Page 79 of A Widow for the Beastly Duke

The door to her room was pushed open, and between one breath and the next, she was pressed up against it as it clicked shut, Victor’s hands becoming ever bolder as the seconds passed.

“Yes,” she gasped, trembling against him, her palms pressing against the solid wall of his chest before gliding upward to rest on his shoulders again.

The fine linen of his shirt couldn’t disguise the heat radiating from his skin, warming her fingertips as they traced the contours of muscle beneath. She felt the shudder that coursed through him at her exploration, a primal response that echoed her unraveling control.

As Victor moved backward, the back of his knees bumped against the armchair beside her vanity. He sank right into it, their mouths tearing apart with an obscene sound that made her core throb.

She sank on top of him, her knees on either side of his hips, her legs feeling like jelly. Victor’s gaze seemed to burn even brighter as he stared down at her. She could see the outline of his member twitch ever so eagerly against his pants.

“You make me so impatient, My Lady.” He was moaning, his teeth catching his lower lip in a purely sexual gesture that sent a bolt of heat to her molten core.

She grunted at the force of it, her hips jerking once against his stomach, and then again, until she could not help but move on the hard blocks of his abdomen, if only to satiate the desperate hunger stabbing at her belly.

“Oh, please, please,” She did not know what she was begging for.

No. No, she did. She was just too embarrassed to say it. It had been many years, after all, and the last time she’d done this with another man, it was with her late husband, who had merely coupled with her out of cold obligation.

“Fuck, Emma.” Victor’s curse was guttural, and her hips jerked against his hard abdomen again, her lips falling open at the wanton pleasure of hearing him use such vulgar language with her, as though he were completely unable to control himself.

It made her feel even hotter to know that she elicited such a passionate response from this man.

He kissed her again, and it sent a sliver of delicious electricity across her nerves. The taste of brandy lingered on his lips, mingling with something uniquely his—a flavor she couldn’t name but instantly recognized as essential, as necessary as breath.

When his tongue swept along the seam of her lips in a silent plea for deeper access, she yielded without hesitation, meeting his advance with a shy boldness that surprised even herself.

Victor’s quiet groan vibrated against her mouth, the sound somehow both vulnerable and commanding. His free arm encircled her waist, drawing her from her kneeling position until she was half-seated across his lap, the arrangement deliciously improper yet impossibly right. The intimacy of their new position sent a cascade of sensation down her spine, each nerve awakening to possibilities she’d long denied herself.

Their mouths parted briefly, both seeking air, their foreheads resting against one another as their breaths mingled in the narrow space between them. Emma’s eyes fluttered open to find Victor’s gaze upon her, his pupils dilated until only a thin ring of color remained. The naked emotion she found there—desire tangled with tenderness, need intertwined with wonder—caused something to unfurl in her chest, a fragile hope she’d believed long extinguished.

“Emma,” he whispered, her name sounding like a prayer.

His thumb traced the curve of her cheekbone with exquisite care, as though she were fashioned of the finest porcelain, precious beyond measure.

She answered, not with words but by reclaiming his mouth, her fingers sliding up to frame his face.

Oh, how she wanted him. The thought barely registered before her other hand went to work on the buttons of his shirt.

Victor needed no further encouragement. He deftly divested her of her gown and undergarments, and then he simply stared.

Emma’s heart was pounding in her chest, and she put her hands over her naked breasts, shame coloring her cheeks a bright red.

“Do not… do not stare so much?—”

But Victor grabbed her hands and pulled them aside at once, pinning them above her head in a domineering grip that made her back arch.

“Do you know,” he murmured, his voice coming out like velvet, “how many times I have dreamed of touching and tasting your body, My Lady?”

Heart thundering in her ears, she just shook her head. She could not say a word.

“Countless,” he whispered against her chest as his head lowered, his breath hot against her erect nipple.

Emma let out a cry.

“I have imagined this moment countless times, Emma, and yet nothing compares to the real woman before me.”

Hard color rode high on his cheeks, and holding her gaze, he closed the negligible distance between them and sucked her stiff nipples into his mouth.

“Oh!” she moaned, throwing her head back, her back arched so hard it might have snapped. “Victor…”

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