Oh, how that lone word felt, landing directly in her heart. If only it could be forever hers, ifhecould be forever hers. But there wasn’t time to reflect upon that now. They needed to finish what they had begun.
She did as he bid, lying on the bed, her legs still dangling down the side, the position awkward. But then he took her ankles in a firm but gentle grasp, guiding her legs along his chest, and he pulled her bottom against him so that the ruddy head of his cock glanced over her folds.
“Are you ready?” he asked.
She stared up at him, thinking him so handsome, her brooding duke who had endured so much. Loving him.
“I’m ready,” she said.
He moved, the cords in his neck standing in relief, and there was pressure at her entrance. A flex of his hips, and he was inside her, and filling her even fuller than his fingers had, so deep and so perfect. There was a twinge as her body adjusted to this new invasion, but when he moved, slowly at first, and then with faster, harder thrusts, he began stoking the flames of her pleasure once more. The angle, the sturdy feeling of him behind her legs, the sight of his handsome face tightened with pleasure as he made love to her—it was all so much.
She was weightless, a creature of pleasure rather than drudgery, and it was as if she were a phoenix in that moment on her small bed in the dark confines of her bedroom. No longer a housekeeper, but a goddess rising from the ashes. He murmured to her, his hands on her hips, pulling her into him, his thick shaft driving deep, then withdrawing, then driving deep again.
Joceline was perilously near to splintering apart. To crying out so that all the household could hear her, everyone above stairs and below. She caught a handful of bedclothes and pressed them over her mouth just in time for her body to fly apart again, her inner walls contracting on him as spasms of bliss rocketed through her. He groaned and hastened his pace, faster, harder, until he stiffened and surged deep, his cock pulsing inside her as the heat of his release jetted into her body.
As swiftly as he had entered her, he withdrew, somehow arranging her on the bed so that her head was on the pillow where it belonged and her legs no longer dangled over the edge. And then he joined her, folding his big body against hers on the tiny mattress, drawing her into his protective warmth.
It was in that moment that she realized he’d never fully removed his clothing and he was still wearing his shirt and trousers. She’d yet to see all his scars.
Carefully, she turned so that she faced him, and they lay nose-to-nose, their breaths mingling, lips dangerously close. She traced a finger down the line of buttons bisecting his shirt. “Will you show me?”
“Joceline,” he began.
But she kissed him swiftly. “Please. I want to see you.”
Clenching his jaw, he nodded. “Promise you won’t run and hide when you see the monster you’ve just given yourself to?”
Oh, how her heart ached to hear him speak of himself thus.
She kissed him again before breaking away to stare earnestly into his eyes. “I know the man I’ve given myself to, and he’s not a monster at all. He’s brave and strong and good.”
He cupped her cheek, his thumb stroking. “Sweet girl. I’m none of those things. I’m old and bitter and scarred.”
“Not so old,” she denied. “And I do believe my Christmas greenery has cured you of some of your bitterness.” She kept her tone light and teasing, cherishing this newfound intimacy between them, so different from what had come before. “And as for your scars, they are what make you who you are.”
And I love that man.
But these were words she kept to herself, for such a confession would reveal far more to him than she had with her mere body. And nothing had changed beyond the four walls of her small, shadowy room. He was still her employer. She was still his housekeeper. In the morning, she would rise to a newday of duties, and he would share breakfast with a glorious English rose eminently more suited to be his duchess.
She refused to allow any of that to ruin the time they had remaining.
“You’re certain you wish to see me?” he asked, his tone hesitant, a far cry from the icy, sneering duke who had first greeted her at Blackwell Abbey weeks ago.
Now, he was Quint.HerQuint. Vulnerable and warm and wonderful, holding her in his arms.
“I’m certain,” she told him without faltering.
He nodded, edging away from her slightly, for there wasn’t much room on her narrow bed. His left hand went to the buttons at his throat, opening them slowly, his fingers struggling.
She moved to help him. “Let me.”
He swallowed hard, and she tracked the movement of his Adam’s apple, rising and falling, his body going still as he allowed her to pull each fastening from its mooring, one by one, until she had reached the waistband of his trousers, where his falls had been halfheartedly restored, his spent cock tucked away. A swath of his chest and lean abdomen were revealed to her, alternately smooth and puckered, leaving no doubt of the agony he must have suffered during his convalescence.
It was incredible he had survived at all, and that was plain to see, as was the place where the beam had fallen, almost neatly across his torso. She smoothed the twain ends of his shirt farther apart, revealing more of him. His flat male nipples had been largely unscathed, so too his collarbone and pectorals. But just beneath, the raised, red flesh that had been burned was there, a testament to the strength and bravery she’d told him he possessed.
“You see?” he said darkly. “A monster. I warned you.”
“No.” She kissed his chest. Lower. Moved down his body, her lips traveling over every bit of scarred flesh. “Never a monster.”More kisses as he tensed and held still beneath her. “You are a beautiful man.Mybeautiful man.”
