Page 33 of Tempting the Reclusive Duke
When he lifted her from the chair, her arms went around his neck automatically, her injured wrist protesting but the pain distant compared to the feel of his body against hers. He backed her against the library table, the same one where they'd shared their first kiss, but this time there was no hesitation, no second-guessing.
Papers scattered to the floor as he lifted her onto the table's surface, stepping between her legs in a move that would have shocked her if she'd been capable of any emotion beyond desperate wanting. His mouth found her throat again, and she let her head fall back, surrendering to the sensations he was creating with lips and tongue and the occasional gentle scrape of teeth.
"You undo me," he murmured against her skin, his hands bracketing her waist. "Completely, utterly undo me."
"And yet you still hold me together," she whispered back, pulling his mouth back to hers.
The kiss deepened, became something almost frantic, and Eveline felt herself trembling, not from fear but from the overwhelming intensity of it all. She'd never understood before how desire could consume someone, how it could make all rational thought disappear, but now she was drowning in it, burning with it, and she never wanted it to end.
Adrian's mouth traced a path down her throat, across her collarbones, to the neckline of her dress, and she continued making sounds she didn't know she was capable of making. His hands were firm but gentle on her waist, holding her steady as the world spun around them.
"Tell me to stop, Eveline," he said again, though his actions suggested stopping was the last thing he wanted. "Tell me to remember propriety and position and all the reasons..."
"Do not stop," she interrupted, her voice barely recognizable. "Please, Adrian, do not stop."
The table beneath her was hard and uncomfortable, but she barely noticed, too lost in the feel of Adrian's hands and mouth and the things he was doing that those forbidden books had only hinted at.
When he knelt before her, the world seemed to tilt on its axis. The Duke of Everleigh, a man of power and propriety, was on his knees, not in supplication but in worship. Eveline’s heart hammered in her chest, her cheeks flaming with embarrassment and anticipation. His hands grasped her ankles, his touch gentle yet firm, and he slowly lifted her skirts, revealing her to his gaze. His eyes locked with hers, searching for hesitation, for doubt, but all she saw was trust.
“Trust me,” he whispered again, his voice a command wrapped in a promise. And she did. Completely. Despite the heat that burned her cheeks and the raggedness of her breaths, she surrendered to him. His fingers brushed the delicate fabric of her stockings, his touch feather-light, as if he were handling something precious and fragile. Eveline’s breath hitched as he slowly peeled the material away, exposing her to his gaze.
"Trust me," he whispered, and she did, completely and absolutely, even as her cheeks burned and her breath came in desperate gasps.
What followed was revelation. She'd read the clinical descriptions in those medical texts, had seen the artistic interpretations in the French illustrations, but nothing had prepared her for the reality of it. The intimacy, the vulnerability, the shocking pleasure that built and built until she was clutching the table edge and calling his name into the storm-filled darkness.
Adrian’s tongue darted between her legs, following the trail of wetness up her thigh.
Thunder drowned her cries as sensation overwhelmed her when his fingers grazed across the back of her calves and along her thighs. She was dimly aware of tears on her cheeks, though whether from pleasure or emotion or the sheer intensity of it all, she couldn't say.
When Adrian rose, pulling her against him and holding her as she trembled in the aftermath, she could feel his own body shaking, though he'd maintained enough control to keep some boundaries intact. A gentleman even in this moment of complete impropriety.
"Eveline," he whispered against her hair, her name sounding like a prayer or possibly a confession. "My goodness, Eveline you taste divine."
She couldn't speak, partially from mortification and partially because she couldn't form coherent thoughts, she could only cling to him as the storm continued its assault on the windows and her heart attempted to find its normal rhythm. He held her for long moments, his hands stroking her back, her hair, murmuring words she couldn't quite make out but that sounded tender and possibly desperate.
Finally, when she could breathe again, when the world had stopped spinning quite so violently, she pulled back to look at him. His face was flushed, his hair completely disheveled, his eyes dark with lingering desire and something that might have been wonder.
"That was..." she started, then stopped because there were no words for what that was.
"I know," he agreed, pressing his forehead to hers. "Heavens help me, I know."
They stayed like that for a moment, breathing each other's air, existing in this bubble outside of time and propriety and consequence. But then reality began to creep back in, and Adrian straightened, though he didn't step away entirely.
"This cannot happen again," he said, though his voice lacked conviction andhis hands were still on her waist.
"You said the same after our first kiss," she pointed out, surprised to find she could still form coherent sentences after what had just occurred.
"This time I mean it." He finally stepped back, running both hands through his already destroyed hair. "What just happened... Eveline, if anyone knew, if anyone even suspected..."
"No one will know." She slid from the table on shaky legs, beginning the futile process of trying to restore her appearance. Her hair was completely ruined, pins scattered across the carpet, curls tumbling around her shoulders in wild abandon. Her dress was wrinkled beyond redemption, and she suspected her lips were swollen from his kisses.
"You can't leave like this," he said, gesturing to her general dishevelment and the storm still raging outside. "It's past midnight, the rain is torrential, and you look..."
"Thoroughly debauched?" she suggested with a watery laugh.
"I was going to say 'as though you've been through a storm,' but yes, that too." He moved to the window, peering out at the tempest. "You'll have to stay until it passes. I'll have Mrs. Morrison prepare a guest room..."
"Mrs. Morrison will gossip," Eveline interrupted. "If she knows I stayed the night, it will be all over London by teatime tomorrow."
