As much as he loved kissing her, reveling in the unexpected closeness this night had brought upon them, he couldn’t deny that his self-restraint was growing thin. He needed to remember the promise he’d made to himself. He would not take her. Not, at least, until…
Jesus, until what? He pressed his mouth to the hollow at the base of her neck where her pulse pounded the strongest. And then he couldn’t resist tonguing the soft flesh. He had to still his wayward mind. There was no future in this, in the Duke of Trent and Daisy Vanreid. All there could be was tonight. This one night where he allowed himself to be a selfish bastard and forget about his oaths to the League for the span of an hour and no more.
Never again.
“I’m beginning to think you were correct,” Daisy said on a sigh.
He stilled, looking up at her and raising a brow. “Which statement, buttercup?”
The grin that curved her mouth was blinding. It took his breath. “Both.”
e was a handsome devil,the Duke of Trent.
Not the duke any longer but Sebastian, and she really must remember that.
Her husband, she thought again. It was still so new, a fresh connection to which she’d yet to grow accustomed. How sudden and foreign her married state was to her, though not without its own allure. Having a husband who kissed the way Sebastian did was no hardship. But that she was installed in his home, laughing with him in bed, seemed a dream from which she would wake too soon, finding herself back in her chamber at the rented Belgravia home with Aunt Caroline.
It wasn’t a dream, however, for he smiled back at her now, unleashing his rakish dimple while his fingers closed over hers at the knot on her robe. “I’m glad we’re in accord.”
That was one way to describe the molten sensations rushing through her. So dry and chaste sounding, and not at all a proper means of conveying the way he made her flush hot, every part of her tingling as though jolted by an electric current. The flutter of her pulse, the ache in her womb, the frenzied way her body longed for his, all made a blatant lie ofaccord.
Without employing much effort, he brushed her hands aside. She didn’t protest this time, for any initial embarrassment she may have felt at being completely nude before him had been extinguished by the raw, aching need he evoked within her. She liked this side of him, the darkness she sensed within him dashed away by rare light.
The knot came undone. He stared at her intently, his grin fading, and she reached out to trace his fleeting dimple. With the pad of her index finger, she worshipped that lone groove until it was gone. His whiskers proved a shiver-inducing abrasion against her skin.
He turned his head to press a kiss to her palm. “Now it’s time for me to do penance for being a churl.”
She bit her lip, feeling not a hint of contrition for making light of his earlier arrogance. “At least you admit it.”
Oh how she reveled in this newfound freedom. Living in the absence of fear, no longer beneath someone else’s thumb, exhilarated her. Sebastian had helped her to achieve such liberty. The man who looked at her now as if she were a present he dearly longed to unwrap.
As if on cue, her dressing gown parted, exposing her flesh to cool air and her husband’s smoldering gaze. His hand lowered to the bare skin of her waist, sweeping slowly upward until he cupped her breast. She followed his lead, arching into him, her already hard nipple pressing into the center of his palm. He rewarded her by rolling his thumb over it in lazy circles before gently pinching and pulling.
“They do match your lips,” he murmured, flicking his gaze over her bare breasts in a manner that felt like another sort of caress.
Her cheeks went hot. Good heavens, was he talking about…
“Your nipples.” His drawl was languid. “They’re the color of wild rose blossoms just like your mouth.” As he spoke, his free hand found her other breast, visiting the same sensual torture upon it. “The loveliest shade of pink I’ve ever seen.”
The way he spoke, the way he looked upon her, a blend of reverence and raw desire, undid her. She framed his handsome face with her hands, needing to touch him as well. Something shifted inside her, and she knew she would never again be the same. Nothing would.
“Sebastian,” she said, loving his name on her tongue, one word that had come to encompass her entire world in the span of a few days.
The old Daisy would have questioned her feelings, would have been incredibly guarded with her heart and her honesty and her body. The new Daisy, however, had blossomed, and she was unafraid and bold. She was a married woman now. He was her husband, she was his, and nothing between them was wrong.
She wanted to begin again, to rise from the ashes of the woman she’d been. To believe in tender touches and gentleness. She wanted happiness and safety and even love to be within her reach. Because she deserved those things, and she always had, but she’d been too frightened to know it.
She pulled him to her, and she couldn’t care if her actions were rough or gauche. All she cared about was his mouth crashing down, warm and supple, skilled and insistent. He fitted his lips over hers, and no other kiss had felt as right as this one, in this moment, with this man. She knew instinctively that she would remember this kiss for the rest of her life.
It was the kiss that changed everything.
He seemed to sense the sudden shift as well, for his mouth pressed harder into hers, his tongue sinking inside her mouth on a rough groan she felt between her thighs. His hands left her breasts, one skimming up her throat to the base of her skull, fisting in her hair and angling her to better receive his kisses. The other traveled down her belly to her hip bone, learning every curve and shallow and dip. He touched her as no one ever had, in places no one else had seen, and with such attention and care that her heart couldn’t help but notice. His tender reverence filled her with wonder.
Farther still that wicked hand went as he fed her kisses, trailing across her mound and dipping into her folds where he found the part of her that clamored for his touch the most. That secret little nub she’d found on her own. It had been wicked of her, and she knew it, but like all iniquity, it had called her back for more. And more was what she yearned for now. How could she have imagined the bone-melting pleasure of a man’s hand replacing hers?
And this man—good, sweet heavens. He knew what she wanted, his fingers working over her in a back and forth motion, softly at first until she jerked her hips upward, seeking. The time for reticence was gone. She wanted Sebastian, wanted him in ways she couldn’t even fathom, ways that her body knew better than her mind. He understood her wordless plea, applying more pressure, and it was her turn to moan into their kiss, her tongue playing with his before slipping into his mouth for the first time.
He tasted of whisky and sin and Sebastian, and she couldn’t get enough. His fingers continued their expert play, working her into a frenzy. Her heart raced, her body humming with energy and desire. She held her breath as the first wave of release threatened to break over her, pleasure sparking from her center and burning outward until every bit of her—even her toes—tingled.
