Page 26 of How to Ruin a Duke
“What you do is enough for me.”Rowena laid a gentle hand on his face, stroking the stubbly roughness and the hard line of his jaw.“Itis.Thank you for trusting me with your story.”
“You’ve told me yours.”He sighed, shutting his eyes.“I wanted you to know mine.I wanted you to know what sort of fellow I am.”
“I already knew.”Her other hand, she laid over his heart.The quiet thunder of his heartbeat was unbearably intimate, his life beneath her palm.All they had to give was time, the precious gift they traded for coin.To help others.To support the life they wanted.To pay for the burdens they’d taken on.
But they had given time to each other for the sheer sweetness of it, too, for a touch and a kiss and a conversation of bitter, pure truths.Such time was precious, and Rowena could not allow it to end.Not yet.
“Simon.”She brushed a kiss to his cheek.“Come upstairs with me.Let’s do something for the joy of it.”
Chapter Six
“When he loved, and he never really loved but one, it was with so violent, so blind a passion, that he might be said to doat upon the very errors of the girl to whom he was thus attached.”
FromGlenarvonby Lady Caroline Lamb
He was in Rowena Fairweather’s bedchamber, and it was more beautiful than the fireworks at Vauxhall.Her laugh, as she clasped his hand and shut the door behind them, was more tuneful than the sweetest arpeggio.
Simon could hardly dare breathe.“What do you want?”
He’d almost asked,What do you want of me?But that seemed too forward.He wouldn’t beg to be essential to her—but if he gave her what she wished, maybe she would find him so.
“You,” she said.“Kisses.You.In my bed.”Her light eyes were frank and merry.“All of you, and right now, please.”
The room was small, the bedstead generously sized and dominating the space.It was of sturdy wood and light curtains and a counterpane so invitingly velvety that he wanted to tug her down and roll all over it.
He did just that.“Have it all, then.”Taking her hands, he flopped back onto the bed and yanked her atop him.She laughed, squealing about their boots marking the counterpane, so he drew her into a kiss until she quite forgot what she was saying.
When he broke the kiss for air, he felt glassy and buoyant.And then he cursed the boots and every layer of clothing that separated them.“Do you really want your boots off?”he asked.
“Eventually.”Rowena moved atop him, driving him to distraction.“But at the moment, that isnotmy priority.I want your hands on me.”
He grinned.“Any specific place?”
She placed his hands on her breasts.“This will do, for a start.”
“Indeed it will.”Through her gown and stays, he could feel the warm weight of her.She was the perfect shape, because it washershape, and he thumbed her nipples until they grew hard and she gasped.It was nothing like touching her bare skin, though, and he coaxed her down so he could unfasten the back of her bodice and loosen the fabric between them.As he did, she remained straddling him, rocking her hips in a rhythm that drove him absolutely wild.
“The start is going to be the finish if you don’t take pity on a poor celibate,” he groaned.
She looked surprised.“I’m not a virgin.Are you?”
“No, but it’s been some time.”As he’d made his wandering way toward London over the years, there had been other women.But at this moment, he had no idea why.
Then he was jealous of the man who’d been Rowena’s first.“Who else have you…no, never mind.It’s not my business.”His better nature came forth.He didn’t want to know anything about the man or men she’d chosen in the past.That was done, and Simon was the one she had chosen today.
She didn’t seem to mind the cutoff question, though.She shrugged, allowing her bodice to slip lower.“I gave myself to someone I thought loved me.I was wrong.”
“He was a fool.”
“You’re sweet to say so.But I was the fool, not he.”
With the same nimbleness with which she brought violin strings into tune, she unbuttoned Simon’s waistcoat.When she tugged his shirt from his trousers, he almost forgot how to think.
Almost.
I gave myself to someone I thought loved me.
Rowena had invited Simon to her bed; she would give herself to him.Did this mean she thought he loved her?Didhe love her?Did she love him?
