Page 53 of Duke of Chaos

“Now, tell me,” Lydia urged, nodding back at the settee, “Why did you think it was her?”

Ezra followed her gesture and led her back to the settee. Though part of him did not want to, he picked up the blanket and wrapped it around her again before settling down into the cushions and pulling her into him.

“It would not be the first time my mother has attempted such a thing,” Ezra explained, his fingertips beginning to idly graze over her arms.

Glazing over the first attempt at his father’s funeral, Ezra chose to tell her about the second.

“When I was seventeen or so,” he began to explain, tapping into the distant memory, “after she had taken the house in London and I had become used to my new responsibilities at Frampton, a message was delivered from her stating that it was most urgent that I come to her straight away.

“We had not spoken since she had moved out almost three years earlier, so I stupidly assumed that she was telling the truth. However, when I arrived, she was drunk, out of her mind, and came at me with a piece of broken glass.”

In his arms, Lydia started and sat up, her eyes wide with alarm.

“She tried to stab you?” she asked.

“Shedidstab me,” he corrected.

Taking her hand, he brought it to his chest and ran her fingers down his sternum until her fingertips pressed against the thin, white, inch-long scar on his abdomen.

“Luckily, the boys and I had been boxing well before that, and my training kicked in. I was able to step back before she pushed it any deeper than the muscle, and then I disarmed her. She started to scream murderer and collapsed in my arms. The servants later told me that she had been drinking for weeks before I got there, apparently raving about me and my father in incoherent bursts of anger. At some point, she started forcing the male servants to join her in bed, and that was when her housekeeper, not my mother, had sent me the urgent message.

“After the physician saw to my wound, I charged him with her recovery and had every form of pain reliever and alcohol removed, I left, and we had not spoken since. I am not even sure she remembers.”

Silence stretched between them as Ezra finished his story. At some point, he had not been able to keep his eyes on her and had found his gaze locked on the flames in the hearth. He could not tolerate her gaze if he saw pity there, even if she called it something else.

“Perhaps it isIthat should stabher.”

Lydia said the words so sweetly and simply that Ezra almost failed to register them. When he did, he felt a boyish grin spreadacross his face, and he looked down at her in wonder. When she only raised her eyebrow back at him, he let out a loud laugh and then kissed her deeply.

“You are supposed to be the good one,” he teased, nibbling at her lips, “remember?”

“Hmmm,” Lydia murmured back, grazing her fingertips against his scar again as those gold and bronze flecks illuminated in her eyes, “Some things are worth stepping into the darkness for.”

Ezra’s smile faded as a deep and primal need surfaced somewhere from the inky depths of his heart. He cleared his throat, suddenly finding it hard to breathe, and felt his blood begin to hammer in his veins. The time for words was over.

Slowly, he slid his hand down her back, pulling loose the blanket he’d wrapped around her. Lydia’s glittering eyes grew heavy as she helped him pull it away until it finally slid to the floor, and she rose up on her knees to straddle his lap. Their eyes on one another, Ezra slid further down the settee until his back rested comfortably against its raised back and let Lydia’s hands on his shoulders tell him when to stop.

There was more,somuch more that they needed to talk about. But, for now, Lydia only wanted one thing: to be with him again. Her mons had grown sensitive and moist well before he’d removed the blanket, and as she slid herself against the ridge ofEzra’s confined hardness; she spasmed with need, pleasure, and dismay as she came in contact with the thin fabric of his briefs.

As if knowing what she needed, Ezra braced his hands against the back of the settee and raised his hips. It was the only invitation she needed, and she slid down just enough so that she could set him free. He did so the moment she unbuttoned him, springing through the part in the fabric. Her mouth watered as she saw his red, engorged head pulse above the veined, thick column of his stem, and she began to lower herself.

“Lydia-” Ezra breathed, but his words drew out in a hiss as she flicked her tongue across his tip, licking away at the thick, clear dewdrop that had formed there.

Hunger thrummed in her as she tasted Ezra’s essence, and she lowered her head for more. She took her time, flicking her tongue first across the small slit at the tip, then slowly down to the engorged ridge around his head before licking over each pulsing vein in his sword. As she did so, she kept her eyes on her husband and watched with pleasure as he slowly lost control.

Ezra’s hands had tightened on the settee, and he had thrown his head back against the armrest. His entire body was trembling and tense as if he was having trouble keeping still for her. And if his little movements were not enough to arouse her, the sounds he was making certainly were. His breaths were sharp and shallow, and the deep grunts of pleasure that escaped his gritted teeth called to her like a siren.

Unable to ignore his moans any longer, Lydia abandoned her exploration, rose back onto her knees, and settled her center at the tip of Ezra’s hardened arousal. Ezra began to move as if trying to raise his head to see her, but Lydia leaned forward and pressed her hand to his chin. For a moment Ezra’s eyes grew wild as he angled his head and looked at her with distrust, unsure if he could grant her that level of control.

But she waited, stroking her thumb against his chin calmly as she let him read her thoughts through her eyes. Slowly, the distrust in Ezra’s eyes began to fade, and with one last, unsure look, he let his head ease back onto the armrest. Reveling in the fact that she had earned this small morsel of trust, Lydia leaned forward and brushed a kiss at his throat, collar bone, sternum, and then finally to the small, white scar on his abdomen.

Ezra shivered at the final kiss, his hands digging deeper into the settee, but he did not move to stop her. Rising back up, Lydia positioned herself atop his rigid shaft once again and slowly lowered herself. Soft moans of pleasure spilled from both their lips as she eased her warm, tight, dewy sheath onto his waiting sword one desperate inch at a time. When her petals finally made it to his base, she let out another small, slightly uncomfortable moan while she let herself adjust to his size.

“If you want me to keep still then you are going to have to move,” Ezra breathed through a tightened jaw.

His knuckles were turning white on the settee, and the strain in him was visible by the bulging cords of vein and muscle that traveled down his neck and into his rigid abdomen. Lydia feltanother gush of liquid as she took him in. He was so tense, so…restricted.

Had heevergiven himself over to a woman like this before? And with that thought, she was moving; an old, primal knowledge taking over her as she began to ride him. Her movements were awkward at first as she attempted to grapple with both her pleasure and his size, but within moments she found her stride.

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