Page 93 of A Duke for Stealing
“I want to believe you so very much, but you must understand how very frightened I am to do so. When you said you did not love me? It hurt far worse than the act that put these bruises on my jaw.”
Everett’s head rose up, his eyes glittering with a mixture of brimming tears and unabashed guilt.
“Make me suffer, Rose,” he implored. “Make me pay for my sins. I deserve it. Whatever I need to do to prove to you my love is real, I will do it.”
Rose searched his eyes for any sparkle of amusement or falsehood, but found nothing but raw devotion and need. Need to be forgiven; emotionally; physically. Everett was, she realized with fascination, hers to do with as she pleased.
Rose felt the crack in her broken heart mend just a little and flicked her tears from her cheeks before she leaned her back into the couch. She stroked her hand through Everett’s hair again, loving the power she felt as she watched his lashes flutter shut with ecstasy as he leaned into her touch.
Then, suddenly, she closed her fist tightly around the short locks and pulled back. Not much, just enough to raise Everett’s chin. He let out a hiss of breath as his eyes flew open, those dark green pools already filled with obsession.
“You will not hurt me again,” she stated. Her tone was neither demanding nor harsh, yet there was a warning laced within its softness.
“Never,” Everett vowed, his gaze not leaving hers.
His voice was heavy with ache, and it sent a shot of arousal straight into her loins. Her petals grew wet as she looked into his eyes, and a smile touched her lips.
“You get no more chances,” she went on, raising a brow.
“I do not need them,” Everett hastily swore. “I am and will be utterly devoted to you and the truth of our love.”
She caressed his hair again, and Everett’s lashes fluttered as if such a touch had been delivered directly upon his manhood.
“Such a good Duke you are,” she murmured, feeling a heady sense of power rise within her.
“Yours to do with as you wish, my Duchess,” he rasped, leaning into her touch.
“Anything?” She asked, her mind flashing with possibilities.
“Anything,” Everett breathed, “So long as you forgive me.”
It was going to take time, Rose realized in that moment as she observed the oh so submissive position her rather dominant husband had put himself in, but her body? Her heated, sensitive, aching with need body that had been longing to be touched by him again? That seemed to take far less time to forgive.
Rose smoothed her hand from his hair down to Everett’s handsome face, and he quickly kissed her palm when it met his lips. Her smile grew almost wicked as she continued to smooth her hand down his jaw and neck, untied his cravat.
“Take it off,” she commanded in a soft, almost taunting tone.
Pleasure coursed through Rose’s veins as Everett’s hands began to tremble, and he immediately reached for the bit of fabric and slid it from his neck.
“Now your jacket and shirt,” she went on.
Again, Everett obeyed with a quickness, yanking the clothes from his chest until his muscles were deliciously bare and available for her view. He tossed the fine clothing away from him as if they were rags, and then looked up into her eyes as if begging to know what was next.
Rose’s first urge was to let her hands move further down his neck and to his chest, to run her fingertips over the plains of warm, firm muscles she’d missed so very much these last few days. However, that would bring him pleasure too. More to him than her, she supposed, and she was not done making him ache. Not yet.
Torture, she knew, was not something she was capable of…but teasing?
“Now my shoes and stockings,” she commanded. “Slowly. Do not fling them about as you did with your attire. Sit them gently aside.”
Everett’s pupils dilated as his throat worked to swallow, and with reverence, he picked up her left foot and very gently slid her shoe from her foot. Rose could not help the whimper of pleasure that escaped her lips when his thumb smoothed up the underside of her still stockinged foot. She let her head relax onto the couch cushions, taking in the pleasure of her husband’s willingness to obey.
Everett then placed her foot atop his shoulder, and trailed his hands up her knee-high pink stocking, pushing the skirts of her matching pink dress up along with it, until he reached the edges of it. Slowly, he peeled the stocking back down her knee, her calf, then finally her foot. Once he had the stocking fully removed, Everett brought her foot to his mouth, and he placed a tender kiss atop her toes. As commanded, he then folded it neatly and placed it atop the shoe he’d just removed from her.
Equal reverence was paid to her right foot, and without even being asked, Everett sat back on his heels and waited for his next command. Rose was heady with such newfound power, but even so, she had to draw courage to ask what she wanted next.
“I want you to spread my legs over your shoulders and taste me,” she said at last, a blush blooming on her cheeks as she spoke such a bold command.
Everett’s eyes widened as he looked up at her, and he cleared his throat. For a moment, panic surged through her arousal.Had she gone too far?
