Page 58 of The Forger and the Duke
“You owe me nothing,” he said woodenly.
“I want you to know.” She dragged her gaze up to meet his, and he felt lost at the look of hopeless longing in her eyes. “I haven’t…allowed myself to be—close to anyone. Because of Reuben,” she said.
“I see.” He steeled himself against the blow of this knowledge. “You have atendrefor your cousin. Carrying a torch for him, I take it?”
“No!” The word burst from her. He felt the small rush of air between them. “Good heavens, no.” She took his hand, and he reeled at the warmth and desire that shot through him at her touch. “Not that. Quite the opposite.”
He struggled to understand, and horror twined with suspicion. “He?—?”
“Not me. He forced himself on Eyde and then turned her out of his house when she fell pregnant. When I found out?—”
She clutched his hand with both of hers, and as much as he wanted to draw her close, instinct warned him to make no move. To let her be in control of how their bodies touched.
She swallowed. “When I found out, he demanded to have his way with me. Eyde and I left that day. I couldn’t stay in the house, and she had nowhere to go. Derwa is my cousin’s illegitimate daughter,” she said softly.
This was news; he’d assumed Derwa was Davey’s child. Mal curled his fingers gently around her palm, still holding his. “You escaped to Oxford then,” he said.
“We went to Bath first, to my old schoolmistress, who gave us shelter for a time. She had connections in Oxford who could give me work, since Joseph had no means to support us. I was certain that if I were with Joseph, Reuben could not force me back into his home. He never tried, and we moved to London and were quite happily free of him, until Favella wrote. But every time?—”
She halted, then straightened her shoulders and looked him in the eye. “Each time you came close to me, I feared I would feel not you, but Reuben’s slime.”
“I see,” he said again, trying desperately to shut off the surge of despair. She would have nothing to do with him because of what her cousin had done. He cursed the man silently with the vilest curses he could conjure. “I understand you would want no one to touch you.”
“That’s not true. I want you to touch me.” She gulped, and he watched the delicate movement of her throat, of her lips as they opened to speak again, her voice low and throaty. “I want to touch you. But I’m afraid of what I mightfeel.”
“That would be the first time in your life you’ve been afraid of anything, I’m guessing.” He stroked a thumb along the side of her hand, the lightest gesture he could think of to show understanding, support.
“Oh, I fear many things.”
He was trapped in her eyes. Dusk descended outside, the room fading into shadow as they had not thought to light candles. But the light in her eyes was clear and strong. “What I fear most, I think, is never finding out how it would feel. To touch you. To have you touch me.”
An overpowering hope slammed him, a sudden turnaround of his despair. “Perhaps you ought to lay that fear to rest, then.”
A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. “You are not a dog I am to try patting on the head, to overcome my fear it might bite me.”
“I am exactly that.” His voice came as a low rumble. He felt her answering laugh inside his chest. “Try me and see.”
He stood still, waiting for her decision. He feared he might die if she couldn’t conquer her fear.I want you to touch me. He’d never heard sweeter words in his life.
Holding his gaze, her eyes dark pools, she raised his hand to her mouth and slowly slid his fingers over her lips. Desire crashed through him. Her lips were cool as cream. She pressed her cheek to his palm, then moved his hand to her throat, pressing the heel of his palm beneath her collarbone. The fabric of the fichu tucked into her neckline fluttered beneath his fingers, and her breath grew fast. His own sounded ragged in his ears.
“All right?” she whispered, as if asking permission.
“Very much so.” His voice scratched his throat. Desire had him tight and hard, but he stood riveted as if he were one of the standing stones on the moors. Nothing could induce him to move and frighten her away.
She rose to her tiptoes and brought her cheek close to his, as he had done to her on other occasions. The soft, warm breath against his ear stirred a nearly painful ache. She slid her fingers into his hair beneath the leather strip that held his queue and her touch on his scalp made him groan with pleasure.
She pressed her lips to his cheek, dragging her mouth over the day’s stubble, and he squeezed his eyes shut to hold himself at bay. Her scent, her touch, her heat surrounded him. The sight of her hazy eyes and soft skin was too much for mortal man to bear.
The press of her mouth against his obliterated all thought. The sheer joy that shot through him was like nothing he’d ever experienced. As much as he wanted to lock his arms about her, devour her completely, he also wanted to stand here for the next eternity and simply enjoy the sensation of Amaranthe’s soft, shy kisses. She tasted of strawberries and when she brought her palms to rest on his cheeks and hold his face still for her exploration, he thought his head might explode.
He moved his lips in return, answering her gentle foray, responding as delicately as he could. Her lips pressed againsthis more firmly, her mouth shaping to his. She twined her arms about his shoulders, pulling herself firmly against him, and the press of her soft breasts against his chest filled his mind with fog. Thoughtlessly, he lifted a hand to the small of her back, urging her closer, and she snuggled in with a soft sigh that was his undoing. When he opened his mouth against hers, the tip of her tongue ventured against his lips, tasting him, and his heroic restraint snapped.
With a groan of satisfaction, he dipped his arms about her slender back and hauled her onto his chest. Her head fell back, giving him the perfect angle to delve his tongue into her mouth, exploring, possessing. She was every kind of sweetness. She matched his greed with a sweet earnestness that made him press her closer. Her breath came in soft pants, and her hands slid from his face to his hair to his shoulders as if she wanted to touch him everywhere at once. She burrowed against him, as if she couldn’t be close enough, and his hands wandered down her back, pressing, squeezing, curving her body into his. He was sure he gripped a rump pad, there to fill out the back of her gown, and she reared back, her eyes flying wide.
He wanted to sip at her mouth for hours, but he wanted to taste her everywhere. He kissed along the line of her jaw, nipping a tender earlobe, and she shivered with delight. Her chest rose and fell in short pants as he nibbled and licked his way down her neck, flicking his tone into the dent between her collarbones. The pulse there beat madly, answering the high tide that pulsed through him.
“Mal.” Her whisper of delight spurred him on, a sense of triumph soaring through him as she yielded beneath his mouth, his hands. He pulled the lace tucked into the neckline of her gown, sliding the delicate fabric across her skin, and relished her shudder at the sensation. Her breath hitched as he bent his mouth to the bare skin left exposed, using lips and teethand tongue to explore the warm, scented expanse. She tasted of cream, richly sweet with a hint of salt, maddeningly delicious.
