Page 15 of Married Off by the Duke
“Yesterday wasn’t enough to convince you? I shall have to try harder today.”
He tugged her close to his front, his arm draped over her waist. Even fully clothed, the bulge of his erection pressed against her bottom. She must be dreaming. Emma interwove her unsteady fingers with his and wondered what the protocol was for signaling, please touch me.
Helpfully, Max read her mind. His thumb brushed the underside of her breast.
“Did you remove my corset?” she asked in a voice throatier than normal. She didn’t recognize herself. Needing things she didn’t know how to articulate. Max had awakened a part of her Emma had spent the entirety of her adulthood ignoring, and now her body clamored for his touch.
“Someone had to. Why?”
He nuzzled her nape. The scrape of his stubble reverberated pleasantly through her body. An insistent ache settled between her legs. Impatient with his slow teasing, she craned her neck for a kiss and at the same time guided his palm down her abdomen.
Max needed no further encouragement. He rolled her to her back, laying half on top of her as he palmed her breast through her chemise. Her petticoat and pantalets were twisted around her waist. Greedily, Emma cupped his face and opened to his deepening kiss. His weight pressed her into the bedclothes. His cock pressed insistently against the apex of her thighs. Experimentally, Emma tilted her hips fractionally upward and was rewarded with a grunt of surprise.
“Your curiosity extends beyond rowboats,” he murmured. “Shall I indulge you, my sweet?”
Emma nodded. She skimmed her hands up his back, delighting in the play of muscle beneath the thin cotton of his Henley shirt. He’d not taken it off. Daringly, she tugged the hem up just far enough to glide the tips of her fingers along the bare skin above his waistband.
Propping himself on his elbows, Max reached behind his head and tugged the garment up and off. It should have been an awkward move, but he performed it so smoothly she couldn’t help but imagine he’d practiced it hundreds of times, with hundreds of other women.
Well, if he could experience lovemaking without commitment, so could she. Her reputation was already in tatters after his outburst, and she didn’t care what people in his social circle thought of her anyway. Less than two weeks from now, she would be an independent woman—and Max would be on to his next conquest.
The sad thought scattered when he sat back, indicating she should take off her chemise. Shyly, Emma crossed her arms over her chest.
“Let me see you,” he pleaded. She wanted the exhilaration of her first experience to be with him. For years, even in her deepest moments of loathing, part of her had yearned for him to see her as a woman instead of a girl. Emma was helpless against the desire burning in his eyes.
Part of her—most of her, if she was being honest—actually liked him. When he wasn’t being a pompous arse, Max was a lot of fun to be around. If they’d been born as different people, they might have sparked in a different way.
Emma huffed and crossed over her chest, torn between embarrassment and wanting to please him. Wanting to please Max was a novel experience, to be sure. She didn’t entirely trust him not to laugh at her modest bosom.
“Go on,” he said encouragingly.
With trembling hands, she slipped shell buttons at her bodice free and pulled the fabric over her head.
The sound he made at the sight of her bare breasts broke all remnants of her resistance.
“Beautiful,” he said wonderingly.
“It’s nothing you haven’t seen before.”
“I’ve never seen you like this before.”
“No one has. Besides, I’m sure I can’t measure up to all your courtesans and paramours.”
“You vastly overestimate my interest in other women.” Gently, he moved her hands away, holding her by the wrists as he looked his fill. “Ladies making themselves available made the chase rather boring. You, by contrast, were always off-limits, first by my father’s orders, then due to my own clumsy attempts to treat you like a little sister, when what I felt toward you was anything but sisterly.”
“It’s too early for revelations, Max.”
“Weren’t you claiming to be a lark just minutes ago?”
She couldn’t help but laugh.
He released her arms and skimmed callused palms up her ribs, squeezing her breasts before he moved forward, pressing her into the bedclothes with his weight, his breath hot at her neck. Emma writhed against him, trying to take it all in: the heat of his kisses at her throat, the rough scrape of his hands on her sensitized skin, the feel of his body on hers. Nothing she’d imagined in her most feverish dreams compared to the reality of being with him.
“You’re so soft,” he murmured against her skin. Emma didn’t feel soft; her body felt wanton and desperate, needing him in places he hadn’t yet explored.
Yet she wanted to draw this out, too. The feeling of him on her. The intimacy.
“You…aren’t.” She worked one hand between their bodies to squeeze his cock lightly. “Quite the opposite.”
