Page 38 of A Duke to Undo her
“I’m just so tired of people looking at me like I’m wrong, telling me I’m wrong, telling me I need to be different,” she blurted out. “Why can’t anyone ever let me just be myself? I might be in the wrong place at the wrong time but I can’t help it. It just happens, no matter how much anyone disapproves, even you, Your Grace.”
“Cassius,” he said. “My name is Cassius. You called me that in the study and in the forest. I liked it. I also don’t disapprove of you, Josephine. There’s nothing wrong with you at all.”
“I want to believe you, Cassius,” Josephine told him and he squeezed her hand as he had done on the sofa as the chamber music played. “But it isn’t easy. Whatever I do, I know I can never be perfect like my sisters, or Lady Belinda or every other young lady of the ton.”
“Do you know what I see when I look at you, Josephine?” the Duke of Ashbourne asked her. “I mean, apart from your physical beauty which distracts me immensely at every turn. I see a young woman with more zest for life than anyone I’ve ever met, with enough determination to see through any hardship and with enough courage to challenge a duke, even in his own home.”
As they talked, Cassius Emerton led her back towards the candles and books Josephine had abandoned.
“Not everyone thinks those are positive qualities, especially in a woman,” she told him sadly.
“Well, I do. You should already know that I love being challenged, by a worthy opponent.”
“Am I a worthy opponent?” she asked.
“Can you doubt it?” the duke answered with a grin that let the world settle again into untroubled night. “Now, what have you been reading tonight, Lady Josephine?”
His eyes quickly scanned the selection, an amused eyebrow rising at the sight of the lewder works, one still open on the plate that had so surprised Josephine.
“Ah,” he said with a laugh. “I have left your erotic education half complete, haven’t I? You are resorting to books.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Josephine admitted, wondering if she should try to be more ashamed at being found with these books, but feeling no shame whatsoever in reality.
“Do you want to know?” Cassius Emerton asked her, his eyes meeting hers as he unfastened the dressing gown and pushed it from her shoulders.
“Yes,” she breathed, standing before him in the candlelight in only her nightdress. “I do…”
The duke lifted her into his arms and carried her to the richly colored Persian rug by the fireplace, her slippers falling from her feet on the way.
“Irresistible Josephine,” Cassius murmured in her ear as he set her bare feet down on the soft, warm pile. “Would you like me to kiss you now?”
In response, she leaned forward and pulled down his face to hers eagerly, receiving a first soft press of the duke’s lips and teasing flicker of his tongue. His hands were already at the tie of her nightgown and his mouth was smiling as he drew back slightly and unfastened the bow.
“I did not mean kisses on your mouth,” he whispered, pushing the loosened gown easily to Josephine’s shoulders. “Although such kisses are sweet…”
Cassius kissed her mouth again, more deeply, his tongue seeking hers as the fabric began to slip from her shoulders. In the press of their subsequent embrace, the gown slid to her waist and caught there on Josephine’s hips, leaving her half-naked and breathless.
Gazing with longing at this newly revealed expanse of womanly flesh, the duke soon allowed his mouth to roam lower, causing Josephine to moan and squirm in his arms. His touch was so warm, so knowing and so very hungry.
“I did not even mean kisses on your lovely breasts,” the tousle-haired duke continued, his own breathing now distinctly heavier. “Although I could easily spend a whole night enjoying them, Josephine.”
It took only the slightest caress from Cassius’ hand now to send the pool of pale fabric cascading down to the ground and bare Josephine entirely. She knew she was entirely in this man’s power now but it excited rather than frightened her; somehow she trusted him.
The Duke of Ashbourne’s hand stroked the curve of her hip and the roundness of her bottom as he kissed her gasping lips.
“Do you know where I want to kiss you yet?” he asked in a low voice as he lifted and lowered her easily onto the soft rug. “Can you not guess?”
Josephine whimpered slightly in excitement and anticipation as the duke kissed his way down her body, as slowly as if he had all the time in the world. As he placed himself between her thighs and parted them, the look in his deep blue eyes spoke of far greater urgency within him than he was yet allowing her to see.
She moaned Cassius’ name as he finally kissed the damp triangle of fur, just as he had done so briefly in the forest. Now his kiss was unhurried, luxurious. When he darted his tongue actually into her slit she made a sound loud enough that he stopped and hushed her, placing a gentle finger on her mouth before returning to his task.
“You must not make too much sound, Josephine,” he warned her, “however much you may want to…”
Then he began to apply his lips and tongue in earnest to her pleasure, stroking, kissing and caressing her most sensitiveplaces until she thought she would go mad, before pulling back slightly, time and time again. At first, Josephine tried to obey Cassius’ instruction. Eventually, it was impossible to control anything she uttered and when he tipped her over the edge, her whole being dissolved in moaning ecstasy.
In the still-writhing aftermath of that experience, the duke kissed his way back up her body, panting and lips salty with her excitement. Josephine seized him and pulled his mouth to hers again, clinging to his strong body as he rose to his knees. She felt like a wild creature entirely controlled by instinct.
Despite the duke’s initial resistance, her small but determined hands almost tore the shirt from his body so that she could bury her face in his broad, dark-haired chest. The solidity of his manhood between them was not to be ignored, although she did not know what to do about it.
