Page 108 of The Wolf Duke's Wife
“You’re very determined to scandalize me,” he said.
“Someone must,” she said, “you’ve lived too long without proper provocation.”
The corner of his mouth lifted. “Careful, Christine. You’re in my domain now.”
“Your domain is chaos,” she said, spreading jam with unsteady grace.
He took the knife from her hand and spread the jam himself, too thickly, on his own slice. “Then you’ll fit perfectly.”
She laughed then, and it felt to her like sunlight. “You’re impossible.”
“So I’ve been told.” He took a bite, then looked at her, eyes glinting with mischief, “But am I less impossible than this jam?”
Before she could answer, he dabbed a smear of it playfully against her wrist.
“Tristan!”
He looked unrepentant. She retaliated with a spoonful of cream, swift and precise. It landed on his jaw. For a heartbeat, they stared at one another, and then laughter broke free. Hers ringing and breathless, his lower, warmer, the sound of someone who had forgotten how to laugh and suddenly remembered.
He caught her hand mid-swipe, holding it fast. The mirth drained slowly, replaced by something quieter, heavier. The space between them contracted.
“Careful,” she whispered, though her pulse betrayed her, “You’ll stain the linen.”
“I’m past caring about linen.” His voice was low now, almost rough.
She meant to pull away, but the look in his eyes stopped her. He traced a streak of cream from her wrist to her palm and bent hishead, his lips following its path. The touch was slow, reverent. Her breath caught.
“Tristan…”
He lifted his gaze to hers. “You said you wanted to live.”
She did not answer. There was no need.
He leaned closer, his mouth finding hers, and the kiss was as inevitable as sunrise. Gentle at first, then deeper, tasting of sweetness and surrender. Her hand came up to his shoulder, and his arm slid around her waist, drawing her against him. The tray wobbled dangerously between them before he pushed it aside, tea sloshing onto the carpet.
The feel of his shoulder was that of a warm statue. Hard as marble but living and breathing. She felt the firmness of muscle and the suppleness of that same body.
His chest pressed up against her, crushing her breasts and bringing her alive with sensations. His loins touched hers, and his desire was evident, the hardest of hardness. One hand touched the small of her back, and it was as though he had found a string that connected to the core of her womanhood. That light touch lit a fire in her loins, and that made her toes tingle and her knees shake.
She moaned in disappointment when the touch stopped, but then gasped as it simply moved lower, enveloping the swell ofher buttocks, gripping and possessing her. Digging her fingers into his chest, she tried to own him the way she felt owned by him. His shirt was no barrier; she could feel his body through the wicked fabric that tried to keep them apart.
Christine’s breath came hot and fast as Tristan’s lips found her neck. He bit, and she squeaked. Animals bit, but at that moment Christine wanted to be an animal, a she-wolf alongside her mate.
The very notion brought images of love-making as mating. As an act of primal physicality, it made her head spin. She tightened her fingers in his silky but still somehow rough hair, pulling even as she tightened her embrace. The reward was a gasp of pleasure from Tristan. Christine pulled his head from her neck to claim his mouth, but then let her tongue flick across his lips and follow the line of his jaw. He tasted sublime, a sense of masculinity that could not be intellectually defined. It had to be experienced.
She laughed again, half-breath, half-protest, but he swallowed the sound in another kiss, slower this time, unhurried as the dawn that spilled across the room. When they broke apart, the light had strengthened. She could hear the city waking fully beyond the window, but in the quiet heart of the room, there was only them. For a while, they said nothing. Words felt fragile things to bring into a world that had, for one brief hour, gone still.
It was only when the clock struck eight that Christine stirred.
“You should go,” she said softly, “before Mrs. Cleat has you arrested for impropriety.”
He smiled against her hair. “She’d have to catch me first.”
“She’s formidable,” Christine warned.
“So are you.”
Her hand found his where it rested on her waist. “That’s what frightens me,” she whispered.
