“I do not wish to leave,” she told him then on a half gasp as he pumped against her. The friction was delicious, her undoing. She could not get enough of it, of him, and yet she still wanted more.
More of him. More of his tongue, his mouth, his hard body, his demanding cock. More of everything. He brought her to life, and she couldn’t help but wonder if, at least in some small measure, she didn’t bring him back to life as well.
Thoughts such as these were abruptly disbanded when he caught her chemise in his hands and rent it in two. “I want your skin. I want your body. Damn you, Lady Boadicea Harrington. I cannot think or move for wanting you.”
Her ruined chemise fell away, down to the floor, and she was naked before him. She knew not a moment of embarrassment, so overcome was she with the newness of the sensations ricocheting through her.
Nothing she had ever felt could compare to this—to him. He had swept into her life with the unexpected turbulence of a summer thunderstorm, changing the landscape indelibly. It did not matter that they had not known each other long, that in truth, they still scarcely knew each other at all. Apart from the way they could not seem to stop their mutual desire despite their best efforts to the contrary, they had little in common. Nothing mattered but want, need, and longing. Mouths and hands and bodies and skin, his hardness to her softness, his ice to her fire.
She would melt him, she thought again as she moved against him, answering his every thrust with an arch. She was hyperaware of each stroke of him against her pearl, that part of her that was most receptive to touch and stimulation.
His hands found her breasts, kneading and cupping, his thumbs swirling over her nipples. Once. Again. And again, each stroke pure bliss. He caught the hard buds between his fingers, rolling and pulling. She moaned. Decided it was not fair that he remained fully dressed in his riding garb while she was naked and vulnerable and horribly wanting, standing before him. With a palm to his chest, she shoved him back by a few inches. He allowed her to overpower him, watching her with his heavy, half-lidded stare.
God, how she wanted him.
“We are well matched then, Duke.” Even bared before him, his hands on her body, his cock rubbing against her most intimate flesh, she could not shake the feeling that this moment would be the moment she would one day realize had changed everything. “I want all of you as well.”
Bo took her turn in touching him, longing to have him free of his clothes. Feverishly, her fingers worked over his jacket, removing the layers separating him from her. Fabric dropped to the floor. She found the buttons of his shirt, freeing them from their moorings. Bare chest, defined and strong and breathtaking, met her fevered fingertips.
“Damn you, Boadicea Harrington,” he swore, but his hands were upon her with equal fervor, coasting over her waist, her hips, cupping her bottom. “Damn you.”
“You do not like the effect I have upon you,” she observed wryly, leaning forward to brazenly run her tongue over one of his hard nipples. The breath hissed from his lungs. She took that as encouragement and bestowed the same attention to the opposite flat disc, feeling unaccountably bold. Perhaps it was the moment, the wildness of it, perhaps it was standing before a man she barely knew without a stitch to protect her modesty. “Admit it, Duke. You cannot resist me.”
“I have resisted far greater temptations than you,” he said coolly.
“Hmm.” She did not believe his attempt to keep her at bay. He could play the ice king all he liked, but she knew that there was more to him hiding beneath the surface, waiting for her to discover. Her hands traveled lower, relishing the solid planes of his abdomen, rippled with muscle she would not have expected from a gentleman like him, to the trail of hair below his navel.
He tensed beneath her touch, his skin at once firm and hot and yet soft as velvet. Such a dichotomy. She wanted to run her hands over his bare skin forever, and it would still not be long enough. Provided that he was forced to keep his supercilious mouth shut, that was.
He caught her wrist in his grasp. “Hmm? What does that mean?”
Irking him was a pleasant diversion all its own, heightening the bold desire surging through her. She smiled, extricating herself from his grip with ease. “It means that I do not believe you, Your Grace. Or that I do believe you, and I do not care. You may take your pick.”
His handsome face hardened, jaw going tense, eyes darkening. “Do you want to be fucked, Lady Boadicea? Is that the purpose of your bawdy books and your presence in my chamber? Your wandering hands and your crude insinuations?”
He was a beast. But as much as she wanted to punish him, she rather enjoyed hearing his frigid, clipped voice uttering such wicked obscenities in conjunction with his cold accusations. It made her want him more, truth be told. Yes, he was a beast, and she was an aberrant creature. Perhaps they were a match after all, for while they seemed forever at odds, they nevertheless could not keep their distance from each other.
“Would that make it more convenient, Duke?” she asked boldly. “Would your need for me be somehow more palatable if you imagined I was the sole instigator, that I am a wanton tart masquerading as a lady?”
She used his words against him like a weapon. Of course she did, for she still found offense in them, and he was such an obstinate sapskull that she wanted to make him suffer, just a bit. Her fingers continued their investigation, finding the fastening of his riding breeches. She made short work of it, opening them, her fingers drifting lower still. She kissed his chest, inhaling the scent of him, male and potent and delicious.
He jerked. “Bloody hell. What do you think you are doing, my lady?”
“This.” Her hand slipped inside his breeches and his smalls.
Oh.
She found him, hard and thick and hot and smooth. Instinctively, her fingers curled around his shaft, squeezing with gentle pressure. His hips twitched, but he did not withdraw from her touch. How strong he was, holding himself as tense as a marble bust, as though he dare not move or breathe for fear he would reveal himself to her. Realization hit her then, sudden and invigorating. She was seducing him. And he would allow it.
Wanted it, she would daresay. But for reasons all his own, he was attempting to resist with all his might. Control was important to him. Perhaps it was the way he made sense of things after the tragedy he had suffered. All she knew for certain was that she wanted to rattle him. She wanted him to admit that he burned for her the same way she did for him.
The abrupt shift of power between them emboldened her, sending an insistent, aching pulse between her thighs. For some reason, he was attempting to resist her. But he fought a losing battle. And she enjoyed pushing him. Taunting him. Provoking him. Stroking his cock as she had only read about in her books. She did it now, once, twice. Tentative at first and then with firmer pressure, taking cues from him, learning what made him weak.
A deep growl sounded in his throat.
Her heart thumped madly. Her breasts felt heavy and full. She hungered for him in a way she had never known, deep within her core, as though only he could fulfill her. She stroked and stroked, and she wanted that part of him where it belonged. Where the books told her it went.
Inside her.
