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“Sebastian,” she whispered as his mouth moved over the top of her breast, so close to her aching nipple, yet not nearly close enough. He groaned, and his grip on her tightened, like hearing his given name on her lips was as arousing to him as it was to her.

Lifting his head, he returned to her mouth for another kiss. Mei felt herself being pushed back, and his hand moved along her legs to lift them. The garden bench was long enough to accommodate her body, the hard stone holding her as the duke pressed her down and pulled her legs up.

The fabric of her skirts slid along her legs as he shifted her, and she could feel her stockings being exposed to the cool evening air. The even more shocking sensation of his hand around her ankle and sliding over the silk stockings, up to the ribbons holding them in place, then above that to the exposed skin of her thighs.

Mei gasped against his lips, her hands on his shoulders, gripping him tightly as her legs were spread apart, and his fingers kept sliding upward along the sensitive skin of her inner thighs. The sensations were wicked. Decadent. Utterly indecent.

She’d touched herself before, but it had never felt like this.

The difference between the touch of her own fingers and the touch of his was keen. Hers was practiced, decisive, based on her own explorations. His was a path of fire that licked along her skin, melting her insides as he explored her body for the first time.

Then his mouth moved from hers, and he ducked his head down, the edge of her skirts covering his head and shoulders, and Mei put her hands over her mouth to muffle her cry as he kissed her down there. She’d known that such things were possible, but ladies only spoke of the act, not of how it felt.

Now she understood the whispers and the delighted giggles of the telling. She was dizzy with the sensation as his mouth pressed against her netherlips, his tongue sliding between them to find the pearl of her clitoris. Touching her. Tasting her.

The backs of her thighs were supported by his broad shoulders, knees bent over them, and she felt one of his arms slide over her hips to hold her in place as he began to trace her folds with his tongue. Pleasure, hot and heady, rippled through her as he licked and sucked, making her toes curl in her beaded dress slippers.

She wanted to cry out, but she knew she had to be quiet.

There were others in the garden. If she and the duke were discovered…

Well, no one would insist that he marry her due to their very different stations, but she would certainly be ruined.

And yet that very danger, that knowledge that anyone could come across them and see him with his head and shoulders under her skirt, the fear they might be caught, somehow heightened her pleasure even more. Her pulse was racing, pounding in her veins, her body tightening with every caress of his tongue.

When his fingers pressed against the other entrance to her body, she nearly forgot herself. Her muffled sob against her palm was so loud to her ears, she was sure someone would come across them as his fingers pushed into her. Stretching her. Filling her.

She’d never felt anything like it.

Even during her own explorations, she’d never dared to put her fingers inside herself.

The invasion of someone else’s was… incredible.

Her body tightened around the digits as they went deeper. Stroking. Curling. Twisting. His tongue laved over her clitoris, and the tiny bud throbbed at his tongue.

Then he sucked it between his lips, his fingers hitting a spot that made her hips jerk against the arm holding her down. Mei felt wetness running from her eyes, sliding over her temples and into her hair as the tightness inside her squeezed, then burst with ecstatic bliss, rapture spilling through her body and limbs. Wave after wave of pulsing pleasure that left her writhing and moaning against her hands until she went limp.

That was…

That had been…

She did not have the words for it.

Panting, trying to catch both her breath and her senses, she felt the duke’s fingers withdraw, leaving her empty once again. His tongue laved one last lick through her sensitive folds and over the nub of her clit, making her gasp and shudder at the jolt of pleasure that was so strong it verged on pain. It was too much.

Fabric slithered as the duke sat up again, her skirts falling away from his shoulders and head. In the moonlight, she could see his expression, still full of heat and desire, which was when it occurred to her that she had achieved her pleasure, but he had not had his.

Well, that would never do.

Lovers meant equals.

Lowering her hands from her mouth, Mei was still panting gently, her body still humming and buzzing from the pleasure, but she pushed herself up to a sitting position again. With some assistance from the duke, who stole another kiss as soon as she was partially upright. She could taste herself on his lips, salty and sweet and sated.

When he made to get up, she held onto him, holding him in place.

“We have to get back,” he murmured.

“Not yet, Your Grace,” she said, sliding off the bench to her knees. The grass beneath it was soft enough, with no rocks to dig into her skin.