparked her curiosity as he stroked his long middle finger up against the seam of her trousers. Her fists wrapped into the bedding underneath her as he stroked her, pausing only to further loosen the strings on her trousers and start to push them down her legs. “Lift your hips for me,” he whispered into her skin, and she dug her heels into the bedding, lifted her hips, and assisted him in peeling the trousers from her legs until she was fully bare in front of him.
He replaced his hand, and Vanessa grabbed onto his shoulders with a crushing grip, “What are you—?”
“Shh,” he muttered with a smirk. “Steady in, steady out, remember?”
She wanted to retort, but was silenced as that same finger parted her, stroking her heated core to a slow boiling inferno with his ministrations— then he started to kiss her lower. With careful, practiced, and exact movements, he kissed a trail of fire down her stomach. Her abdomen clenched as she tried to watch what he was doing— shocked and intrigued. When his tongue replaced his skilled fingers, she lost all capacity for speech.
Her eyes sprang open as she fell backward onto the pillows, oxygen even harder to pull into her chest as he feasted on her. Her thighs tensed and shook under the assault of the new emotions. Waves of pleasure that she was ill equipped to handle crested from his tongue down to the very tips of her toes. The heat pooled lower, building inside of her and aching for release. “Something is—” she gasped, unsure of how to describe the sensation building within her. Joseph smirked and backed away only for a moment. His strong hands gripped her hips firmly to flip her over onto her belly and then to angle her hips into the air. He lowered his eager mouth to her heated center eagerly in the following moment. He picked her hips up to his face and continued, his tongue slipping inside of her, tasting the sweet nectar on his tongue and running the trail to the most sensitive part of her, and he sucked.
Vanessa’s face buried in the bedding muffled the sounds of her pleasure as her climax tore through her. His name died on her lips— a gust of air consumed by a moan of ecstasy. Her legs shook, and she threatened to collapse onto the bed entirely. She was unaware of Joseph moving behind her until she felt the intrusion, hard and warm pressing against her in the way his tongue had been. She could hardly breathe as it was, and all breath left her entirely as he eased himself inside of her. It was a foreign feeling, painful for a moment but with the ghost of her orgasm clinging to her she lost herself in sensation as he shunted forward inside of her.
Her eyes were open, but she could not see. She could not focus on anything around her other than the feeling already building again inside of her. Joseph’s own groan of pleasure was a concerto to her ears as he found a pace that forced her eyes into the back of her head, and all that she could do was hold on. His strong arms held her to him, his firm grip on her hip as they became one. His motions became erratic, thrusting into her as fireworks covered the backs of her eyelids, and she felt a new sort of heat inside of her as he moaned louder.
