Page 85 of The Beast of Beswick
“Did I pay for that?”
“Why, of course,” she replied, reaching for coolness, despite the fact that his hand was burning a hole at her elbow, sending flames shooting to other parts of her body nowhere near her arm. “I have it on account from Madame Pinot that you specified this color.”
“The color,” he ground out. “Not”—he gestured at her body with his hand—“that.”
Astrid let out a laugh, causing his eyes to drop to her quivering bosom. It was a wonder she didn’t go up in cinders at his glower. “This style is all the rage in Paris. Don’t be such a prude, Your Grace.” He ripped his burning stare away, that muscle in his jaw on the loose again. She lifted her brows. “Won’t you pour me a sherry, darling? Or perhaps Sir Thornton will not mind.”
With an unreadable look, he stalked away before she could finish and returned with the proffered glass, nearly shoving it into her hand. Astrid sipped the drink and allowed him to escort her to her seat. During all nine courses of dinner, she tasted nothing, not the cream of turtle soup, nor the braised pheasant, nor the beef in béchamel sauce. Though she conversed mostly with Claudia and Mabel about trivial things, she could feel her husband’s brooding stare. Poor Sir Thornton had to be getting uncomfortable with the duke’s testy one-word answers.
Mabel, who sat beside her to her left, leaned in. “I hope that dress of yours has a plan,” she whispered.
“Me too,” Astrid whispered back. “I can barely eat in this thing.”
“You shall have to give me the name of your modiste,” Claudia said on her right, the not-so-innocent comment drawing both the duke’s and Sir Thornton’s attention. “That gown is rather sensational. Isn’t it, Henry?”
Sir Thornton coughed discreetly but not before sending his wife a thoroughly devilish look that made Astrid bite back a giggle. She hadn’t expected it of the stern, composed solicitor. But it was clear that he was very much smitten with his wife.
“Thank you,” Astrid said. “Madame Pinot is exceptional, but I fear that the praise for this particular gown has to go to my husband.” Thane choked on his wine and opened his mouth as if to deny it, but Astrid did not let him get a word in. “His Grace has impeccable taste.”
“Indeed,” Claudia toasted, lifting her glass with an impish grin.
Beswick looked like he’d sucked on something awful, and the scars on his face had gone stark white, as if he were holding on to his control by a thread. Thankfully, the rest of the dinner passed with less provoking conversation, and after the last course was served, Astrid put down her napkin as they all rose.
Normally after a formal dinner, the men would adjourn to the library for port and cigars, while the women took tea and brandy in the salon, but the Thorntons had another engagement. They said their goodbyes.
“I’m off as well,” Astrid announced. She had no plans for the evening, buthedidn’t know that. Sure enough, her husband froze.
“Off where, Your Grace?” he asked in a silky tone.
“To the Levinson musicale, of course,” she said, ignoring the firing of her pulse and the decadent throb between her thighs at his look. “I accepted days ago.”
He gripped her elbow, not tightly but firmly enough that her knees went weak. “Please excuse us,” he said with a clipped bow. “My wife and I have something to say to each other.”
Astrid glanced helplessly over her shoulder as Mabel mouthedbravoand Claudia’s eyes twinkled with mirth. The duke led her into his study and kicked the door shut behind him.
She opened her mouth to protest his manhandling of her person, and he swore a filthy oath, slamming his lips to hers. She was swamped by more than six and a half feet of large, predatory, sexually aroused male, and Lord help her if her body didn’t respond just as savagely to his hot, possessive kiss. Astrid’s hands clawed at his jacket, clutching him close as she welcomed the punishing invasion of his tongue and met him stroke for ferocious stroke. He bit at her lips, and she bit back. He licked and sucked and thrust, and she responded in kind.
“This dress is diabolical,” he growled, dragging his mouth from hers, his fingers tracing the lace edge of the flimsy silk bodice. It didn’t take much coaxing for her nipples to harden. Thane bent his head and suckled, the delicate fabric darkening. Astrid nearly fainted from the friction of soft wet silk against her sensitive skin. He blew against her, making her nipples tauten even more, and bowed to pay homage to the other.
“Thane,” she begged, her body dissolving into a mess of need and heat.
Shoving her up against the study door, he wedged a hard thigh in between hers and growled low in his throat. He circled his rock-hard groin against her, making her lightheaded. “I’ve had you and this gown to thank for the most agonizing arousal I’ve had in years.”
“And I’ve you to thank for the same,” she replied.
His eyes shone, burning with desire as his hands fought her skirts to seek bare skin. Barer still at the tops of her thighs.
“No drawers,” he whispered.
Astrid could barely string two words together at the feel of his thumbs, parting the aching place where she was embarrassingly wet for him. But Thane only growled his satisfaction, his free hand moving to unbutton his falls as he gathered handfuls of red silk to her waist, exposing everything to his view. She writhed against him, feeling cool air on her overheated skin.
“Hold these,” he ordered, handing her a wadded mound of her skirts.
And then he sank to his knees, setting his hungry mouth to her throbbing sex.
Astrid throttled her scream, the muffled sound turning into moans as he continued his onslaught with his lips and tongue. God, he knew just how and where to touch her…exactly how to circle and lash the gathering knot of tension until she was sobbing his name. Her knees buckled as pleasure streaked along her nerve endings and gathered in the space between her legs, building and building, until suddenly, the climax was upon her, her body splintering apart into aching ripples of sensation.
Without warning, Thane stood and drove his staff into her wet heat, filling her utterly even as she convulsed around him, her orgasm intensifying anew at the magnificent length and breadth of him stretching her to capacity.
