The Devilish Duke

Her stranger always met her here, never showing his face, but always giving her pleasure so intense it must have been sin. Usually, he surprised her from behind, catching her breasts in his hands while he pressed kisses along her neck and shoulders.

He didn’t come now, and why should he? She wasn’t in her bed at home. She lay in a guest room of a manor house as big as a palace. Waiting for the lord to come and test her. And waiting and waiting.

The door opened, finally, and light preceded Fallon into the room. He’d brought an entire candelabra. He did plan to watch her and not miss a detail. He set it on the table next to the bed and stared down at her for a moment.

Shadows hid his eyes, and she could only conjure their color out of memory. Blue like the heavens—so unlike the rest of him.

“Did you find everything you need?” he asked as he removed his jacket and waistcoat and laid them on a chair.

She couldn’t help but laugh. “Is there anything beside this night rail you wanted me to have?”

“I meant for the morning.” He removed his cuff buttons and put them onto the dressing table. Then he rolled up his sleeves.

Of course, she hadn’t thought past this night, not even past the next few minutes. “I’m sure everything’s fine.”

“Good.” He walked around the bed and sat on the far side and then bent to remove his shoes. The huge mattress hardly sagged despite his considerable size. When he stretched out next to her, the light made the white of his shirt dazzle.

“I won’t hurt you,” he said as he reached toward the top button of her gown. “Do you trust me?”

“I have to.”

Each button yielded to his fingers, and soon, he’d unfastened the gown all the way past her waist. She kept breathing slowly. Inhale, exhale. It had little effect on the hammering of her heart.

When he dipped his hand under the cotton, his fingers splayed over her belly, nearly spanning the space between her hip.

“Nice,” he whispered. “Good for childbearing.”

Oh, God. She really was a brood mare to him. Not a human being at all. She bit her lip and turned her head. She would not let him see her cry.

Paying her no heed, he continued with the buttons until he had the ends of the fabric parted to midthigh. He’d touch her now, and she couldn’t resist. He only had to put his fingers between her legs to do it.

Instead, he wrapped his arm around her ribs and put his mouth to her ear. “I won’t hurt you.”

She gasped softly, both in surprise and also at the pleasure of his breath in her ear. Who would have thought that something so simple could reach inside her and awaken all her senses?

“You might even like this,” he said.

When she turned her head to face him, she met the fierce blue of his gaze. The bird of prey had spotted his conquest and would soon swoop into claim his prize.

He closed those remarkable eyes, instead, and brought his face to hers for a kiss. Spellbound, she watched him approach. Slowly, seductively, he took her lips with his and began an exploration.

No claiming, this. No conquest. He coaxed her to respond with pressure just firm enough to make her want more.

Lord forgive her, she did. Heat blossomed inside her as she tasted him, matching her movements to his. She’d been kissed a few times by young men who fumbled in their haste. With Fallon, she shared slow seduction that melted away her fears.

Her stranger had never kissed her, but if he had, the caress would be like this one—sweet and forbidden. If Fallon continued this way, he’d take control of her senses, and she would enjoy it. Test or no, she’d let him touch her as no man had ever done.

He pulled back, his breathing coming fast and shallow. “Remarkable.”

She could hardly catch her own breath, so she lay only inches from his face, looking at her reflection in his eyes.

“I please you?” she asked.

“More than please,” he answered. “You’d only need to feel my cock to see your effect on me.”

“You wouldn’t use that. You promised.”

He laid a finger over her lips. “You’ll be a virgin when I’m done. Shall I go on?”

She swallowed and nodded. If he kissed like that, whatever happened now would be unlike anything else she’d ever experienced, even in her hottest fantasies.

His fingers scarcely touched her skin as he parted the halves of her night rail, exposing her body to his view. For a moment, fear caught in her throat, and she instinctively reached to the cotton to cover herself.

“Hush,” he whispered and he pushed her hand away. His finger brushed her nipple, and another shock rushed through her. Purer and more intense than before. She couldn’t hold back a whimper.

“Hush,” he repeated as his hand closed around her breast. He kneaded the flesh while his lips traveled the length of her throat to her collarbone. Exactly how her stranger did, but this was real. A real man’s mouth against her skin. A real man’s fingers circling her nipple, making it stiff and sensitive. Letting her arms fall to her side, she surrendered to him.

Still continuing to caress her skin as he went, he inched lower, across her chest to the other breast. Here, he swirled his tongue around the peak and then sucked it into his mouth.

Oh, what a feeling. It stole every rational thought, and she sunk into a new reality—the pool from her fantasy with each spray of the fountain a prick against her skin. When he switched to the other breast, she arched to meet him, groaning in pleasure.

Chuckling, he placed his face against the spot between her breasts. “Not so prim now, are you?”

“Fallon, please.”

“Not ‘Your Grace’? Could you have forgotten yourself enough to be so familiar?”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “It’s just that I feel so…”

“I feel it, too.” His weight moved off her.

When she opened her eyes, she found him propped up on his elbow, watching. A smile curled his lips, and a gleam of triumph shone in his smile. Her breath still came hard, and her skin felt hot with fever. She couldn’t move as his hand went lower, past her ribs and to her belly. His destination became clear, and the walls of her sex constricted, waiting for his touch.

Finally, he reached the hairs that covered her mound and stroked them. “Sweet puss. Does she want a rubbing behind the ears?”

She held her breath, paralyzed to do anything but lie there at his mercy.

“Let’s see, shall we?” He slipped his hand between her thighs and made one firm pass over the lips there.

A cascade of sensation coursed through her, gaining strength as it went. Tension building inside her pelvis.

“You liked that.” He repeated the caress, now firmly pressing against her flesh. The lips seemed to swell, opening her sex as if begging for even more.

“Already wet,” he murmured. “Preparing yourself to take my cock.”

“No,” she cried. Or yes. In truth, she wouldn’t deny him now. Her sheath ached for something to fill it. Yes, if he decided to take her now, she’d let him. She’d welcome him.