Page 44 of The Scandalous Love of a Duke
Ignoring his petulant tone, and his order, she took another sip of wine.
‘Do you still want me?’ There was an odd note to his voice now, one that did sound like a child. His ducal shield was slipping.
She turned back and met his hard judging gaze. ‘I was not late on purpose, John.’
‘No?’
‘No.’ Indignant anger tightened like a knot in her chest. ‘I had things to do. My absence would have been noted if I had not done them first.’
‘Is it some lesson to me?’
‘Of course it must be to do with you, it can be nothing to do with me, because everyone knows even the sun only circles the earth to pass about you.’ She hoped the jab hurt him as he had hurt her yesterday.
He had not taken his eyes off her but his expression did not change. She had said it to make him angrier. She wished for some reaction from him. At least let him prove he was human.
She drank the last of her wine, set the glass down and went to him. Then she leaned forward and kissed his lips, her fingers bracing her weight on his shoulders. He did not kiss her back.
She pulled away and faced his chilly look. Behind that look she knew there was insecurity and need, though, she was sure he would never admit it.
She kissed him again and this time his hand came up and braced the back of her head as his lips opened and he kissed her in return. It was a stubborn and demanding kiss. It didn’t matter, she had needs too, and they pulsed into life, exhilarated by the anticipation which clutched in her stomach.
When she ended the kiss because it was too awkward bending down, he said again, ‘Take off your dress.’
She may be a bastard by birth but John Harding had become a bastard in nature.
However, she chose to comply, because beneath the skin of the duke was the young man she adored, and he needed her. She released the buttons at her chest. That young man had been kind and thoughtful towards her, as much of a brother as Phillip had been. This man, she did not know. He was a stranger in John’s body really, and yet she knew the boy and the youth were within him. He needed her to help him find who he was again. This sad, angry man was not who John really was.
Brushing the feather against his cheek, John watched her, feeling control slipping through his fingers like sand. She undid her buttons and then slid her arms free so her dress hung from her waist before pushing it off over her petticoats. His heart pounded so loud he could hear it in his ears.
‘And the rest,’ he prompted, waving the feather in her direction.‘…everyone knows even the sun only circles the earth to pass about you’. Her words had cut again. Why did she think him spoilt? He was not.
Once she’d undone the tapes of her petticoats they slid to the floor and then she walked towards him and turned so he could help with her corset. His mouth dried at the defiant look he saw in her eyes. He liked her timidity but he rather liked her defiance too. It made her blue eyes glow.
He unlaced her in a trice and she needed no prompting to continue. She slipped off her chemise, baring her breasts before removing her underwear and revealing all. He had only seen her naked yesterday, yet today he still felt awed by the site, and heat pulsed into his groin.
When he looked from her body back up to her face, she was watching him.
‘Come here.’ The heat in his blood had warmed his voice.
She came and stood between his parted thighs.
He began playing with the feather he had found where he had left his horse, drawing circles on her tummy.
She shivered.
He brushed it across her hip, then down her outer thigh before running it back up her inner thigh.
He saw her muscle jolt.
When he looked up her eyes were closed but then they opened and her hands cupped his cheeks so he could not look down again.
He did not cease his caresses but let the tip of the feather touch her intimately. The reaction on her face was shock, yet then her body relaxed and she bit her lip.
She could hide nothing from him, this girl, she did not even try, and there was that fierce burning look of love in her eyes.
Katherine.
He ran the feather in and out between her legs, testing her. He had a desire to make her hate him today, to fail him – to prove that love was wrong – because if love existed, he had not earned love as a child.
