Page 36 of Five Nights to Claim His Duchess

“Duchess, this is the fourth night,” he murmured against the racing pulse at her throat, his voice a dark velvet caress, “may I please you tonight?”

The question sent a fresh shiver racing down her spine. He ever demanded her words; she had learned that lesson well. “You may, Your Grace,” she whispered, the admission breathless and fervent.

He bit down with exquisite care upon the sensitive juncture where neck met shoulder, and pleasure bloomed sharp and sweet, bordering on pain. Diana gasped, arching shamelessly into him. With deft, unhurried movements, he loosened her robe and pushed the damp silk from her shoulders, letting it slip down to pool at her elbows. The cool night air kissed her fevered skin, pebbling her nipples, but his hands were there instantly. Large, warm, callused from riding, cupping her breasts.

They were heavy and aching, the peaks erect and begging. He bent his head and drew one into the heat of his mouth, sucking deeply, his tongue swirling and laving the sensitive bud with devastating skill.

“Your Grace!” The cry tore from her lips unbidden. Sensation clouded her mind like the sweetest opium, sending sparks of pure fire straight to her core. She clutched the edge of the long table behind her for support, her knuckles whitening as pleasure threatened to buckle her knees.

His mouth trailed lower still, hot and open-mouthed against the soft plane of her stomach, tasting the rose-scented water that clung to her. Then he parted her legs with gentle but inexorable hands and pressed a kiss to the very heart of her. The secret, swollen folds no one had ever beheld, let alone touched. Shock jolted through her like lightning. There? The thought was a wild, scandalized whirl. Surely not, such a thing could not be proper, could not be⁠—

But then his tongue went deeper, licking a slow, deliberate stripe along her slick nether lips, and all coherent protest fled. “Your Grace?” she managed, voice high with confusion and dawning wonder.

“Duchess,” he replied, the words a warm breath against her most intimate flesh, “you might want support.”

Before she could fully comprehend, he lifted her legs, draping them over his broad, powerful shoulders and easing her back along the polished table. She braced herself at once, one hand flat against the wood, the other tangling desperately in his hair, as his tongue plunged inside her.

“God in heaven!” The exclamation burst from her in a broken sob. The shock of it, of his tongue delving so boldly into her tight, wet heat, was profound, intimate beyond anything she had ever imagined. It felt wicked, forbidden… and impossibly, shatteringly good. His lips and teeth joined the assault, sucking gently on the throbbing pearl at her center while his tongue stroked and curled within her, lapping at the evidence of her desire with shameless hunger.

The sensations built with terrifying swiftness, an intense, coiling pressure low in her belly that grew tighter, hotter, more insistent with every wicked flick and thrust. “I cannot take it, Your Grace—it is too much, it is too good—wait—stop—do not stop, I beg you!”

Her words dissolved into incoherent pleas as the pleasure mounted, wave after relentless wave. It was intense to the point of torment, a deep, throbbing ecstasy that made her hips jerk helplessly against his mouth. She grabbed fistfuls of his hair, pushing him closer in shameless abandon, her legs trembling over his shoulders. His strong hands dug into the soft flesh of her bottom, holding her firmly in place as he feasted upon her like a man starved.

Diana fell back against the table, arching wildly, lost entirely to the storm he had unleashed. Her free hand rose to her breasts, pinching and rolling the aching peaks, doubling the pleasure until she feared she might splinter apart. She wrapped her legs tighter around him, heels digging into his back, eyes squeezed shut as the pinnacle hovered just out of reach. “Yes—yes, there—oh, please⁠—”

Just as the wave crested, brilliant, shattering, her entire body taut and trembling on the exquisite edge, he pulled away.

The sudden absence was devastating. The glorious buildup collapsed in upon itself, leaving her body throbbing with unfulfilled need, every nerve alight and screaming for completion. Diana’s hips jerked once more in futile protest as she dropped back against the table, gasping, trembling, bereft. A soft, frustrated whimper escaped her lips before she could stifle it. The drop was cruel in its abruptness, the ache between her thighs now a hollow, pulsing frustration that left her dizzy and desperate.

He straightened slowly, wiping his glistening mouth with the back of his hand. His eyes gleamed with dark satisfaction and something perilously close to amusement. “Why, Duchess,” he drawled, voice roughened by desire, “you are so very eager.”

She swallowed hard, cheeks flaming hotter than the fire in the grate, and fumbled to draw the edges of her robe over her exposed body with shaking fingers. He smiled, that small, knowing curve of his lips that promised both torment and eventual salvation.

“When I complete what I have promised you,” he said softly, “I shall come back for the rest. We shall continue our fourth night then.”

This is exquisite torture, she thought, her mind still reeling, her body alight with thwarted lust. Does fulfilling his every word mean so very much to him? Or does he delight in seeing me thus, reduced to a quivering, wanton creature who craves only him? The latter sent another helpless pulse of desire through her core.

“You might want to return to the bath and clean up again,” he added, almost conversationally, as though he had not just brought her to the brink of madness with his mouth.

“Yes,” she managed, her voice little more than a breathless thread. “Yes, Your Grace.”

She caught the brief, predatory grin that flickered across his face then, and her stomach fluttered with fresh longing. Hastily she retied her robe, slid down from the table on legs that threatened to give way, and murmured, “Thank you, Your Grace,” before the words’ absurdity struck her full force. Thank you? As if he had merely passed her a book or poured her tea, rather than nearly unraveling her soul upon a table beneath the window.

Mortified beyond measure, Diana fled the chamber without a backward glance, the echo of his low, knowing chuckle pursuing her down the passage like a lover’s caress. Her heart hammered wildly as she hurried back toward the bathing room, every step a reminder of the aching emptiness he had left behind.

The Duke of Rosewood, it seemed, was a master of patience, and of driving his wife slowly, deliciously mad with want.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“Duchess? Will you be taking a plate?”

Valentine looked up.

She had stopped just inside the door, and the look on her face was that of a woman who has walked into the wrong room. She had not expected to find him here. That much was written all over her. She was half asleep, her hair not properly pinned, and she stood quite still in the doorway with one hand on the frame like a hare that has come round a bend and found a man on the road.

I am never at this table, he thought. She has been eating her breakfast alone and has grown used to it.

“Yes,” she said, recovering. “Thank you. I shall have — whatever His Grace is having.”