Page 82 of The Duke
But now… when the noise was the sweet hitch of Imogen’s desperate inhalations as she turned into him. When the fragrance was champagne and berries on the hot breath that feathered against his neck and jaw. When the sensation was her silk-clad hand twining into the short locks at his nape, raising the hairs everywhere else on his body into vibrating awareness… well, he couldn’t say he minded the darkness so very much.
Only that he wished to see her face. To read the desire in her eyes.
He settled both his hands at her waist, noticing the slight clicks and creaks the hinges of his prosthesis made with the movement.
“You didn’t promise not to say or do something improper,” she prompted.
“I think we both know I’m about to do something very improper, indeed.”
Aroused, inflamed, Cole pulled her in closer, fitting her to him. Her body melded into his, the soft shape that of an hourglass. He lowered his lips to play across her bare shoulder and hunt for the downy skin of her neck.
He knew once his lips found hers, all semblance of honor and control would vanish like the stars behind low London clouds. He wanted to prolong this moment, with her pliant and willing in his arms. An almost innocent honesty bloomed between them. Yes, he wanted to keep this moment forever, to roll it up and wrap it in ribbons made of moonbeams and store it in that place they’d spoken of before. That secret place deep within, the one only he could visit.
Except, now he thought he might keep her there, too.
An errant sound escaped her as he found the sensitive hollow of her throat. Her fingers kneaded at his scalp and she tipped more heavily against him. “I—I’ve changed my mind,” she informed him unsteadily. “You may kiss me now.”
Her lips found his temple, clumsily questing lower for his mouth, which he denied her.
“How fickle you are, Lady Anstruther,” he teased low and soft against her ear.
“I assure you, I am not,” she promised. “It’s only that, if my lips aren’t occupied, I might say something I shouldn’t.”
Dear God, did he want to occupy her lips. In ways that would shock her. In ways that might upset and alarm her. Oh Christ, if only…
Clamping down on the salacious beast that threatened the tenderness of the moment, he, instead, focused on the satin glove warmed by her palm, currently shaping his jaw with a soft caress.
“You can tell me anything,” he said gruffly, turning his head to nuzzle into her palm like a wolf demanding affection. Using his teeth, he captured the tiny seam at the tip of her longest finger and pulled it loose. He did this to four fingers before the glove slid free of her hand.
Cole tucked it in his pocket, thinking that he was beginning to start quite a collection of her gloves. “Do you know what I like about you?” he queried, charting the indent of her waist as his hand made its way up her spine. He thrilled to the little tremors of muscle he detected beneath his hand. “Your inability to hide what you feel. Your emotions radiate from you, even in the dark. They’re quite contagious, you know.” He caught a soft lobe between his lips and nudged with his teeth.
Her gasp melted into a moan. “You don’t know what I hide,” she panted. “You can never know.”
“Why?” He licked at the hollow behind her ear that tasted of salt and softness.
“Because,” she breathed almost imperceptibly. Then her hands lifted to his chest, pushing at him until she bent back in his arms like a bloody contortionist.
Her voice became stronger, the desperation rising above the husky desire. “Because, sometimes, when one keeps so many secrets for so long, one becomes reliant on them. One’s life could unravel in the wake of revelation.”
“Tell me,” he cajoled, tightening his hold on her. “Tell me what you fear. Tell me your secrets and I’ll hold everything together.”
“Must I?” she asked plaintively, melting back against him, her lips brushing along the place where his jaw met his neck. “Must the past matter so much now that you are back and I am who I am instead of who I was?”
She was making no sense, but it didn’t matter. Her mouth left a moist trail down his jawline and was charting a dangerous course across his cheek toward his lips. Cole had the distinct feeling that she used the tantalizing slide of her mouth as a distraction.
Damn her lovely hide if it wasn’t working.
His beast both purred and growled simultaneously as he turned his head and claimed her questing mouth. Their tongues slid against each other’s in a dance of wet silk and raw, uncomplicated desire.
She could keep her fucking secrets, Cole decided, so long as she stayed like this, soft and eager against him, overwhelming his honed senses until the entire world vanished but for the two of them. The room faded and even the moon seemed to dull against the flare of desire sparking through him with all the hot, white fire of a lightning bolt. The cosmos tilted, contracted, and expanded again, leaving them suspended in an eternal firmament, lit only by tiny explosions of unfamiliar stars.
She placed her hands on either side of his jaw, one palm bare and warm, the other still gloved. Cole tasted her, devoured her, and yet her gentle grip held him utterly captive. Her hands slid down his neck, raising gooseflesh everywhere before they smoothed the swells of his chest, and tucked the lapels of his suit coat.
A quiet curse escaped him as his lungs labored beneath her palms. Shivers of lust and fire ran up and down his spine, shooting thrills and shocks to the tips of his fingers and scorching along nerve endings until he felt as though an inferno might erupt if he wasn’t soon rid of his clothes.
She pulled back, and he almost didn’t let her. Pressing her cheek to his, he felt a tiny hint of moisture slide between their flesh, a tear smudged by their proximity. “I would fall in love with you if you’d let me.”
Her agonized whisper shook the foundations of the ground beneath his feet. They were no longer suspended in a fantastical midnight sky, but crashed back to the hard and unflinching earth, spinning and spinning in an endless orbit toward eventual oblivion.
