She rolled onto his chest, still trembling. His forearms flexed as he held her close. Even weakened, his embrace contained all.
A special kind of awe stole her words. She had been Alicia, orphaned waif, spurned wife, and lonely widow. Now she was Alicia, worshiped, revered and ravaged.
She lifted her face.
He did not look as she expected to look—conquering, triumphant, the mirror of his predatorial smile. Instead, he held his breath, watching her with wary, guarded eyes.
He anticipated censure.
Instinctively, she knew he would not believe if she told him she felt cherished, and, in a strange way, freed. She needn’t hold herself to impossible expectations of purity and reserve.
“Ash?” she asked.
“Yes?” he answered.
“I’m hungry.”
For a long moment, he just stared. Then, he started to laugh. How she loved the sound.
“Well? Are you going to feed me?”
He kissed her brow, and then went to don his banyan. In response to her quizzical look, he explained, “Mrs. Kent won’t be awake for another hour. I will see what I can find.”
What kind of duke protected his servant’s sleep?
Ashbey wasn’t just any kind of duke. He was...
He was...
Ohno.
Ashbey was a duke she could love.
He returned with a plate of dried meat and cheese. He handed her his find. She handed it back.
“Feed me.”
“Minx,” he said to her lips.
He placed a tasty morsel on her tongue. And then another. They sipped wine from a single cup. The heady sensation added to Alicia’s dream-like state. He dribbled the last drops of liquid over her stomach, and then followed the trail with his mouth.
Later, she returned the favor.
Throughout the day’s remainder, they alternated between food and amorous congress.
He introduced her, gently, to new things—binds that constricted her body, but set loose her most sensual side. He trussed her with a crumpled cravat, her stockings, the ties that held back the drapes on the bed. He unlocked her passions, and she held him in complete trust.
When at last the night was dark and they lay exhausted and still, they laughed like children who’d played a naughty prank. She rested her aching body in his arms, and fell into slumber with the pressure of his lips against her hair.
Chapter Eleven
Alicia awoke to an empty room. Her travel clothes hung from a hook on the wall, just above her packed valise—both signs that Mrs. Kent had been inside. The only sign of Ash was the scent permeating the rumpled sheets and the dull ache between Alicia’s thighs.
She listened for sounds from the connecting washroom—silence.
Fear upended her heart.
She scrambled to her feet, dashed into the dressing room—empty, but for his banyan.
