“It occurred to me that I should ask you,” he murmured, raking his piercing blue eyes across her and thenthroughher, as if he were privy to every inch of naked flesh underneath her robe... and he liked what he saw.
“Ask—ask me what?” Working feverishly, she tied another knot in the sash around the waist and then folded her arms across her chest for good measure in an attempt to guard herself from the scorching heat of his relentless gaze. Outside the cozy confines of the blue room, the storm raged on. The wind howled. The rain pounded. But inside, one could have heard a pin drop as the Duke of Southwick approached his duchess and lifted a russet curl off her shoulder.
His nostrils flaring, he leaned in close, and she froze like a deer in the crosshairs of a hunter’s rifle when his words flowed across her skin like fingertips. “Why do you want a lover in London when you’ve a lover right here, at Southwick Castle?”
“Because—because I don’t have a lover here,” she said haltingly, staring straight past him at a painting on the wall as every fiber of her being screamed at her to run. Except for trickle of dampness between her thighs that ordered her to stay.
Mara was not immune to the calls of desire, and how unfair it was that Ambrose was choosingnowto lure her in! She knew him well enough to be cognizant of the fact that he didn’t want her any more than he had yesterday, or the day before that, or the day before that. He merely didn’t want anyoneelseto want her. Like a dragon guarding its treasures, he preferred her to remain locked away in a cave, hidden from those who would appreciate her shine.
She flinched when he stepped around behind her, the muscles in her abdomen quivering. Gliding his hand through her hair—despite his indifference to every other part of her, he’d always appeared strangely fascinated by her hair, as if the tumble of tendrils and tresses were a puzzle that he wanted to spend hours solving—he swept the heavy mass of it away from her neck and replaced the curls with his mouth.
“Ambrose, what... what are you doing?” She hated that her voice was weak. Hated that her resolve to resist him was even weaker.
Hadn’t she learned her lesson?
She knew where these sweet kisses led.
First to heaven, and then straight to hell.
“Tasting you,” he said simply before his teeth clasped on her earlobe and he gave a light, teasing tug that had her sagging helplessly against him, her head lolling onto his shoulder as he reached around and cupped her breast.
Circling her nipple with the rough pad of his thumb, he continued his assault on her defenses with a trail of kisses that ran the length of her neck and ended at the groove above her clavicle. When his tongue dipped into the sensitive hollow she closed her eyes, shamefully surrendering to the inevitable truth that she’d never been able to deny Ambrose and she neverwouldbe able to deny Ambrose.
Loving him wasn’t the problem.
Her weak, foolish heart had belonged to him since the night of the Glendale Ball.
Butbeingloved by Ambrose—having her feelings reciprocated and returned—therein laid the root of all her hurt.
Thunder boomed and lightning lit the sky in a zigzag of white as the early spring tempest intensified. Splaying his hand across her belly, Ambrose pulled her in taut against his powerful frame and her heart leapt when she felt the full, potent strength of his arousal jutting proudly at the small of her back.
On their wedding night, the sheersizeof him had made her feel dizzy and that was even before their failed attempt at copulation. Courtesy of anatomy books and Kitty’s superior knowledge, she’d been aware of what a man looked like down there. But what shehadn’tbeen aware of was Ambrose’s length and girth. Too wide to wrap her hand around, and when he’d tried to place it inside of her... suffice it to say there were tears shed, and while she wasn’t absolutely certain on the qualifying parameters, she was fairly sure that she remained a virgin wife.
She’d let her fear get the best of her. Fear that had made her stiff and inflexible. Fear that had left her frozen.
Just lay there and let him do what he wants,Kitty had advised in the days leading up to the wedding, and Mara had tried. She truly had. But it hadn’t worked. None of it. And in the end, Ambrose had left the bedchamber with a growl of dissatisfaction, and he hadn’t come back.
Ever.
But he was here now, along with his enormous...arousal.
And instead of being fearful, Mara was a duchess on fire.
On a gasp, her head dropped back onto his shoulder as his hand dipped between her legs. He stroked her gently, soft, feathery-like passes of his fingertips over the thin layer of silk that covered her most intimate cove. All the while he kept kissing her, his mouth a fiery brand across her neck, her collarbone, her ear, anywhere and everywhere that he was capable of reaching.
“Do you like when I pet you?” he asked in a husky, vibrating whisper that made her toes curl. “Spread your thighs for me, Mara. Yes. Just like that. Good girl.”
He untied the knots that bound her robe closed with ease and the garment fell open, bathing her skin in flickering firelight from the rosy tips of her nipples to the thatch of russet below her belly. Bringing a finger to her lips, he danced it lightly across the seam before she understood what he was asking and hesitantly opened for him.
Feeling embarrassed yet oddly excited, she wet his digit with her tongue, swirling the tip across the nail and each knuckle. He tasted of salt and sin, and when he removed his finger and immediately put it on the damp, aching pearl at the juncture of her thighs, her cheeks burned red and then redder still as he began to draw small, teasing circles.
Pleasure came on in a hazy wave as she found herself engulfed by him... his mouth at her nape, his left hand at her breast, and his right at the pulsing center of all her desire.
“You’re wet for me,” he said, and the distinct note of approval in his tone brought on a flush of gratification, not unlike the kind she’d experienced whenever a tutor had praised her knowledge of a certain subject. “God, Mara. You’re fuckingsoaked.”
To prove his point, he took the same finger that had been inside her mouth and put it inside her downthere. Startled, her muscles instinctively clenched around the intrusion and he groaned, his forehead dropping onto her shoulder.
“Bloody hell.” His groan of breath almost felt like an admission of guilt, though she hadn’t any idea what he was confessing to. She was too focused on the fireworks in her belly, each explosion of light flooding her veins with pure, unadulterated passion that had her leaning back against him, shamelessly splaying her legs as a common trollop might in an alley for a coin. Except it wasn’t money that Mara craved. No, what she wanted was far more intangible than a simple monetary transaction. What she wanted—what her supple, yearning bodydemanded—was nothing less than everything.
