Page 101 of The Duke
Although… Could it be she’d not dreamt of him lying next to her? That he’d really been there?
“I mean it.” His voice allowed no question.
Her breath left her in a rush, half gasp, half sob, as Imogen lifted her arms to beckon him to her.
Suddenly he was there. Her covers were gone and he replaced them, clutching her to him as he took her offered mouth with ferocious gentility. Clinging to him, she relished the heat building inside of her, answering the scorching flames he licked into her mouth with a demanding tongue. She tasted love on him, love and fear and earnest need.
Desire fanned through her, at once tensing and releasing her muscles. She turned into a puddle beneath him, her legs falling open, her body making way for his weight.
“Good sweet God,” he groaned. “I’m going to taste you everywhere.”
He cradled each side of her face like a monk at prayer, one hand warm flesh, and the other cold steel. So much like the dichotomy of this man.
His lips fanned over hers with skillful, drugging pulls. His tongue made wicked swirls inside of her mouth, exploring with unapologetic languor. The groan was that of a damned soul finding sanctuary. His tongue, a sword of silk, penetrated and retreated in a rhythm that flooded Imogen’s loins with passion.
Abruptly, she pulled away. “Where is everyone?”
His brow furrowed with confounded indignation, lips wet and hard above her as he processed her words between panting breaths of mounting lust. “You interrupted what was possibly the best kiss in the history of the empire to ask such a question,” he said tightly.
She loved this arrogant, grumpy beast with all her heart. “I’m about to make love to you, Your Grace, and I don’t want to be interrupted.”
The temperature in his eyes flared from molten to volatile. “Your mother forced everyone to go to church to pray for you.” He touched his nose to hers with sweet affection that caused her heart to double in size, simultaneously slipping a hand to wander perilously close to her breasts. “Lovely woman, your mother.”
“Bless her pious heart,” Imogen agreed, then arched her body against his, silently pleading for him to resume her ravishment.
He lit her blood on fire with his next kiss, then knelt up and over her to grapple with his shirt, his frantic hand less dexterous than it had been before.
“Here, let me.” Imogen batted his hand away, unfastening his shirt and pulling it down wide, breathtaking shoulders. “I suppose dressing and undressing you will be one of my many wifely duties,” she said, discarding the garment to the floor before spanning her hands over the familiar width of his chest.
“I have a valet,” he argued haughtily, then stilled, ceasing to even breathe, though his heart thundered beneath her palm. “Did you say wife?” His voice was laced with a hesitancy she’d never before heard from him.
She nodded, her throat full of emotion. “I love you too,” she managed.
Struck similarly mute, his eyes shone with something more powerful than heat, more eternal than lust. More selfless than need.
Gently, slowly, he slid the bodice of her nightgown off her shoulders, and she helped him ease it away from her.
His hot gaze roamed her like an impatient surveyor would an uncharted land, as though he couldn’t decide where to explore first. He settled for the arch of her throat, barraging her with an assault of kisses as they both worked to free him of the rest of his garments.
Ripples of warmth sang along her skin when his lips reached her breasts, taking her nipples into his mouth and stroking them into taut and tender peaks. She made a soft sound underscored with desire, her fingers digging into the hard power of his shoulders. She’d not known she’d been pushing him lower until he complied, the tense muscles rippling as he descended her body, marking the journey with his tongue.
Oh Lord, perhaps she wasn’t ready for this just yet. To say “I love you” was one thing, to… to let him do what he… well, that was quite another.
“Oh…” She lost her breath as he imprisoned her thighs open, not preparing her at all before the flat of his tongue spread her sex apart.
Imogen gasped, and bucked, knowing the moisture he trailed against her intimate flesh wasn’t only from his mouth, but from her body.
An appreciative moan vibrated against her, sending echoes of pleasure to her every extremity. Another unhurried lick cleaved her world in two, though he stopped the moment before he reached the quivering pearl of her clitoris. He circled it instead, stopping to nibble here, to tease there, tormenting her with skillful evasion.
“Cole,” she begged, desperately grasping for his hair. “Please.”
Another pleased groan caused her feminine muscles to clench against the sensual promise in the sound, and she surged against his mouth. He latched on to her then, his clever tongue flicking and laving, creating sensations of overwhelming delight.
She cried hoarse relief to the canopy as wave after wave of crippling ecstasy crashed over her. Her breath came in sobs and inarticulate words. It felt like bliss flowed from his tongue into her body, bowing it with paralyzing spasms until the fingers she’d used to hold him to her now clutched at him to pull away before she expired from ecstasy.
His glossy lips lifted with wicked masculine delight as he prowled up her body. He wiped his mouth before hunkering over her, his movements impeded slightly as he carefully situated his left arm.
Imogen reached for it, and didn’t miss the hesitation that overtook his posture.
