Page 87 of Duke of Wickedness
He jolted a little harder against her, and she was so goddamn grateful, because she couldn’t afford to be having those kinds of thoughts. She focused on the building heat within her.
It grew more slowly than it had before, but it burned higher, until she couldn’t gentle the way she grasped at him, couldn’t stop herself from digging her fingertips into his back. She might have feared that she was hurting him, except the moment her fingers clenched into him, his movements grew faster, more frantic, more erratic.
“Ariadne,” he said, his voice catching on the word. “Ari. Sweetheart. Oh, Ari. I?—”
He gritted his teeth, then slammed into her with the hardest stroke yet. The way it pressed against her sent her tumbling over the edge; she arched her back with a cry. He stayed with her just long enough for her vision to go white with pleasure, then tore himself from her with his own shout, frantically clutching at a fistful of blankets as he spilled.
Ariadne panted for a few moments, waiting for the tingling in her limbs to subside. Beside her, she heard David’s heavy breaths in the air, as well.
Slowly, a smile spread across her face.
And when he finally moved, just enough to lay a gentle hand across her belly as her body cooled, all she could think was that doing this was the best decision she’d ever made.
CHAPTER 22
The next night, as she waited for the house to go to bed so that she could safely sneak out, Ariadne thought that maybe, just maybe, she understood why Society cautioned women against going to bed with a gentleman before they were married.
Oh, not for the nonsense aboutpurityorbloodlinesor any of that other guff.
But because it was very hard to think about anything else now that she’d started.
She’d been distracted all day. There had been three separate instances where someone in the household had needed to call her name more than once before she responded, too lost in daydreaming about the night before to pay attention to her surroundings in the least.
It was astonishingly difficult to do anything else, not when the faint ache between her thighs kept reminding her of the touch of David’s skin against hers, of the way he’d murmured into her ear, of?—
Well. She should at leasttrynot to think of it.
She wanted to save that energy for when she was with him, after all.
It felt strange, slipping out of her house and finding her own hack; she’d grown so accustomed to having David send his carriage to wait for her on that quiet, dark corner near her home, but it was easy enough to pull the hook of her cloak far forward, obscuring her face as she hired a ride to Bacchus House.
The servants were less surprised to see her this time, she noticed with a thrill. It felt good, that tiny thrum of belonging that came with that recognition. She practically shivered with the anticipation as she headed up the same stairs she’d traveled the night before. The house looked very different without all the guests and lighting that came with a party, but she liked it like this, she decided.
“Thank you,” she said politely to the kind-faced butler as he led her up to David’s study—not that she didn’t know the way by this point.
“Of course, my lady,” the man said in return. “Do let me know if you need anything.”
Ariadne offered him a gracious smile, then let herself into the study.
David was sitting at his desk, looking absently at the fire when she entered. As soon as he heard the door, he stood and faced her?—
And the cheerful eagerness that had kept Ariadne going throughout the interminable day hiccupped at the look on his face.
He didn’t look forbidding or unwelcoming. He didn’t look angry, and he did not at all seem as though she had surprised him.
Instead, he looked…resigned.
Yes, that was the word for it.
“Good evening, Ariadne,” he said, wearing a smile that was not his charming smile but which was not quite his real smile, either.
“Ah—good evening,” she said, a marked hesitation overtaking her. “Is… Should I not have come?”
“No,” he said, the word accompanied by an emphatic shake of his head. “No, of course it’s fine. Please.” He gestured to a set of armchairs. “Sit.”
Ariadne had a sudden flash of something like panic. She didnotwant to sit. It wasnota good idea.
“David,” she said warily. “What’s going on? What’s wrong?”
