Page 96 of The Duke's Dream
“Even when your limbs are wrapped around him?”
She tugged him to the chair—James’ throne. “My dance demands everything I have, focus, strength, balance. There is no space for arousal.”
She pushed both his shoulders, forcing him to sit.
With a mischievous smile lighting her eyes, she leaned over him. “It’s only erotic for those who watch.”
He snaked his arms around her, but she slipped away.
“I wish we had a piano… And a pianist,” she said.
“Do you need the beat to perform the steps?”
“I hear the music here,” she whispered, caressing his forehead, then drawing her hand down until it poised over his heart. “And I feel it here.”
His skin burned wherever she touched him.
“The piano would be for your benefit.”
He tried to kiss her, but she darted away. Impudent chit. William settled into the plush velvet, crossing his ankles.
She knelt by his side, like in La Sylphide’s opening scene. “James is sleeping at the beginning. Won’t you close your eyes?”
“Not even to blink.”
He had waited a lifetime for this moment. Let the world end—he would not look away.
After a breathless pause, she rose, lifting her leg high in attitude. The garret blurred into the background, leaving only the soft glow of candles illuminating their intimate stage. William leaned back, entranced.
Her arms extended like wings, and her toes kissed the floor as she glided before him.
She danced, a perfect echo of the sylph he had conjured in countless dreams. She danced, his pounding heart her only music. She danced, as if he were not there, as if he were a king.
But when she spotted him next, her eyes flashed, and she smiled mischievously, something she had never done on the stage. Her feet lowered from pointe, now rooted to the earth. Her hips swayed, head drawn back, lips parted.
Moonlight streamed through the milky windows, another guest in her performance, invited to light her curves.
She took his hand, her fingers cool against his heated skin, and pulled him to his feet.
“James doesn’t wake up yet,” William said, his voice husky.
She smiled, all impishness. “In my dance, he does.”
She was temptation itself—all long limbs and mischievous fire, brushing her fingertips along his arms, his chest, his neck. She whispered heat into his ear, let her thighs slide against his, rubbed her bare breasts against his shirt.
Every sound she made—every sigh, every teasing exhale—was a dagger in the gut of his control.
And then her hand grazed the bulge beneath his trousers. Just a feathering touch to his cock. There, then gone.
He shuddered. A feverish wave of lust broke over him, drowning thought, drowning breath.
With a ragged curse, William seized her by the waist and ground against her softness, so hard he could feel the slick heat of her arousal through the fabric. One hand slid down, greedy, seeking her entrance, desperate for relief.
“I don’t want to have sex with the Duke of Albemarle.”
Her voice was low, unsparing. “I wish to make love to William. My lover.”
His entire body went rigid.
