Page 61 of Duke of Seduction

“Again,” he whispered softly, swirling his tongue over the sweet sensitive bundle of nerves.

He moaned as she obeyed and began to feast upon her.

He did not have to say “again” for Helena to scream his name as her orgasm erupted into his mouth, and he moaned in gratitude as he licked greedily at her juices.

“Yes, Helena,” he praised between licks, his voice soft and raspy as he consumed her hungrily.

“Morgan, please,” she panted, her hands finding their way through his hair as she recovered, “Please, give me what I want.”

He wanted to more than anything, but instead of giving in to her request, he slowly started pulling away, letting kisses trace from her sex, down her inner thigh, calf, and then to her foot. Helena rose up on her elbows, her eyes glazed with confusion and pleasure.

“Morgan,” she whispered.

He placed a final kiss on her ankle and shook his head as he repositioned his hold on her and placed her onto the floor, out of the water. Morgan said nothing and lifted himself from the stream, careful of his achingly hard erection, and walked away from her towards a stack of towels. He wrapped one around his waist and grabbed another one for Helena.

“You want this,” she insisted, pushing the towel away from her as if it were a trap.

“It does not matter if I want to or not, Helena,” he said gruffly, stepping towards her. “I simply cannot.”

She tried to avoid his grasp but he was too fast and too alert to let her subvert him, and he captured her with the towel. Betrayal filled her eyes as he wrapped her in the cloth and gathered her up in his arms.

He glanced away, unable to look into her eyes, and walked towards her clothes.

“Get dressed,” he ordered, turning his back to her to do the same. “It is late. I need to get you home.”

“We are not done yet,” Helena insisted from behind him as he dressed. “You and I need to talk about this, and you said you wanted to finish your portrait of me.”

Unable to turn back to her, Morgan merely shook his head as he finished dressing.

“I changed my mind,” he said, his tone gruffer than he had intended as he worked his trousers up over his aching manhood.

“Why?” she asked him. “Are you so done with me that you no longer desire to draw me?”

Morgan closed his eyes to the hurt that permeated her voice. It was not that he did not wish to draw her. She was, he was certain, theonlything he would be able to draw for the foreseeable, distant future. His time with her had evolved from a deal to a pleasure, and, finally, to an obsession. He needed to pull away from her now, even if it pained him.

“It no longer matters. I will be waiting for you in the carriage,” he told her, pulling his jacket back on.

“Morgan,” Helena called, her tone filled with worry. He cringed at the sound but pressed forward.

“Be quick, Helena,” he said over his shoulder before closing the door behind him. “We have run out of time.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

“Would you please pay attention, my dear,” Luke insisted with an edge of irritation in his otherwise polite tone.

Helena tensed as she pulled herself from her thoughts and looked at Luke. He was smiling at her in his usual charming way, but his lips were tight and his left eye twitched. Little pieces of his politeness and charm had begun to melt away after their engagement the previous week; dripping from him so gradually that most people would not take notice. But Helena had.

“Apologies, Lord—I mean Luke,” Helena murmured, reaching numbly for her spoon. “What is it you were saying?”

This time her husband-to-be made no effort to hide his displeasure. His smile turned into a thin line, and a look of pure annoyance entered his eyes. He reached for the teapot closest to her and poured her another cup of tea. She crinkled her nose at it, but when Luke gave her a warning look, she accepted the full cup.

She then looked over at Teresa — and her older brother James — her chaperones for the Ashfield visit, and was rewarded with eyes that quickly darted away from her. Another pot of tea, one for the siblings and for Luke, sat closer to the three of them, out of her reach.

Helena did not want the tea from her pot. She was not sure what herb it was, but it had been the only tea he had allowed her to drink since moving to Ashford. Something about it tasted bitter and wrong. She also did not like the way it made her stomach feel or how it made her mind go blank, but Luke always insisted that “his future wife” deserved a pot of tea all of her own. ‘Special tea for my special lady,’ he had said.

Sometimes, though, she welcomed the numb emptiness in her mind and how it deadened the sensations she felt when her mind wandered back to Morgan.

It had been two weeks since their last night together, and their final moment in his makeshift bathhouse had torn not just her heart, but her body completely in two. Every moment, aside from when she drank the tea, had been plagued by the memory of his touch, his scent and his taste. Every time she realized it would always be just a memory, she felt her entire being ache.

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