Page 43 of The Duke Says I Do
This kiss conveyed no hesitation. When his tongue slid between her lips, she sucked on it. He gave a soft growl of approval. Strange how much these animal sounds could express. Pleasure. Surrender. Desire.
Portia arched, pressing her aching breasts to his powerful chest. She wanted him to touch her there. A blameless lifetime had crumbled to nothing over little more than twenty-four turbulent hours.
She wanted him to touch her everywhere. Especially where heat pulsed between her legs.
Their tongues shared a frenzied dance that made her senses reel. He stroked her back, venturing lower until he caught her buttocks and lifted her against him. She gasped into his mouth, as his hardness rubbed against her stomach.
After measureless bliss, he lifted his head without moving away.
“How do you do that?” she whispered.
“Kiss you?” She couldn’t see him smile, but she knew he did. “All too easily, I’m afraid.”
“No.” She struggled to express his extraordinary effect on her. “I mean the way you touch me and the whole world disappears. There’s nothing but you and me and what we do together.”
She heard his breath catch, before he proved the truth of what she’d said by kissing her again. With a passion that made her head spin and her knees quake. She clung to his broad shoulders and rode the storm.
“Alaric…” she sighed, then nothing more. He’d stolen her capacity to link words into something that made sense.
“I know,” he murmured before sending her off into another spin with a quick kiss.
When he raised his head, she couldn’t contain a whimper of disappointment.
“I want to kiss you and kiss you.” The declaration’s softness didn’t conceal the depths of his frustration.
“But we’re not safe here.” As if to confirm the fact, a carriage rattled into the square and stopped in front of the Comerford house. When she shifted closer, Alaric’s arms tightened in a wordless gesture of protection. She shouldn’t feel safer, but somehow she did.
“No, we’re not,” he said, sounding somber. He rested his chin on top of her head. “Which is why I want you to myself.”
“Can we manage it?” She didn’t try and hide her eagerness.
“Can you get away?”
“I’ve been thinking.” That was an understatement. Her mind had been in a furore since she’d seen Alaric this morning in the park.
“Can Rankin help?”
“It’s fairer to keep him out of this.”
“You’re asking him to do more than drive you around London while you look for stray dogs.”
“Much more. He’s been with the family forever, but even so, he’d lose his place if Papa found out that he’d taken me to meet a lover. And honestly, I’m thinking of Papa, too. It would kill him to weather another scandal.”
“I also promised that I’d keep you from harm. As far as I can.”
That proviso was very like Alaric. After those ravishing kisses, she had no doubt that he wanted her. But he wasn’t concealing what an affair could end up costing them.
Portia made herself bring up a topic that she never thought she’d need to discuss with anyone, particularly her sister’s former suitor. “I don’t…I don’t want to have a baby.”
She was ashamed to admit that was a blatant lie. The idea of carrying Alaric’s child was all too tempting. But she couldn’t endure the thought of bearing a baby out of wedlock.
The air she breathed was tinged with his scent. Leather and soap and some mysterious essence that was purely him. For a delicious moment, she buried her nose in his shirtfront.
“I’ll do my best.” His voice rumbled out of his chest.
“There are ways?”
However much Juliet had told her about copulation, much remained a mystery. Even knowing the basics hadn’t given her the first idea of how overwhelming it felt to desire a man and have him desire her in return. Her imagination couldn’t extend to how she’d feel when Alaric joined his body to hers. Which didn’t stop her muscles cramping with excitement.
