Page 52 of Duke of Destruction
“Christ,” he grunted. “Wait. Catherine, I—wait.”
She really did not want to wait, but she pulled back her hand anyway. His chest heaved with the force of his breaths. It made her want to preen.
His eyes were hot as they looked at her. She could almost see the inner workings of his mind as he planned his approach.
Percy had held himself back for so long, she realized absently. Not just from this thing between them, but in general. Hadn’t she seen that trembling energy in him from the very first moment they had met, after all?
And he was only now unleashing himself, letting go of that tight rein of control.
“Why are we waiting?” she asked. She, too, was taking quick, heaving breaths.
He smiled at her the way he insulted her—sharp, full of bite.
God, she wanted more of that.
“You came here for your pleasure, my lady,” he said, a subtle twist of mockery on her title that made her shiver anew. “Needed it so badly that it drove you from your bed, aye?”
The words were shaped like cruelty, but they felt like the highest praise. Catherine couldn’t stop herself from nodding, not that she truly wished to.
“Yes,” she said. Then, because it had worked before, “Please, Percy.”
He’d grown wise to her tricks, though. He did approach, but it wasn’t with the frantic, hasty movements that his name on her lips had inspired in the forest. Instead, he reached for the tie to her dressing gown with great deliberation, tugging it loose with sure fingers.
“You have me at a disadvantage,” he said, and it was the most politeness she’d ever heard from the damned man. Only now, instead of reminding her of stuffy drawing rooms and dull conversations, she began to hum with anticipation. “Shall we even the score?”
Yes. She tried to form the word, but it came out as a whimper instead.
Percy’s smile was tipped with razors.
Each glancing touch felt like a line of fire as he slipped the heavy brocade of her dressing gown down over her shoulders,delicately moving her arms so that the fabric puddled to the floor, leaving her in only her thin chemise. They had been blessed with good weather for the whole of the party, but Catherine had never been as grateful for it as she was now; any colder, and she would have been wearing a thick, flannel nightgown to keep off the chill, not the thin cotton she now sported.
And if she’d been wearing anything else, Percy would not have been able to see as much of the curve of her breasts, the peaks of her nipples as they grew taut with her arousal. And then perhaps he wouldn’t have looked at her with such hunger, such longing.
She wouldn’t have missed that expression on his face for all the world.
“You are the most confoundedly beautiful woman, Catherine,” he said hoarsely.
It wasn’ttrue. Catherine was fashionable in afitting insort of way, not astanding outsort of way, and that precluded her from being any kind of notable beauty. She was pretty enough, but that was it.
She felt like more now, though.
“Flatterer,” she muttered, merely for something to say. Speaking would let out some of the heat building inside her before she exploded into a conflagration.
Percytsked. “You should know by now that I am more prone to insult than flattery, my dear Catherine,” he said, and Catherine had to close her eyes when he saidmy dear, lest he see how good the words made her feel.
She opened them again when he began tugging at the ribbon that held together the neckline of her chemise, however. She didn’t want to miss a moment of this.
“And that means,” he went on, loosening the ribbon and guiding the light fabric down her arms much as he had her dressing gown, “that when I compliment you, you are to trust it.”
Catherine could barely breathe as the chemise fluttered around her ankles, leaving her totally bare in a puddle of abandoned cloth.
He reached up to cup one of her breasts, rolling the nipple lightly between his thumb and the side of his forefinger. Catherine had to clench her legs together at the bolt of heat that went through her.
“So when I say that you have the most glorious breasts I’ve ever seen,” he continued, his voice rougher than before, “you should believe me.”
“They’re small,” she protested.
He pinched her nipple hard enough to make her yelp. She fixed him with a glare.
