Page 68 of If the Duke Dares
She nodded. “You can still leave, if you’d like. I would understand.”
He stroked her jaw with his thumb as he lost himself in her eyes. “I would be a terrible hypocrite if I judged you harshly. What happened with him, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“He wanted to marry me, but after we were intimate, I said I didn’t want to. At first, he said he would go to my parents, but I convinced him that wouldn’t turn out the way he hoped. You see, he was a poor curate. My parents would not have supported a marriage.”
“You broke his heart, then?” Acton actually felt a moment’s pity for the impoverished curate.
“I don’t think so. We were young. I’m not sure one can know one’s heart at that age. Honestly, I don’t know if one ever can.”
He’d stroked his hand down her neck and now rested it at the crook of her collarbone. “What does that mean? You don’t believe in love?”
“I do, though I’ve little experience seeing it. I’ve accepted that I am likely never to experience it myself. Have you been in love?”
“My younger self thought I was—with the woman my father hired to ‘teach’ me about sex. My father explained I was merely feeling infatuation, which is common for a young man, that it would fade. He was right.” He rolled his eyes. “I was also infatuated with my first mistress, before I learned it was unfashionable to have any emotional attachment to one’s mistress.”
Her nostrils flared. “Who told you that?”
“My father. He had the same mistress for ten years, but said he never felt more than an affinity for her. Anything more just isn’t done.”
She wrinkled her nose. “While I believe there is a difference between love and infatuation, your father gave you rubbish advice as to how you should feel.”
Acton had begun to wonder. But he didn’t want to think about that just now. He wanted to return to their discussion of kissing and the type they should engage in. “Have you considered how I might kiss you?” He moved his thumb along the bare flesh of her throat, feeling the steady beat of her pulse. It picked up speed then, as her lips parted.
“I want you to kiss me. Anywhere you like.” She put her hands on his shoulders and leaned into him. “Tonight, I am yours, Acton.”
“Then tonight, I am going to take what I want. But you can stop me at any moment, with the barest whisper. Understood?” He held her gaze as a primal lust streaked through him.
She dug her fingers into his flesh. “I understand. Now, kiss me.”
Persephone pulled him toward her. Since he’d asked about kissing her sex, she’d been aquiver with want. Her earlier experiences had been based on curiosity. But this was different. This was a need she couldn’t ignore nor deny. A desperate desire that she felt certain only Acton could satisfy.
His hand moved to the back of her neck as his other arm circled her waist. His mouth took hers, and she met the insistent press of his lips and the subsequent thrust of his tongue. This kiss wasn’t as inquisitive as their first ones had been. It didn’t need to be. This kiss was about claiming one another, about conquering and submitting.
The need inside Persephone built with each sweep of his tongue. He cupped her neck, holding her in a thoroughly sensual embrace while he plundered her mouth. She pressed into him, her entire body tingling with desire.
The pulse that had started between her legs when he’d suggested putting his mouth there intensified. She wanted to feel him there. She wanted to feel him everywhere.
Suddenly, the notion of removing her clothing did not seem like a bad idea. She’d no idea of the temperature outside, just that she was burning with want.
Pivoting, she lifted her skirts so that she could straddle him on the bench. He clasped her to him as she situated herself atop his thighs. When she pressed down—her bare sex meeting the rigid length of his erection straining against his breeches—he groaned.
“Persey,” he breathed before taking her mouth once more. He gripped her hip, holding her tightly against him as he thrust against her.
Moaning, she ground down, desperate for more of this sensation. Her arousal climbed as their bodies worked together. It was as if they’d been made for this moment. As wrong as this scenario might seem, nothing had ever felt so right to Persephone.
His hand moved from her neck to her bodice, plucking at the ties to lower the front.
She pulled her mouth from his. “I’m not wearing stays.” She typically disposed of them by this hour of the night and hadn’t thought twice about leaving them off. Perhaps some part of her had hoped this would happen.
“You are indeed a goddess.” He kissed her jaw, her neck, his lips and tongue trailing down her flesh as he loosened the front of her gown.
Cool air moved over her bare, heated flesh. His mouth moved to the base of her throat, then lower to the hollow between her breasts. He cupped one of them as his lips found her nipple.
She had experienced this before, but it had been clumsy and thankfully brief. As with kissing, Acton was proving himself to be a master. He licked and sucked at her flesh, stoking her desire into a deep and demanding lust.
He held her fast around the waist while he suckled her, his free hand teasing her other breast. He brushed the pad of his thumb against her, a touch she somehow felt in her sex. Then he closed his fingers together, pulling gently on her nipple, and she cried out as everything seemed to intensify.
Wanting more of him, she rotated her hips against his. If she could unfasten his fall, she could feel him directly—flesh to flesh. Would he allow her to do that?
