Page 77 of The Good Duke
Never breaking contact with her mouth, Simon stretched her arms up over her head so she lay powerless in his embrace.
A warm rush of desire flooded that aching place between her legs, and she reflexively lifted her hips to get nearer to him. It’d been so long since she’d known passion. But never, ever, ever had it been like—
Simon released her and stood so abruptly, Persephone’s entire body collapsed into the unforgiving hardness of the mahogany makeshift mattress under her. Her chest heaved, and her hips still moved, and it was a moment before she realized how coolly collected he stood over her.
She scrambled to get herself upright. Her chest thumped wildly, now for altogether different reasons.What did I do?
“This cannot happen a-again, Your G-Grace,” she said, attempting a sharp, shrewish tone and managing nothing more than a stammer.
“Fine,” he said, so apathetic her pride smarted worse than when she’d been shown the door by her former sweetheart’s powerful father.
With a dispassionateness she envied him, Persephone smoothed her trembling palms along the front of her skirts.
And forgetting the whole reason she’d sought him out in the first place, a dazed Persephone turned on her heel and left.
Chapter 13
The following morning, Persephone—who’d attained little meaningful rest—found herself doing the same thing she’d done the moment she’d left Simon’s office—pacing.
In fact, with the number of steps she’d taken, it was a wonder she’d not worn a hole straight through the Axminster rug and right on down to the elm floorboards.
The spring wind filtered through the opening Persephone made when she’d lifted the window a few hours ago in the dead of night. Now, the celestial blue gossamer curtains billowed lightly.
Just like last evening, however, that gentle breeze did little to cool anything: not her thoughts, her body, her annoyance.
A still-fresh humiliation lent a greater speed to Persephone’s already quick strides.
What did I do?
What did Simon do?
What had theydonetogether?
Oh, you know. You. Know.
I should have fled the moment Simon vowed he’d kiss me.
Only, Persephone hadn’t heeded his warning.
You fled, a far kinder than she deserved voice reminded.You just…fled too late.
Persephone stopped abruptly and slapped her hands over her face.
Against all better judgment, she’d…remained, and he’d done just as he’d promised—he’d laid her across his desk and devoured her mouth like she was the sugar-glazed, decadent croquembouche creation of Marie-Antonin Carême.
She let her arms fall useless at her sides.
The moment he’d pulled away, however, he’d done so with the same zeal of one who’d been presented a plate of jellied eels and all the aplomb of a bewigged lord in Parliament.
From across the room, the giltwood and gesso mirror reflected back her still-burning cheeks.
All the while, Persephone laid there, sprawled as he’d left her: dazed, befuddled, and aching formore. For Simon’s kiss—thatparticularkiss—had been nothing like the chaste, awkward, sloppy one they’d shared as children.
And here she’d believed there couldn’t be any humiliation more keen and more excruciating than when she’d been sent packing by her former lover’s father.
She’d been wrong.
The sight of a dispassionate Simon towering over Persephone had shouldered out a mindless desire, to be replaced with a toe-curling mortification.
