Page 28 of A Duke in Disguise
“Plum,” he said. Not warningly, but with intent.
“My cards are on the table, Ash. Every last one of them. You can play yours however you like and there’s no losing.”
Ash’s mouth went dry. She was making this easy for him, he knew that, but the sight of her, wine bottle in hand, mouth quirked up in half a smile, was more than he could face with equanimity. But if he let her see how invested he was in this—hell, if he let himself see it, if for even half a minute he acknowledged to himself how badly he wanted this, and how horrible everything was going to be when it was over—then he didn’t know how he was meant to go on.
He didn’t know whether he was acting on false pretenses. If he were heir to a dukedom—and he was filled with an odd sense of mortification at the thought, as if he had done something shameful and was waiting for his disgrace to become public knowledge—then he owed that information to a woman he planned to... court. But this was no common courtship: Verity didn’t want a husband. Maybe, though. Maybe she would change her mind. Maybe she could see a way forward with him even though he wasn’t who she thought, wasn’t even whohehad thought. Maybe after seeing how good they could be together, she’d agree to be with him anyway. She was his best, his closest, his dearest friend. Maybe she could accept him despite everything. And when he thought of the child who had been sent from place to place, without a name or a home or even a sense of who he was, he wanted to believe more than anything that she would.
So he raised one finger and beckoned her over, praying to any gods that might be watching that she’d understand all of what he couldn’t say, understand that he was hanging on by the fingernails.
She pushed out of her chair and stood before him, one hand on her hip and an oddly serious expression on her face. He swallowed.
“Is this to be a lecture?” he asked, looking up at her. The last bits of his composure were in tattered shreds and he could hear the urgency in his own voice. “Teach me, Plum.”
She settled in his lap, the soft curve of her breasts so close to his face, the scent of her soap and books and justVerityfilling his senses. “I’m trying to decide what to do.”
“Ah.” She loosened his cravat, her fingers deft and sure against his throat. “For the record, Plum, I can’t see that I’d object to anything you might choose. I’m feeling—” he groaned as she settled further into his lap, pressing against him “—very amenable.” She rocked into him, as if to show him that she knew exactly how amenable he was, and, really, at this proximity there could be no mistaking the matter. He bit back a groan and she made a soft shushing sound. She took hold of his cravat and gave it a tug, not hard enough to actually pull him near, but quite hard enough to make his prick take an avid interest in the proceedings. Then, still holding him fast, she leaned forward and brushed her lips against his as if it were the merest trifle, as if it weren’t the single most important event to have happened in months, years, of his life.
He realized that he was going to have to perform some kind of conversion, as if from a foreign currency, where kisses had an entirely different value to Verity than they did to him. It was fine, he told himself. He had a month to wind up his affairs, to do what it took to bid farewell to his old life; he had thirty days to engrave a handful of plates and to get his fill of Verity. The other night in the oyster room she had told him that this—his hands on her, her lips on his, the way their bodies felt pressed together—was something she could take or leave. And that was for the best—it meant that when their month was up, she’d be unharmed. But it was proof that she had a totally different relationship to these things than he did. His main goal at the moment was to avoid dismaying her or embarrassing himself with undue displays of fervor. She needed him to provide a pleasant distraction or to chase away her cares and burdens; he needed her as a plant needed sunlight. Nothing was wrong with that disparity. What mattered was that he never let her know.
She nipped his lower lip and he thought he might faint.
“Wait,” he breathed. “Slow.”
She gentled her kisses and then pulled away. “Is this all right?”
He moved his hips so she could feel his hardness, biting the inside of his cheek to keep some semblance of calm. “More than all right.” He slid his hands around her shoulder blades and started working open the buttons of her gown. She made a soft sound of satisfaction at the contact of his fingers on her back. He could not begin to understand how to get her out of her frock, so instead he rucked up the hem, seeking skin that way. She responded by hauling him close by the collar and giving him a punishing kiss. He had never allowed himself to imagine what this would be like, but when the thought crept unawares into his mind, it had never taken this form—Verity on top of him, manhandling him, having her way with him.
As he ran his hand up her leg, past the top of her stocking and over the soft skin of her thigh, his hand encountered nothing but bare skin. His hand progressed unimpeded up her leg until he was cupping her backside in one palm. “Plum,” he managed. “I hate to be to the bearer of bad news, but your drawers seem to have gone missing.”
She stopped kissing long enough to lean back and wrinkle her nose. “I don’t wear drawers. Mother always said they were common.”
Ash tried to assimilate the knowledge that Verity had been wearing nothing under her shift for the past ten years, during each and every one of their meals and conversations. He was going to need to consider this in considerable detail in private, but for now he tried to look as if he had only a scholarly interest in her underpinnings. “Is that so? I’d have thought in that case you’d have worn a dozen pairs. All at once. Embroidered withliberté, égalité—”
She shut him up with a kiss. “You cannot mean to jest,” she murmured into the skin of his jaw. “Are you always this unserious when you have your hand up a woman’s petticoats?”
“One hundred percent of the time, Plum,” he said in absolute honesty.
“Now I’m going to ask every woman I know about her drawers,” she said, kissing the sensitive skin just under his jaw. He thought he might black out. “I will be known far and wide for my scholarly interest in drawers.”
He gave her backside a firm pinch to silence her. She must have liked that because she took hold of his shoulders and pushed him firmly against the back of the chair, her hands greedily running over his arms and chest. He slid his hand between her legs, feeling the slick heat of her. She sighed and pushed against his palm, riding his hand. The entirety of his universe shrank to the place where he touched her, the rhythm of her hips, the sounds she made. “You’d better show me how you pleasure yourself,” he said, trying for the tone one uses when buffing one’s fingernails on one’s lapels and instead landing on something like a dying man’s prayer.
She leaned back and gazed at him, somehow managing to look both dazed and arch. “What, you’re not going to do it for me?”
“I fancy watching you. Indulge me, Plum.”
“Well, then.” She hitched her skirt up. Shameless. He loved her—he let himself form that thought and hold it for a full heartbeat before sending it away. He watched, enraptured, as she made little circles with one finger. He didn’t know why he expected that she’d touch inside herself, but she didn’t.
He tore his gaze away from where her fingers stroked between her legs and grinned at her. She met his eyes. “Well, you asked,” she said.
“Perfect,” he managed. “You’re perfect, Verity.” Her skin was glistening with wetness, though, and he needed to touch her. He slid his hand beside hers, not interfering with what she was doing, just stroking the folds of skin and damp curls beneath his fingertips.
“Yes,” she said, guiding his fingers to her entrance. When he slid two fingers inside, she started rocking into his palm, and he thought he might come on the spot. All he could think of was how her slick heat would feel around his cock. He wanted desperately to unfasten his trousers, take himself in hand, do anything to ease the pressure. But he knew that if he did that, it would put paid to any hopes he had of watching Verity climax, and he wanted to see that very badly. He watched his fingers disappear inside her again and again, felt her clench around him, rising and falling on his hand as if she were riding him. Their fingers tangled and their hands bumped into one another, and it ought to have been clumsy and awkward but it was perfect.
“Plum,” he said from between gritted teeth, “this is the best thing I’ve seen in my life.” She clenched around his fingers. “Thought I ought to let you know.”
With the hand that wasn’t busy stroking herself, she cupped his head and gave him a hungry kiss.
“Oh,” she murmured, pulling away. Her body went as taut as a bowstring and then she came apart in his arms, contracting around his fingers, soft moans on her lips.
