Page 83 of The Duke
She was here, in his arms. Not locked in a memory he couldn’t fully recall, or stashed on a pedestal constructed of the past.Here. Offering him her gentle, honest heart.
Cole’s mouth dropped open, a reply posed on the boundary of his lips like a diver at the edge of a cliff.
But as her hand stole lower, testing the turgid shape of his cock against the front of his trousers, it became apparent neither of them would ever know what he’d been about to say.
With that one caress, she’d dismantled the last of his self-control and left his humanity in the fragmented shards of moonlight on the lush carpets beneath them. His beast roared to the surface, a low sound escaping his chest before he kissed her roughly, and reached down to lift her against him.
Cole walked them both backward until something sturdy stole her weight from him. A desk. Excellent. He crowded her onto it, his tongue splaying against the heated silk inside her mouth, until her legs split to make room for his progress against her.
She clung to him as though she might still fall, her skirts bunching as she gripped him with surprisingly strong thighs, enveloping him with both her arms and legs.
Suddenly it wasn’t enough. He needed flesh against his flesh. Warm skin and wet desire. He needed rhythmic movement and to watch the arching strain of her lithe muscles as she came apart for him.
He somehow rid himself of his own gloves before seizing great handfuls of her skirts, hauling them above her knees. He used his left arm to anchor her against him, and to hold her steady in the wake of what he was about to do. His right hand dragged up her thigh until he encountered the satiny skin above the ribbons of her silk stocking.
She gasped and writhed, kneading at the bunched muscles of his back as he caressed the infinitely smooth skin inside her thighs. Skin that became warmer the higher he climbed, until he reached the slit of her drawers behind which heat pulsed a wanton invitation to him.
Feeling both wicked and welcome, Cole slipped his fingers past the open seams and found the soft bit of fluff protecting her intimate heat. Both provoked and humbled, he cupped the damp mound.
Her breath left her lungs in a great whoosh, flooding his senses with champagne and sex as she rolled her hips forward, arching that lovely back just as he’d wished her to.
He murmured urgent things against her mouth, low, animal praise that was admittedly harsh and vulgar against the softness of her lips.
But his hand. His hand remained gentle as he spread the plump petals concealing her sex and saturated his finger in the desire he found there.
Their combined exhale was a desperate, throaty invocation. Cole bent farther over her, hungrily latching to the throat she exposed as her head rolled back on her shoulders when his fingers slipped and stroked around the soft folds of her core. He relished the delicate skin. Splayed and played with her, until her hips began to roll against his teasing movements in an untried but unmistakable demand, following the deft movements of his finger with pleading little gasps.
Nuzzling a smile against her delicate throat, he grazed the tiny, throbbing pearl of her sex with a moistened fingertip. Once. Twice. Luxuriating in her shuddering response. In the way her little fists knotted in his clothes, tugging as though to rend them from his body.
She gasped his name, squirming to get closer to him. Begging him with her body to release her from her torment. Relenting, he split the delicate seam with his longest finger, finding the soft, tight place her body wept for him while simultaneously resting his thumb against the throbbing nub of sensation and need.
A low sob escaped her as he sank inside to the knuckle, her body pulling him in with tight little quivers. It amazed him that a place so small, so tight, could stretch to contain the length and girth of man.
He moved his finger inside her, testing the singular silk found only within a woman’s core. He curled a knuckle ever so slightly while simultaneously smoothing at her throbbing clitoris with the pad of his thumb. She jerked and twitched as he found a soft, slow rhythm, her breathing coming in hard little pants punctuated by shaking sighs. Her body clamped around him, closing on him with sweet, velvet spasms that intensified in time to her sounds of delight.
“Cole?” she whimpered, as her hips bucked over the desk, suddenly straining against him, almost riding his hand in soft, rocking motions.
“I’m here,” he soothed, dragging his mouth back to hers. “I’m here, my sweet.”
“Don’t. Let. Me. Go,” she begged in time to the movements of his hand.
“Never,” he vowed as she clawed and pulled at him, her intimate flesh clamping around him in beautiful, strong pulses.
He swallowed her ecstatic sounds with his mouth as she drenched his fingers with shudders of wet release. The feel of her pleasure both inflamed and awed him. It built and built until he wondered if it would ever end. Until he was certain he never wanted it to. This woman, this magnificent treasure… he wanted to give her hours of pleasure for every moment of pain she’d ever endured.
That might take a lifetime, he realized.
Was he really considering offering that lifetime to her?
When her frenzy passed, she turned her lips away from his, regaining her breath in moist little puffs while showering his face with grateful kisses, soft as a butterfly’s.
Cole pulled his hand from her, clenching his eyes shut as her lips grazed his lids as well as everything else. Every muscle in his body pulled tight against the others until he feared something might snap. He needed her. He needed to beinsideher. He knew that soft, tight channel of hers was wet enough to welcome him. That he could slip into her offered warmth and she’d pull him close to her body.
But he didn’t move. Didn’t dare.
She was drunk… and he was a fucking gentleman.
God be damned.
