Page 24 of The Wayward Duke
He sauntered to the chaise longue and sprawled across it. Head thrown back, every muscle on display.
“Well?” His voice was rough silk. “What are you waiting for?”
Somehow, she managed to face her canvas. With shaking hands, Caroline began to sketch. She started slowly, almost clinically, capturing lines and contours.
If he insisted on flaunting his body, then she’d feast. Gorge her starved senses on every angle until she’d had her fill. Until the pounding ache in her core no longer made her dizzy with lust.
Until she scrubbed her fevered dreams free of ink-stained hands and burning blue eyes.
Caroline drew across the page in bold slashes. Angled light played over the defined muscles of his torso and legs – muscle, sinew, poetry wrought in the flesh. A familiar heat bloomed inside her while she rendered each powerful contour. She smudged the shadows between his thighs before darting a shy glance upwards.
His stare held a knowing glint that made her skin flush hotter. Steeling herself, she continued her path downwards, letting her gaze linger on the thick length of his aroused cock.
“Stop drawing.” Julian’s voice came out rough. More command than request. “Take off your dress.”
As if compelled by gravity, Caroline set aside her charcoal before crossing the room. She reached for the buttons lining the front of her day gown. One after another they slipped free, until she stood before him in only her thin chemise and stockings. When she shivered, it had nothing to do with the cold.
Julian’s stare moved over her. “All of it.”
The rest of her garments joined the pile. She tried not to fidget under that intense perusal. She saw herself reflected in his gaze – the rapid rise and fall of her breasts, the fine tremor in her hands.
Utterly exposed before him, flaws and all.
“Come here.”
This time, it was less command, more the gentle beckoning of a lover. Caroline went willingly. Let him guide her down onto the divan so they lay pressed together, skin to skin. His fingers traced idle patterns over her hip.
Their lips met, and Julian kissed her until stars exploded behind her eyes. He relearned each sensitive spot that made her gasp and tremble. She drank him in – the taste of his skin beneath her lips, the devastating pleasure of his hands and mouth on her body. And when she finally pulled back, gasping for breath, he simply moved his attention lower, kissing down the column of her throat.
Caroline clutched at his shoulders, lost to sensation. She wanted this – wanted him with a desperation that went soul-deep.
Wanted to drown in him.
Julian stroked his fingers between her thighs. He kept her balanced on the precipice, denying her the penetration she craved.
“Now, I’ll ask again, my duchess,” he said. “What do you feel when you look at me?”
It took Caroline a moment to process his words. To understand the importance behind them.
But her heart was too bruised, too tender beneath its fortress of scars. Jagged at the edges, barely held together. He would leave her again, board his ship and pretend he didn’t know her. She couldn’t survive him carving her open a second time.
His gaze locked with hers, so intense it seared. “Answer me.”
“I can’t,” she whispered.
Something dangerous sparked in Julian’s eyes. He drove two fingers deep inside her, as if he could wring the truth from her trembling body. Caroline came apart on a sharp cry, shattering beneath his touch. Again and again, he brought her to the brink, stoking her pleasure until she was wrung out and gasping.
She expected him to find his own release then. Instead, he gathered his discarded garments, donning each item with clinical precision. The distance between them gaped wider with each button refastened, each layer of clothing restored.
Until it was as if their interlude had never happened.
“Aren’t you going to—” Caroline pressed her lips together, refusing to beg for it.
You don’t have to play the dutiful husband behind closed doors.
Fully dressed once more, Julian leaned down to brush his mouth over hers in a kiss that somehow felt more intimate than all they’d just done. “When I fuck you,” he whispered, “it won’t be while you’re lying to me.” He walked to the door. “We’re attending the theatre tonight. Don’t keep our audience waiting.”
Long after he had gone, she remained sprawled amid the wreckage of her studio. Still burning from the memory of his hands. Still devastated by the ruthless skill with which he shattered her defences, forced her to confront old agonies she’d never been able to cauterize closed.
