Dear God, all he needed was his name on her lips, and he was about to spend. This wouldn’t do. He shifted beneath her, easing the pressure of her warm, wet flesh over his straining cockstand. He bit her earlobe, ran his tongue over it to quell the sting. She clutched him tighter, and an answering need burned within him.
“You still have not kissed me,” he said into her ear.
“Mmm.” Her voice, low and husky, sparked a fresh onslaught of hunger inside him. “You ought to know I do not do well with acceding to the wills of others.”
He smiled, his lips grazing the delicate whorl before him. When she shivered, he pressed his advantage, blowing lightly over it and catching the top curvature of cartilage between his teeth. “What if it is your will as well?”
She rubbed her cheek against his, much like a cat, as though she wished to brand her imprint upon his skin, or perhaps vice versa. “My will is at war. Part of me wants to kiss you, but part of me wants to deny you.”
“Deny me and deny yourself, minx.” He moved her once more, settled her back over his burgeoning rod, canted his hips into hers.
She arched against him and scooted her rounded bum nearer, so that his entire length pressed her seam. “Tell me something, Spencer, and I will kiss you as you wish.”
Her teasing heightened his arousal. Ever since he had first laid eyes upon her, she had driven him to distraction. And rather than feeling sated after their heated bouts of lovemaking, he only craved her more. Everything she did, everything she said, every movement, every breath, amplified a hundredfold in him. Her eyes, her scent, her lips. That beauty mark. Good God.
But still, he had won their race. He would not forget, regardless of how warm and wet her pussy was through the slit of her drawers.
He raised his head and gazed down at her, absorbing the sight of her, flushed and lovely, her hair glinting in the late summer sunlight. Her irises, at the center of those forget-me-not orbs, were dark and large, betraying her arousal every bit as much as her body did wherever they came into contact.
“The race, princess,” he said. “I won, and it was agreed that the loser must do whatever the victor wishes for the remainder of the day. I distinctly recall you saying you found the stakes acceptable.”
She blinked. “Your victory is suspect. You were already assured of it when you set the terms of the race.”
He raised a brow, enjoying their banter and the glorious brightness of the day. He couldn’t recall ever feeling so unfettered. “Never say you are a poor loser, Duchess.”
Her eyes narrowed. “I am no such thing, Duke. I will gladly meet your terms on one condition.”
Clever of her, but he was having none of it. He shook his head slowly. “No conditions. Our terms were clear.”
“Your knowledge that you had the faster mount was not.” She pouted.
Here was a side of his wife he had yet to learn. She did not lose well. He found it rather endearing. “Darling, I can assure you that our mounts were evenly matched. I employed no deceptions. I daresay your heart was not in it. Victory was almost yours, but in the end, I raced past you.”
“Yes,” she said, her voice solemn, her gaze slipping to his mouth. “You did.”
“A kiss is all I require.” He grinned. “At the moment.”
She pressed a quick, chaste kiss to his lips, so hurried in her movements that he couldn’t even respond. “There you are, debt settled.”
He raised a brow. “Not that sort of kiss.”
She raised one in return. “You did not specify. Next time, do take care to elaborate on your wishes, husband.” She rocked against him then, clutching his shoulders, and he lost his bloody breath at the impact of her grinding on his painfully erect cock.
Bloody. Hell.
He gritted his jaw, attempting to control the commanding hunger coursing through him and doing everything in his power to tamp down the vicious need to tear open his trousers, free his cock, and guide her down upon it. To sheathe himself inside her, where he belonged. The need to be inside her nearly undid him.
He clenched his teeth. “Kiss me.”
She rocked again. “Answer me.”
A battle of wills. She did not play fair, and he shouldn’t be surprised, really. He had known from the start that Boadicea Harrington was a wily thing, a termagant, a rebel, every bit of her in her namesake’s mold. She was sent to conquer. Bold, beautiful, unrelenting.
His.
He kissed her throat, sank his hand into the hair at her nape. He felt her inhalation against his lips, her pounding pulse. “What is your question, darling?” he asked into her silken skin.
The landscape seemed to pulse with vitality all around them, glinting with bright possibility. A kaleidoscope of rays and green leaves surrounded them, summer’s revival on full display, the redolent scent of hay and grass and flower, the whisper of a breeze in the trees. The sun was warm, golden, beating upon his back. Her skin was warmer still, scented with her sweet perfume. Their bodies were intertwined, her skirts billowing about them on the blanket, her thighs bracketing his.
