Page 20 of Secrets of a Duke's Heart
His eyes darkened. He slipped one finger beneath the collar of her wrapper and tugged slowly until it slithered down her arms to puddle at her feet. He dropped to one knee and squeezed her breast until the nipple stood on end, sucking it deep into his mouth through the cotton. Clarissa’s mind blanked. She arched into the wood. Pure sensation flooded her system. Cool air, barely warmed by the banked coals in the fire grate, kissed her calves. The chill skimmed up her thighs to her molten center, which ached for his touch.
For now, her breasts had his complete attention. He squeezed and sucked as she writhed and clutched his hair. He tugged the fabric down andoh—his warm lips on her bare skin were even better.
Blindly she rubbed against his thigh like a cat in heat. A long, thick protuberance jutted into her stomach. Wild excitement leaped within her.
“Do you like touching me there?”
“Yes,” she whimpered.
“How far would you let me go tonight?”
He skimmed his broad hand down her thigh, inching her nightgown up until he found bare skin, making circles on her hip. Flesh on flesh. She was drunk on it.
“Anything,” she promised recklessly. “Whatever we do together tonight stays in this room. Our secret.”
A man who kept as many secrets as he did would surely keep one more.
He pinned her with a fierce gaze and found her center. She shuffled her legs into a wider stance, leaning heavily against the bookshelves with the edges biting stripes into her back and shoulders. She didn’t care. She wanted this. She wanted him.
“I want more than one furtive night with you, Clarissa. I want your forever.”
Bertram, who had come so close to proposing to her before deciding upon another woman, had whispered similar sweet words into her ear. She had allowed herself to be foolish with him, believing his honeyed lies about a future together. But she was not reckless enough to promise her future to Jude, a man so secretive he could hardly bring himself to share his given name.
Promises whispered in the dark carried no more weight than shadows. They fled at the smallest intrusion of light. Morning would reveal the harsh truth that Montague desired her in private but was ashamed of her in public. He’d shown her that he was no different from Bertram at the tavern earlier today.
She would allow herself a taste of passion tonight. Nothing more.
“Please,” she moaned. He found her center and reverently traced the soft nest at the apex of her thighs. Snaking her hand down between their bodies, she found his engorged cock and groped her way past the hem of his banyan to the loose pajama pants he wore beneath it. He was remarkably long and hard, filling her palm. She wanted to taste him. But before she could, he parted her folds and slipped his fingers inside her.
Clarissa made a desperate sound. He groaned into the crook of her neck.
“You’re so wet,” he growled. Strangely, this made her feel powerful—that she, a pathetic spinster, could bring this strong, handsome man to his knees with nothing more than her own wantonness. He thrust deeper inside her, pumping in short bursts, twisting his wrist to hit—that—spot?—
Stars burst behind her eyes. She clutched whatever she could grab onto, his hair, his banyan, losing her grip on both as she rode the wave of pleasure.
“Good,” Jude crooned. “You come so prettily, Clarissa, with your cheeks flushed and dark eyes peeking through the fringe of your lashes. Lips parted and panting for me.” He withdrew his fingers from her core and sucked them. She gaped at him in shock. What a gloriously filthy thing to do.
His darkened eyes blazed with desire. “I could make you come over and over again for hours. Days. I would adore every part of you with every part of me.”
The prospect of giving her body to this man as his carnal plaything tempted her greatly.
With a pang of sorrow, she realized that the pitiful experience she’d wasted her virginity on had been a pale shadow of what was possible. Here was a man who could magnify her pleasure tenfold, given the opportunity. He could make her forget her own name, if she allowed it.
She shouldn’t.
Torn, she buried her face in his collar and gently squeezed his cock. She was tempted to drop to her knees and kiss him there, but she had once flown too close to the flame of lust and had her wings singed. She didn’t dare take things further with him now.
There was no hope for a future with as many secrets as this man held. She demanded honesty above all else and he was incapable of it.
He smelled deliciously of bay rum soap and a hint of the sea, undergirded with a spicy scent all his own. She breathed in his scent, memorizing it for future use.
“I must go.”
“So soon?” He pinched her chin between his thumb and forefinger, bringing her gaze up to meet his. “No one has to know.”
“That is the problem,” she said, pulling away, grabbing her wrapper and thrusting her arms into the sleeves. She gathered her hair to pull it out of the collar and yanked the belt into a knot she would regret once upstairs. “I don’t want to be your shameful secret, Jude. I deserve to be loved openly, without shame. If you cannot give me that much, then this is hopeless and we should stop.”
Seconds stretched into eons. The giddiness of pleasure gave way and cold reality crashed through her like a physical blow.
