Graham flopped on the settee next to his wife. They were fixing themselves, tucking in, rolling down. Adelaide’s hair would not be repairable, of course. But her wide smile told Katherine she didn’t care.
“How is Maddie?” Graham asked, referring to their daughter.
Adelaide’s face lit up. “She is well, as always. Beautiful. But she has missed you. I cannot wait to see the look on her face when she wakes to find you here in the morning.”
Graham’s smile widened. “I want to go upstairs and look in on her. Once I have,wife, I want to do what we just did all over again,” he said as he leaned in to kiss her. “All night.”
She pulled away, cupping his cheeks, searching his face. “And you don’t care if everyone knows we snuck out so you could ravish me?” she asked, her tone laced with teasing and love and connection that made Katherine shiver.
“I would take it as a wound to my honor if they didn’t think I couldn’t wait to ravish you,” he teased back. He got to his feet and tugged her to hers. For a moment, they stood, face to face, eyes locked. Then he leaned in and kissed her. It was gentler this time. “I love you.”
She lifted on her tiptoes and kissed him harder. “You and you and you forever. Now take me upstairs.”
He caught her hand and the two fled the room like young lovers, rather than a respectable duke and his bride of several years. Katherine remained where she was, frozen in place by their passion and their love. Unwilling to move away from the man who still had his hands on her.
“They closed the door,” Robert said.
She nodded. “Yes.”
He stroked his fingers between her legs. She rocked against him. “Say it again. Mean it. Or tell me no, Katherine, and I’ll walk away.”
Chapter Eight
Katherine licked her lips. Roseford was offering her two devilish options. Say yes and give herself over, even a tiny bit, to his schemes. His wager. Say no and walk away from the kind of passion he inspired. The kind she had just witnessed and longed for in the core of herself.
He was the first person who had ever told her that the longing wasn’t wrong or dirty or something to cover in shame.
Could she do either?
“Say it,” he repeated, his breath warm on her skin. “Saysomething.”
She swallowed hard and turned to face him. In the dim light behind the curtain, his face was shadowy. Wicked. She should have backed into the light, away from all he would do and say and make her feel. Instead she caught his hand and gently lifted it, setting it against her bare neck, gliding it lower so it closed over her breast.
He shook his head. “It has to be yes or no, Katherine,” he pushed. “I can’t have questions. You have to tell me what you want.”
“To come,” she gasped out, her cheeks so on fire that she felt like she might glow in the darkness. “I want you to make me come.”
His eyes lit up and he motioned his head toward the settee where Graham and Adelaide had made love. “Like he did?”
Her breath shuddered in. She had never had that pleasure, a man’s mouth on her. She jerked out a nod. “Yes. Like he did. With his…his tongue.”
He said nothing else. He teased no more. He simply used the hand on her breast to gently guide her through the curtain into the brighter parlor. He pushed her back onto the settee and she fell into place, staring up at him as he crossed to the door and locked it.
Her heart was beating wildly as he watched him stride back to her. He stood over her, blocking the firelight. A dark outline of male virility and promises of passion unlike any she’d ever known.
A promise of all she’d ached for and thought she couldn’t have.
That was all this was. It didn’t have to be anything more. It wouldn’t ever be anything more. It was a moment, and she would walk away from him. She knew what he was—it couldn’t be that hard.
He dropped down on his knees, like she’d watched Graham do with Adelaide. Slowly, he caged her in with his arms and leaned up, brushing his lips back and forth against hers until she parted them and offered herself. He chuckled as he took, kissing her once more. This time it was different, though. He traced her lips, flicked his tongue in. He was showing her how he would kiss her in that other place.
She squirmed at the realization, lifting to meet him, opening her legs to give him more space there. He ignored the invitations and just glided his mouth down her throat. Over the revealed skin below her collarbone. He traced the neckline of her gown, then put his hands beneath it again. He teased her nipple, lifting her, and suddenly the warm air in the room was against her skin.
She looked down and watched as he traced her exposed nipple with just the tip of his tongue. He looked up at her, smiling as he teased her. Smiling as she gasped with electric pleasure that jolted down between her legs and made her hot and needy for him.
He didn’t linger, though. He crested lower, his mouth warm even through the silk of her gown as he pressed his lips along her stomach. He was hitching her skirts up as he did so. She felt the warmth of the fire against her calves, her knees, her thighs.
Finally, he pulled away and looked into her eyes. He held there, his expression daring her to refuse. Daring her to end this. She didn’t. She couldn’t. She was on fire and she needed him to extinguish the flame. To show her how because there was no way but him.
