Page 34 of A Duke in Disguise
“I share your concern,” he managed, “but I’m fairly certain it’s your shift that’s the problem. Perhaps we ought to dispense with it.”
Biting back a smile, she reached for the hem, as if she had been waiting for his request, but then paused when she reached the top of her thighs.
“Plum, I wish you could see yourself.” Her hair was a riot, her lips swollen, her gaze wanton, as if she wanted to devour him. He swallowed.
“Like what?” she asked, rucking the hem of the shift another inch so he could see the shadow between her legs.
“Like I’d better do exactly what you tell me,” he said, trying not to sound too hopeful on that point.
She unfastened his trousers. “What are we going to do about this?” She grinned wolfishly at him and grasped his cock, giving it a long, slow stroke. “We can do more of what we did last night. We don’t need to—”
“I want to. Please. Anything. Everything. We can be careful.”
She pulled off her shift without further ado. Ash fastened his mouth over one dark pink nipple, her other breast in his hand. She let out a sound that was half relief, half entreaty, so he kept going, kissing and stroking. Her hands were everywhere—his hair, his shoulders, his jaw.
Then he slid his hand up her thigh and stroked her already-wet folds the way she had touched herself the last time she was in his arms. He went back to kissing her breasts while she rocked against his palm. She went still, her body rigid, one of her hands painfully tight in his hair and the other touching the wrist of the hand that was between her legs.
“Ash,” she said, her inner muscles tightening around his fingers as he continued to stroke her, slower and more soothingly.
“Yes, sweetheart.” Damn it, he hadn’t meant to say that, but it was too late to recover.
Her mouth was against his ear, so close he could feel the movement of her lips. “I need your clothing off and I need it now. I want you inside me.”
He lifted his hips only enough to kick off his trousers. “Plum,” he choked out as she ran her hands over his shoulders and biceps with a look in her eyes he could only describe as hungry, “I’m beginning to think you like the look of me.” He knew he was looking at her the same way, desperate and needy. They had both spent years burying and ignoring the current of desire that existed between them, and now that it was out in the open he was stunned by the force of it.
He grabbed her backside and pulled her closer, bringing the warmth and wetness between her legs to brush against the head of his cock. He clamped his hands on her hips and kissed the corner of her grin. Above him, against him, ready to take him into her body, she looked like some kind of goddess. She was always beautiful, but at this moment he worshiped the ground beneath her feet.
As the head of his cock brushed her entrance, he hissed, bucking his hips slightly, chasing after more of that sensation she had teased him with. As she lowered onto him, surrounding him and drawing him in, he kept his eyes locked on her face. She hadn’t done this specific act before either, and he wanted to see every reaction writ on her face. But then she sank lower and he closed his eyes with a groan.
She was tight and hot around him, but the real miracle was that it was her, his Verity, and they were joined. He was inside her, she was around him, and their hearts were pounding against one another. Her hair had come unpinned and fell in soft waves that he buried his face in, her breasts were soft and warm against his chest. She circled her hips and the resulting surge of pleasure had his fingers clasping vise-like on her arse. “So good,” he groaned.
She pulled back and he saw that her mouth was parted, her eyes shut. As he watched, she opened her eyes and brought a hand to where their bodies were joined, tracing the base of his cock and then dragging moisture up over her folds in a slow glide. “Look at you,” she said. “Inside me. Just like that.”
“I want to watch you come with me buried inside you,” he said. “Just... please.”
“Is that what you want?” she asked, circling her hips a bit.
It was all he wanted. He was not certain he had ever wanted anything more, or even at all. The world of uncertain futures and lies of omission fell away, leaving only this. Warmth and softness. Her arms around his neck, her mouth on his, together.
He dropped his hand to touch her entrance the way she had, feeling the way her body made room for him, welcomed him, drew him in. Then he touched her the way he had before, small and gentle circles that made her gasp and moan as she slid up and down his cock. He was perilously close to climax but he forced it away.
As she came, she gripped his shoulders so tightly it was almost like she was holding him down, and that thought sent him rushing to the edge. “Now, Verity,” he gritted out. She lifted off him and took him in her hand, stroking and stroking as his orgasm washed over him. He came on her belly and in her hand, and she looked at him with a combination of unabashed triumph and sleepy content, as if she were exceptionally proud of herself and knew she had done something very clever indeed.
“What are you laughing about?” she asked in mock severity.
“Only that I adore you, Plum. With my entire heart, and I wish I knew what to do about it.”
Chapter Twelve
It seemed deeply unfair that they now had to get dressed and proceed with the rest of the day when the sensible thing would be to never again stir from under the quilt. Ash seemed to be much of the same mind, his hands lazily drifting up and down Verity’s back as she lay with her face in the pillow.
“Why did you make an exception for me?” Verity asked.
“Hmm?” he murmured.
“You said you hadn’t had a lover because you wanted to avoid a child.”
His hand momentarily stilled. “That wasn’t the only reason. Besides, with you, it’s different. Everything with you is different, Plum. Daft of you not to have figured that out.”
