Page 27 of How to Ruin a Duke
Did it matter, if they were here now and both wanted this pleasure?
Yes, it mattered, he thought dimly as reason began to surrender to desire.It mattered very much.And if he’d known what love was—if he, an orphan, had known any love besides the old friendship that came with years of thwarted guilt—he would know in a flash how to respond.
Instead, he knew only that any man who’d given up the chance to be with Rowena Fairweather in any way was a fool, and the man who’d been in her bed and left it was the greatest fool of all.
But she hadn’t asked a question about Simon’s feelings, and when he kissed her, drawing deep of her taste of tea and sweetness, she didn’t speak again.Not of who she’d been with, or what she had wanted from him.Not of anything at all besides “There” and “Again” and “Yes, more.”
Simon played her slowly, tugging free her boots and peeling away her layers of clothing.Each layer gone revealed new places to kiss.Skin to stroke.Curves to admire.Blessings to count.
“You’re teasing me,” Rowena chided, rising up over him lovely and bare.“All that touching and stripping, and there you are fully clothed.”
“Tease me back, then,” Simon offered hopefully.
And she did, wearing a sly grin and nothing else as she tugged free his cravat, slipped his coat from his shoulders, wrenched his boots from his feet.She wasn’t quick about the matter.Simon couldn’t stop trying to touch her as she stripped him.He breathed the scent of her hair, kissing her neck or shoulders or chin or whatever he could reach.He was nearly drunk on her, nearly frantic, before she finished removing his clothing.
“Now we’re even.”She lay back on the bed, reaching up for him.In the moonlight, he could count every freckle on her nose.He could touch them all, kiss them all.
“We’re not even until—” He bit off the words.You’re mine, he’d been about to say.Because he was hers?
Oh damn.He was hers, all right.He was decidedly hers, and he had no idea whether she wanted him to belong to her or not.Not beyond this night.
“Until I bring you joy,” he ground out as she drew him close and he seated himself within her.
They paused, gasping, then moved together, musicians in harmony.Each stroke of his body in hers plucked strings of pleasure deep within him.When she came with a cry, it was like the music of chimes.When he withdrew to spend outside of her cradling warmth, joy shot through him like the crash of cymbals.
Encore, he thought.A million times.Forever.
For a long, slow moment, they were silent beside each other.Through the window, a fat crescent moon smiled upon them.
Still breathing hard, he asked lightly, “Was it as good as a Gothic novel?Lightning-struck towers and skeletons and all that?”
Rowena took his hand in both of hers.“It was far better.I enjoyed your lightning-struck tower”—Simon choked—“but there was also a happy ending.”
“I had no idea you were so able with erotic puns.”
“I’ve had no idea about many things,” she replied softly and nestled her head on his chest.He held her in the bed, eyes wide in the night-dark room as if that would help him see stars.
She had asked him to lie with her, which meant she thought he was worthy.Of her time, of her body, of a place in her bed.She gave him the right to kiss her lips, to touch her body, and he could not recall ever receiving such a gift.
Then Rowena stirred beside him, all warm tangled limbs, and sang softly.
“A brisk young man, diddle diddle
Met with a maid,
And laid her down, diddle diddle
Under the shade.
There they did play, diddle diddle
And kiss and court.
All the fine day, diddle diddle
Making good sport.”
Simon laughed, tweaking her earlobe.“Our special song, ‘Lavender’s Blue.’Are those really the words?How scandalous.”
