Page 58 of The Wayward Duke
It was so loud, a howling in her chest.
“Shhh.” He stroked her hair. “It’s all right.” The words breathed warmth across her scalp, her temple. “I know, sweetheart.”
“You asked me to forgive you eight years ago,” she whispered. “But I never asked you to forgive me back.” Her lungs ached. “I’m sorry, Julian. For everything I said to you.”
He stilled. In the silence, she leaned in and brushed her mouth to his in the softest plea. When he did not retreat, she kissed him again, firmer. Harder. Parted his lips beneath her own and tasted smoke and brandy and the velvet slide of his tongue stroking hers.
He kissed her deeply then. With bruising force, as if he could scour away the bitter years, the regret. Kiss her until she knew nothing but this. Until the jagged pieces between them melted and blurred into something smooth. Something that did not draw blood with every caress.
“There’s nothing to forgive,” he told her.
She kissed him again. He had always felt like coming home. Her body remembered, even after all this time – like their own language, wordless and wild.
Julian’s mouth slanted over hers again and again until she was dizzy and desperate for him. His hands slid down to grip her hips, then lower still to cup her backside almost roughly.
She rocked against him. Craving more. Needing him inside her, claiming every part that was his. She started to reach down, to free the hard length of him straining beneath the trousers. Take him in hand—
But Julian tore his mouth away with a curse. Grasping her tight, he stilled her movements. They stayed locked together, bodies trembling with need, a thin sheen of sweat blooming across heated skin.
“Not here,” he rasped.
With infinite care, he eased Caroline back, then lifted her into his arms. He carried her from the music room down the darkened corridors to the bedchamber. He lay her down on the bed – this bed she had too often found cold and lonely without him, an elegant tomb.
She watched his silhouette as he removed his clothes, each layer peeling away as if he were stripping barriers between them. Then Julian followed her down into softness, weight braced on rigid arms. His gaze searched her face, gleaming even in the darkness. Then his mouth found her throat, her collarbone. His tongue teased her nipple before sucking firmly, wringing a sharp gasp from her.
When his lips trailed even lower, tongue dipping briefly into her navel, a shattered moan tore from her.
“Please—” Her fingers twisted in his hair, urging him lower still.
Julian’s hands gripped her knees, easing her thighs apart. Their gazes locked, his eyes quicksilver in shadow.
Then his mouth descended to her aching core. Caroline’s back bowed at the first stroke of his tongue. He devoured her as she writhed, one strong arm pinning her hips in place. He slid two fingers deep inside her, stroking tight nerves only he had ever touched. Pressure coiled at the base of her spine, tighter with every thrust. She rocked into his mouth, his fingers, chasing the precipice.
But just before she tumbled over the edge, Julian withdrew. Leaving her empty, throbbing. She barely had time to drag in a protesting gasp before he was above her, pressing her thighs wide. Poised at her entrance, the hard length of his cock nudging her.
Slowly, by increments, Julian sank into her. They froze, gazes locked, as her body stretched and yielded around him. Then Caroline dragged her palms down the sweat-slick plane of his back, feeling the ridges of his muscles, every dip and valley. Tracing the maps carved into his skin.
“I want you to stay,” she breathed, lips shaping the plea against his parted mouth. “Don’t go back to your townhouse after your tenant leaves. Don’t board your ship to Italy. Stay here.”
With me.
He kissed her, long and slow. When he pulled back, his words were warm across her cheek. “Shall I live here now, my duchess?”
“Yes. With me.” She twined her arms around his shoulders, urging him deeper with her hips.
Julian’s restraint shattered. He claimed her with powerful thrusts that stole her breath, spoke of possession and need.
Mine,each thrust seemed to say.
Yours,her body answered back.
Ours.
The force of his claim pushed her up the bed into the pillows. Caroline arched into each devastating plunge, craving more. Needing him deeper. Harder. Needing him to carve himself into her bones, her blood.
“I love you,” he whispered.
He crushed her lips beneath his just as his fingers slipped between her thighs, working her sensitised flesh in tight circles. Euphoria crashed through her, every nerve ending sparking white hot. Seconds later, Julian went rigid above her with a rough curse, finding his own release.
