Page 40 of The Duke Who Dared Me
She shifted her weight to help as he moved down her body, wriggling free of her skirts.He tugged them off, his knuckles grazing along her thigh as her chemise rode high.
“Look at me,” she said.
He did, his bright blue eyes appearing darker in the moonlight.Lapis Lazuli.She could fill a notebook with words describing his eyes now after all these years.Like the morning glories in the garden or the delicate pattern on her favorite chipped teacup at Warwick Cottage.
She held his gaze as she guided his hand higher, to exactly where she craved his touch.He pushed a finger through her folds, drawing a slow circle across that bud at the apex of her thighs.
Heat bloomed, immediate and consuming, and she bit back a whimper, falling back a moment against the mattress.
“Good?”he asked.
“Please, don’t stop.”Her mouth curved even as her body trembled, and she pushed up to her elbows to watch him touch her.It was one last desperate attempt to root herself in the moment, not to forget Alistair like this, right now.
His forehead dropped to hers, the two of them breathing the same thin air, rocking her hips as his fingers moved over her, as if taking her apart inch by inch.Tension began tightening, spreading, her limbs warm as his fingers finally slipped inside of her, and she whispered his name as pleasure crested like a wave and crashed over her.
“Shh, love.”
She gave in to it without shame, clutching his shoulders.For a long moment, quiet stretched between them before she caught her breath and found her smile.She slid her hand to the buttons at his waistband of his buckskin.“Still planning to leave through the window?”
“Not a chance,” he said with a wicked grin.
* * *
Alistair had not meantto lose himself so quickly.One moment, he was on his knees, pressing that foolishly mended figurine into her hand, prepared to beg her to understand what it meant, and the next they were kissing.
Then he helped her from her dress, he bent between her knees, and now her fingers were in the waistband of his buckskins, dragging him closer.
He had never been one to lose his head, but there was no part of this evening that was going as expected.Not at dinner when he defended her, not when he was so desperate to see her that he climbed into her window, and not now as she reclined back onto the bed.
Her lips parted beneath his, and he drew in the smallest sound of her sigh as though it were oxygen, as though she were life itself.He deepened the kiss, angling his mouth, his hand framing her jaw.Verity welcomed him.Every line of her body seemed to surrender, and Alistair’s chest tightened with something beyond desire, though desire was there, swift and brutal, rushing through him until he was dizzy with it.He would never be free of her.He realized he might have made his peace with that long ago, but his heart was only catching up to his mind all these years later.
Verity deserved a choice.And he would give her at least that, though his body rioted at the thought of restraint.He forced himself to pull back, searching her face.Her cheeks were flushed, her dark eyes wide and shining in the candlelight.
“Tell me you want this, love.”
“I want you.”
The last of his reason burned away.
He gathered her against him, and the mattress dipped beneath his knees as he settled her against the quilted counterpane.He hovered above her, afraid if he blinked, she would disappear.The years between them—the quarrels, the reckless wagers, the hatred worn like armor—slipped away.What remained was the girl who had haunted his youth and the woman who would haunt the rest of his life if he did not have her now.
“Verity,” he said, low and rough.“You wreck me.”
Her smile was small but certain, her fingers tracing his jaw.“Good,” she whispered.“You deserve it.”
He laughed, hoarse and unsteady, before swallowing her reply in another kiss.She shifted beneath him, welcoming, restless, and he groaned into her mouth, nearly undone by the simple grace of her wanting him back.
He tore his lips from hers to murmur against her throat.“You’ll tell me if I hurt you.You’ll tell me if you want me to stop.”
“I won’t,” she said fiercely, but he caught her hand, pressed it hard against his racing heart.
“You will,” he insisted.“Because this is yours as much as mine.Do you understand?”
Her answering nod was enough.
“Look at you,” he breathed, slowly pulling the chemise over her head.His hand swept reverently down between her breasts, pausing to cup the generous curve of her hip.“Perfect.I swear, I’ll never want for anything else so long as I may have you like this.”
He bent, drawing one perfectly pink nipple into his mouth, and she gasped aloud, her fingers flying to his hair.He teased it with tongue and teeth until her back arched hard from the mattress, and then he soothed the sensitive tip with a gentle, flat swirl of his tongue.
