Page 34 of A Duke for Stealing
“How long have you been fooling thetonwith these cheap imitation gowns?” He asked.
He expected Rose to whirl around, slap him even for such a question- and to be truthful, he wouldn’t have minded. Yet instead, Rose placed her hands on the table and hung her head, still not looking at him.
“We all have our secrets, Your Grace.”
The weariness in her tone did not sit well with him.
“Rose,” he gently urged, no longer being playful. “How long?”
Rose brought her hand to her nose, sniffled, and shook her head.
“My Mother was not good with money,” she confessed. “My Father left us plenty, but her habits…her habits became expensive. Sometimes we had to make do with a little glamor.”
Everett’s heart twisted uncomfortably. He still did not know Rose’s full story, and for the first time, he was starting to understand that her life might have been far more uncomfortable than he’d first predicted.
Gently, he reached out to her shoulders and pushed the itchy fabric down. Her body trembled beneath his touch, but she did not pull away.
“What are you doing?” She whispered.
Everett smoothed his thumbs over those little red lines at her shoulders, then ran them over the back of her neck, eliciting a soft sigh of relief from Rose’s lips.
“You do not have to wear these anymore, Rose,” he murmured, drawing himself closer to her back. “You do not have tolivelike that anymore. Not with me.”
Gently, Everett lowered his lips to the small red line at the back of her neck and kissed it. He ran his lower lip over the mark, tasting the sweet saltiness of her flesh as the edge of his tonguedelicately glided over it next. The small taste instantly made him want more, and he continued his kisses and soothing tongue work to the mark on her left shoulder. This earned him another soft sigh as Rose melted against him, and he elicited a small sound from his own throat.
Her weight against his chest felt heavenly, and Everett slowly wound his arms around her waist, silently urging her to completely lean against him. For a moment, Rose stiffened in his arms, then as his teeth scraped ever so lightly along her shoulder, her knees went weak, and she gave her body fully to him to hold.
“What are you doing?” She whispered, her head lolling back against his shoulder.
“I do not wish for you to be uncomfortable, Rose,” he murmured against her ear, sliding his hand up to her throat. “Not here. Not with me.”
Rose let out a small whimper as Everett squeezed his fingers just enough around her throat to take control of it. Gently, he guided her neck to roll forward just a little so he could settle her head against his left shoulder instead of his right, and began placing soft, soothing kisses over the little red mark there.
This was not Everett’s typical form of seduction. He was more of an outrageous flirt who used illicit words and looks to get a woman to blush and give in. However, this method? This small, slow buildup of pleasure? He was finding it vastly gratifying. Maybe it was because it was new. Maybe it was because of theparticular woman in his arms. Whatever the reason, he did not want to stop ‘helping her.’
“Where else is it uncomfortable, Rose?” He whispered into her ear, then nibbled lightly on her lobe.
He released his hand from her neck, using his fingertips to trail softly over the small hollow of her throat, her collar bones, then up to her jaw. Just this small touch had Rose shivering and leaning further into him, and he marveled at how sensitive she was.
“Here?” He asked, kissing the spot behind her ear. He inhaled deeply, catching the scent of roses and something sweeter —her natural scent —and it drove him further toward depravity.
“Mmm,” Rose whimpered, trembling again.
He traced the tip of his nose from the spot he’d just kissed to the middle side of her neck, and let out a soft, warm breath over her flesh.
“Or…here?” His voice was hoarse and growing as thick as his cock; which was now more rigid than ever before, and throbbing painfully beneath the confines of his trousers.
I wonder if she feels what she is doing to me? Just by letting me do this to her?
“Yes,” Rose breathed, letting her head loll further to the left, exposing the spot he’d just touched. “It…it hurts.”
“My poor, sweet angel,” he rasped, dipping his mouth to caress the spot. He lapped his tongue slowly over the spot, needing more of her taste, and not a whimper, but a need-filled moan poured from Rose’s throat.
His hands moved over her body, caressing her waist and gliding to her breasts. He squeezed gently as her heavy mounds filled his palms, and his kiss turned into a possessive bite.
“Oh, God,” Rose breathed, arching into him. As he’d daydreamed just moments earlier, the small movement sent her derrière grinding into his throbbing manhood, and he groaned at the ecstasy of it.
More. He needed more.
