Page 77 of The Wayward Duke
Julian followed her into the concealing dark and pulled her into his lap. The space was reduced to mingled breaths and pounding hearts, two bodies straining in the carriage’s confines. Her nails raking his back through his shirt and waistcoat might have been pleasure or pain. Both. Neither. A provocation urging him closer to that seductive loss of control. She was his most tempting sin given flawless shape.
Mine.
“You’re meant to be healing.” He dragged his teeth along her pulse, then soothed the sting with his tongue. “Not letting scoundrels paw at you. That wasn’t what we agreed on tonight.”
A breathless laugh escaped her. “Let me worry about what I’m meant to be doing. And I got the information we needed, didn’t I?”
Julian sucked in a harsh breath as her leg slid up his thigh, blissful pressure on his aching arousal. He tore the wig from her hair and twined his fingers through the blonde strands beneath, giving them a sharp tug.
“You are a menace.” The words escaped through clenched teeth.
Here in the shadows, stripped of disguises, they were laid bare. Two primal creatures, raw edges exposed.
He would ruin her and remake her in a thousand different ways, mark her so deeply that no one could look at her without witnessing his claim etched into her bones. No other man would ever know the taste of her.
Julian used his grip on her hair to arch her throat back like an offering. Sank his teeth into the frantic pounding of her pulse until her breath fractured.
“Duchess,” he growled. “After seeing him put his hands all over you, I find I’m not a civilised man tonight.”
She bit his lip. “Good. I don’t want you civilised. I want you feral.”
Grasping her jaw, he forced her to meet his stare. “Then get on your knees.”
Caroline sank to the carriage floor. Anticipation sank barbed hooks under his skin at the picture she presented – lush and willing.
“Be a good girl and open that pretty mouth.” He made quick work of his trouser buttons.
Her eyes caught his as she parted her lips and took his cock in her mouth. A low groan rasped in Julian’s throat as wet heat enveloped him. Clever tongue tracing maddening patterns, threatening to sever the last tethers in his formidable control. She sucked hard, gaze locked with his.
A tight breath hissed between Julian’s teeth. “Just like that. Take me deeper, duchess.”
She would ruin him, render him wreckage; Julian read the intent in her feverish eyes. Her hunger matched the beast writhing beneath his skin.
He thrust between her lips, his fingers still tangled through her hair. Guiding her as she worked him. So beautiful. So ruthless, her self-control as arousing as her submission.
When her hand crept between her thighs, Julian caught her wrist.
“None of that,” he chided. “I told you I’m not feeling civilised tonight. So you don’t get to find your pleasure yet.”
Fever-bright eyes lifted to clash with his. “Julian—”
“Beg me for it,” he whispered.
She smiled. “No.”
Julian felt himself grinning slowly in response. She was just as uncivilised tonight – revelling in her chaos, the power she had over him.
He yanked her back up into his lap. Their mouths crashed together, the kiss all teeth and grasping hands. Savage. Possessing. Marking. She would wear proof of his claim for days.
Then her lips were at his ear, her voice a temptation in the dark. “If you don’t fuck me right now, I’ll finish myself off in your lap and leave you unsatisfied.”
Julian’s tenuous control snapped.
He claimed her mouth again as he positioned her hips above his rigid cock. He swallowed her cry as he pulled her down hard, burying himself in one ruthless stroke. She was perfection – slick, tight heat.
Nothing civilised existed here in the shadows – nothing but wet heat and fevered skin and harsh breaths. The slick friction threatened Julian’s reason as the beast inside roared in triumph. She was his, only his, to fuck and take and mark. Nothing existed but the push and retreat of their joined bodies – no past, no future. Only the relentless present.
Mine, Julian’s hands said.Mine, his teeth echoed against her throat.
