Page 66 of Ne'er Duke Well
“No.” She laughed a little damply into his shirt. “No. I was looking at your family, and the truth is”—her voice wobbled, butshe didn’t weep again—“I miss Will. I never dreamed I would marry without him there, without Faiza and her husband. I was so angry when Will eloped and married Katherine without me. And now I’ve done the same to him, and I feel I’ve betrayed him. I feel like my life shouldn’t keep going on when his seemed to stop two years ago. And I just wish he werehere.”
Her voice had grown louder and higher with her final words, and she fisted her fingers in the back of Peter’s shirt, her face still hidden against his chest.
God, he was an idiot and a selfish bastard besides. He hadn’t thought at all about how much she must be missing her twin today.
Perhaps he did have something to offer her, though. He had these two arms, he supposed, and so he wrapped them tighter around her. He had this one body, to give her comfort and pleasure. He pressed a kiss to her honey-colored hair.
“Sweetheart. His life didn’t stop. And neither should yours.”
“I know,” she said. “I do know. And I know that eventually he’ll come home. I just miss him today.”
If he could have, he would have switched places with her brother at that moment. To make her smile. He kissed her hair again, which was loose about her shoulders. It was so thick he could’ve spent hours tangling his fingers in all the gleaming strands.
She pulled back suddenly, looking up, and her nose nearly bumped his chin. “Peter?”
“Yes?”
“I’m glad to be here. Iwantto be here.”
God, she was so beautiful it hurt. He wanted to touch her, and he was afraid to touch her at the same time. Touching her made him start to imagine a different kind of a marriage, not apatched-up affair in an empty house designed to save them both from scandal.
But he couldn’t help himself. He rubbed his thumb across the sweep of her lower lip. “Good.”
Her fingers suddenly unknotted from the fabric of his shirt and swept up his back. Without a coat, he could feel the soft warm brush of her hand. Her fingers stroked the back of his neck, and, without meaning to, he pressed his thumb harder against her lip.
He made himself pull his hand back from where he wanted—intently, desperately—to push into the wet heat of her mouth. Instead he nudged her hair back from her face.
“Areyouglad I’m here?” Her voice was tentative.
God. “Yes,” he said, his voice rasping again. “I’m very glad you’re here, Selina.”
“Good,” she said, echoing him. Her tawny eyes, darker in the shadowed room, came to rest on his. Her fingers found the nape of his neck and brushed once, and then again. Softly. Her body was pressed against his, and he could feel the heat of her skin through the layers of fabric that separated them.
“Tell me again,” she said. Almost a whisper, her face inches from his. And then, “Show me.”
Gladly.
He brought his mouth to the curve of her ear. “I’ve dreamed of having you here. Anywhere.”
She gasped and tilted her head to the side, exposing her neck. He kissed his way from her ear down the long tender line of her throat. He felt her pulse beating, quick and light, at her collarbone, so he kissed her there too. So like her, that pulse—bursting with strength and life. “I could spend an hour right here,” he said into her skin. “Tasting just this part of you.” He slid his fingersalong her collarbone, and she breathed out a moan. “Touching you. You’re so soft, did you know that?”
He closed his teeth gently along the delicate ridge. She arched her back, her breasts pressing into his chest.
His mind blurred at the sensation. Warmth and soft sweetness. He wanted—Christ, he wanted to bury himself inside her right there in the alcove. He wanted her arms locked around his neck and her heels digging into him as he drove deep into her body.
Instead he soothed the small bite with his lips, then traced the hollow of her throat with his tongue. He let his fingers play at the line of her bodice, not quite slipping beneath. “You are so lovely. So responsive. I think of nothing except having you.”
Her breath came quickly, and her pulse throbbed harder under his mouth. “Peter,” she whispered. “Show me. Show me everything.”
Chapter 17
… Such ardent desires, such ungovernable longings…
—from Selina’s private copy ofFANNY HILL, underlined
Her skin was on fire. His fingers trailed flames as they swept, back and forth and back again, along the line of cloth-of-gold that made up the bodice of her wedding dress. Selina breathed in Peter’s warm, clean scent and felt the swells of her breasts push up, seeking the pressure of his fingers.
His breathing was ragged. She could tell, could hear the shudder-stop in his chest, and yet he didn’t hurry.
