Page 18 of The Duke’s Rejected Mate

Settling back between her thighs, I shift in closer. The scent of her honeyed arousal mixed with that heady scent of peony and parchment drifts from her, nearly drugging me. God, but it’s intoxicating.

I slip out my tongue and tease her clit with it for a moment. “Do you feel that?”

“Y- yes, Norhaven,” she squeaks out. “I feel it.”

Pulling back, I rise from between her thighs and grip the thick muscle of her legs with my hands. “In these stolen moments, I am no longer Norhaven to you. I cannot stand it. I cannot bear it. Charles. I long to hear it drip from your lips as I touch you, as I bring you to orgasm.”

“On one condition,” she says, her voice soft and thick with emotion. “In these moments, I am Cynthia to you. It hurts my heart to hear you call me Miss Campbell. It’s so formal, so distant, and so very cold. Please. Please, Charles. Say you’ll be so informal with me as well?”

Leaning forward, I press into her, soaking my breeches with her slick as I plant soft kisses on her stomach. “Yes, Cynthia. That is a request I can certainly honor.”

Unable to look into her gaze, to see the fear and desperation etched on her face, I go back to my knees, hiding the mirrored emotions of my own. Duty be damned. Here, I don’t have to be anything other than Charles and her Cynthia. I’m not a duke, and she’s not the daughter of a baron.

Here, she’s just mine.

Running my thumbs down her entrance, I spread her open, nearly groaning as I make her gape in front of me. Though I’ve teased her there with my tongue and fingers, I’ve never truly breached her for fear of ruining her for any other man. How I long to just drive my cock deep inside her, claiming her in a way that no one else can.

Many Alphas can bite an omega and leave a bit of their soul behind, but only one can take her maidenhead for the first time. Only one can see that look of shock and discomfort on her face as he forces his way in, stealing that last bit of innocence.

Why couldn’t it be me?

I refuse to slide my hand lower to my breeches, to undo the buttons, releasing my cock. If I do… If I dare chance fate… I’m sure I will not leave her side until she’s fat and swollen with my child. I will fuck her until her scent becomes mine, melding until everyone knows just who she belongs to.

No. I have to be sensible. I have to be reasonable. It doesn’t matter if that’s why I’m here in the first place.

Groaning, I slide a finger in, going deeper than I usually do. Cynthia holds her breath as her body tenses at the invasion. Pulling out, I ease in two, sliding forward by degrees until I graze what I was hoping was still there.

With a loud exhale, I bring up the lamp and draw out my fingers a bit so I can spread her open. There, positioned a touch further than I’m used to, is that bit of skin that reveals she is still, in the eyes of the law, pristine, fit to be married.

I set it back down and ease back in, keeping my movements slow and gentle so as not to break the delicate barrier. “Do you feel this?” I hiss against her mound as I rest my lips against it. “Do you feel this small bit of pressure?”

“Yes. What does it mean?”

“It means you are still technically a virgin. Until this barrier is broken, no man will deny you as his wife.”

Her body relaxes around me, nearly soaking into the bed as she lets out a soft cry of relief. Until now, I didn’t realize just how worried she had been. I know we pushed past the bounds of propriety, but I kept her innocence at the forefront of my mind. I would have never compromised her in that way.

Then again, I wonder if she has only had this fear recently. It’s been no secret that she pined after me so. In her mind, I’m sure she saw us married. Rightfully so. From the instant we pulled that damned pea and bean, from the moment she spied my cock for the first time and wondered at the growth at my base, from that very first punishment and the way she came apart in my hands, I should have dragged her down the aisle. I should have made her mine.

And now, we both suffer the consequences.

Unable to see past the sins my inaction has brought about, I content myself with the use of Cynthia’s body. My lips glide over her clit as I palm myself through the fabric. Has she always smelled that delightful? That intoxicating? Or is it because I know that every meeting now might be our last?

Groaning, I lap at her skin, tasting the need pouring from her body. She’s always been so damned sensitive to my touch, so responsive. I’ve never had an omega like her before, and I dare say I’ll never have another after.

Once more, I slide a finger inside, stopping short of her virginal wall. I’m playing with fire, I know. But she tempts me so. She calls to me, demands I touch her, somehow, some way.

Cynthia writhes against me, her body bucking hard enough that I have to move my fingers away lest she impale herself and make all this precaution moot. I continue to stroke myself through my breeches as I lick her, tease her, and taste her.

The scent surrounding our bodies makes my head dizzy as her clit swells even more. Soft grunts and groans flit from her lips as she continues to move with me, her hips jerking in an erratic fashion. God, she’s close. So very, very close.

Unable to take it anymore, I fumble with the buttons on my breeches and rip the flap open. She is not in heat nor anywhere close to it. I can’t impregnate her right now, so why not mark her with my cum? Why not continue to tempt the devil and see what becomes of it?

My thoughts are irrational, but all I know is I want my scent deep in her body when she meets Henhaven again. Let him smell her and wonder. Unless I rip that one last vestige of innocence from her body, there’s no proof we’ve done anything untoward.

This isn’t like me. This isn’t something I’d normally do. I’m the calm one, the rational one. Even in the heat of battle, I never lost my head. Now, just the very thought of losing Cynthia, even if it’s my own damn fault, guts me worse than a rusted knife.

“Touch yourself, vexation,” I rasp out. “I want to see you fall apart for me.”