Page 37 of Duke's Daring Bookworm
Oh, I would try. Not having Lily in my life would be torture, but I’m sure itwould come with so much heartbreak that I would need to be beaten back together again when this all went south.
After all the women I’d been with, and it’s definitely more than my fair share, I’d never stopped chasing the high that it used to bring. Lately, and by lately, I mean for years now, sex was… good, but not great, not thrilling. The excitement that came with young fumbling had worn off ages ago.
This, though, these little scraps of Lily’s attention, her touch, her moans, her eagerness and openness were like a drug. Better. Being with Lily like this was better than even my wildest dreams.
I was right to take this slowly.
A tendril of fear ran through me at the thought that somehow, I would ruin it, that I would ruin her. If she lost any of the hope, joy, softness, honesty, whatever made her face all soft and happy when she looked at me, I wouldn’t survive, and I’m certain that it would be my fault.
Fuck.
How am I supposed to keep the dark, desperate side of me from her? The part that wanted to push her to her absolute limits and ruin other men for her.
I let my head thump back against the wall and focused on literally anything but Lily. I needed to get my shit under control and eat dinner—feed Lily dinner. My cock perked back up at that idea and I closed my eyes, willing it back down again. The poor thing was probably going to fall off with all this teasing.
Feed Lily, and then we can feed this fire between us.
“Let’s eat in here,” Lily called from the couch.
Do not think about eating Lily.
“Yeah, I just need a minute,” I called to her as soon as I could speak again.
“Bring forks.”
Five breaths and one recitation of the General Orders later, I stood. I put my pants back on to keep my cock under control, grabbed the forks, poured us more wine, and joined her in the living room for dinner.
The smell of spiced lamb reached me, and I inhaled deeply. Olympia Cafe down by the river was a favorite of mine. Lily had spread the rest of the food out on the coffee table that dominated the floor space in the small living room. She held a piece of kalamari in one hand and a tiropitakia in the other, like she couldn’t decide what she wanted to eat more.
The custom made, one of a kind, expensive, and irreplaceable coffee table was a K. Night original black walnut with a waterfall edge. We had one of his pieces in the Hilton Head house. Lily treated it like she treated everything—comfortable, with a loving familiarity reminiscent of how she treated me. No one else ever made me feel so normal. Even the Marines. They either treated me like dirt or were in awe of my service record—no in between.
Lily treated me like I was just Duke. Just me.
I watched her pick her food and tried to picture her living in an old, southern mansion like the one I grew up in and would soon inherit. I’d seen her there plenty, but she never idolized it like most people. It was the thing I liked best about her.
She belonged here with her books and plants and dirty teacups, and not in the marble and gold gilded excess that was thrust on me from birth.
She looked so achingly perfect here, surrounded by everything she’d chosen for herself, cozy and comfortable. This home was somewhere a person could just existwithout the weight of the world pressing down on them.
“Oh, good. Forks.” She had taken up residence on the floor, putting the coffee table at the perfect height to treat it like a dining table. I set down the wine and forks and grabbed a pillow to sit down beside her.
We ate the food straight from the containers. I’m not sure when it happened, but at some point, she leaned back against me between my legs as she picked at her dinner.
“You haven’t had anything to drink,” I murmured in her ear. I wrapped one of my arms firmly around her waist and used the other to grab her wine.
I pulled her back against me, sliding my free hand up to rest lightly against her throat. She melted against me, completely trusting that I would take care of her.
Fuck.
I used my hand to tilt her head back on my shoulder.
“Open up.”
She did as I asked without protest, and I poured just a little of the drink into her mouth, watching closely as the liquid hit her tongue and dribbled out of the corner of her lips.
Her throat moved under my hand as she swallowed and the image of her on her knees before me, swallowing my cock down came rearing to the forefront of my mind.
I set the glass down and leaned in to lick the drops of wine from the corner of her mouth. She gasped, and I turned her head so I could trace the line of her lips and follow the taste of Chardonnay along her tongue.
