My Dangerous Duke (28 page)

As he did so, Kate slid the waistcoat off her shoulders, increasingly eager to be rid of her clothing. Then Rohan trailed his hands up her legs and hips until he reached her waist; he discreetly unbuttoned the placket of her livery breeches while she lay back in the leather wing chair, watching him in avid fascination.

“Lift your hips for me,” he whispered.

She bit her lower lip and reached above her head, hooking her hands over the top of the chair’s back to brace herself; when she followed his instructions, arching up from her seat, he slid the breeches off her slowly.

There was nothing underneath.

Her skin was hot now, though all that remained on her body was the long, white shirt and her thick wool stockings. He stripped her of the latter, one by one, then bent his head and pressed a worshipful kiss to her bare knee. He stayed like that for a long moment, his head bowed before her, his lips against her skin.

She petted his head, hesitantly at first, running her palm over his snow-dampened hair, as black as the night.

Then, gently, she molded her fingers against his roughened cheek and rugged jaw. He lifted his head and gazed at her with a passionate near adoration that took her breath away.

Without warning, she sat up and lifted the shirt off over her head, offering herself to him in virginal, tongue-tied silence.

Surely he knew she’d have done this for free.

Just like she knew he’d have protected her, expecting nothing in return. He breathed her name, heartily accepting her gift of herself. He rose to claim her lips once more, enfolding her in his arms.

She gloried in his mouth on hers and the smooth warmth of his hands caressing her bare back, her arms, her sides. She returned his kisses in wild, reckless abandon, burning for him now, touching him everywhere, relishing the sleek iron hardness of his broad shoulders, massive arms.

There was no one left to disapprove, no claims of respectability left to salvage. Besides, if her aristocratic French mama had ditched respectability for passion, then why should she not follow in her footsteps?

Deepest hunger was driving her to become one with him tonight as she returned his kisses in fevered desperation. She began undressing him, too, her hands shaking, her skin burning after all the cold outside. Cravat first. When she had bared his throat, she stroked his neck, eagerly exploring. His skin was rough like the scruff on his jaw after their long day.

Sitting on the chair before the fire, she wrapped her arms around him as he knelt between her legs. His tongue was in her mouth; her breasts were in his hands. She gently loosed his wild hair, unwinding the length of cord that bound his queue. As it fell to his shoulders, she twined her fingers through his sable mane, reveling in his virility.

Never had she found any man so utterly thrilling, especially like this; Rohan was more hungrily lustful for her and less civilized every moment. She urged him on, loving the fiery, untamed force of him, the hard, unyielding potency of the warrior. Losing herself in her want of him, she slipped her fingers inside the V of his loose white shirt, yearning for the chance to finally touch the gorgeous body she had so long craved.

She ran her palms over him, exploring. His muscled shoulders seemed carved of stone, but his smooth skin had the luxurious feel of kid leather. She moaned softly at the marvel of his heaving, sculpted chest.

He groaned in answer. “You’re driving me mad. I want you now,” he panted against her lips.

“Yes.”
Greedily, she peeled his shirt off him. But when he paused to lift it off over his head, she stared in dazed awe at his chiseled abdomen. Oh,
my
.

Delights never ceased.

“Come here,” he whispered in a low, raw, husky tone.

The order excited her terribly. At the moment, she did not at all mind him telling her what to do.

With a burning passion in his eyes that would brook no denial, he scooped her up, lifting her to him with his hands under her derriere. She wrapped her arms and legs around him, feasting on his kisses as he brought her to his bed and laid her down.

He moved atop her. Surely he could feel her heart slamming in her chest, she thought, but he cupped her face and leaned down hungrily to kiss her once again.

“God, Kate,” he breathed as he paused above her only briefly, unfastening his breeches. “You tempt me beyond bearing.”

“Give in, then,” she whispered, for surely, he must know by now that, in truth, she had belonged to him from the start.

 

Rohan was shaking with his desperation to claim her for his own. She ravished his senses to the point of madness; he could not stand another moment of the life he had always lived before her, so alone. God forgive him, he did not mean to take advantage of her after what she had been through tonight, but there was no holding back now, not for either of them.

He wanted to be in her.

To tear down the final walls between them. Indeed, he vowed that once he saw the proof of her virgin blood, and knew she was finally and indelibly his, then he would tell her everything. As much as he could. The shadow war between the Order and the Prometheans was as much a part of her heritage as it was his. She had a right to know the truth. Who she was. What she came from.

He could give her that.

But right now, all he wanted to give her was pleasure unlike any she had ever known. He could hardly comprehend than the wild, irrational hunger she spurred on, racing through his blood. A hunger not merely to satisfy his lust, but to bind her to him somehow—this woman and no other. To close the circle of what had begun between them even before she was born. He knew down to the marrow, aye, from the first, that she belonged to him. His to protect, to heal, to reassure after all she had suffered. She needed him like no one ever had, and he would comfort her in the most physical way he knew how.

Maybe this was just their destiny.
Superstitious.
Perhaps. He struggled to find a rational cause for his crazed longing for her, some logical explanation why her hurts should hurt him, too, and why her arrival in a room could clear the darkness out, at least for him.

The answers danced away from him, dissolving in the pleasure of her kiss. Kate cradled his face between her hands, drinking him in with her mouth while her beauty and her sheer, sweet innocence enveloped him in an almost holy fire.

As his hands began to wander over all the soft enticements of her body, she undulated under his palms in seductive invitation. Her breasts swelled beneath his roaming touch. He chafed her erect nipples with his thumbs, but soon could not resist their tautened allure. He dragged his lips away from hers and moved lower to pay homage.

He sampled each with a deep, slow, savoring kiss. Her chest heaved as she lay back on her elbows, watching him, and enjoying his attentions. With her breast in his mouth, his hand was free to discover and to claim new territory.

And he had a very clear idea of where he wanted to go. His hand inched down her stomach, teasing her as he neared her mound of Venus. His fingers drew playful circles at the bottom of her belly; he made sure she was dying for his touch before he deigned to give it to her. When she groaned with kittenish frustration, her hips rising impatiently to meet his cupped hand, he introduced himself to her mound with a deft caress.

Ah, but when his fingertips pressed deeper, he nearly lost his mind. She was dripping for him, anointing his hand with her yearning nectar. She let out an urgent sigh of pleasure and dropped her head back as he began to finger her. His pulse slammed in his arteries, for she was as ready for love as any woman he had ever bedded, her breathless motions urging on his explorations.
So wet.
It was at about that moment that her unexpected wantonness enslaved him, heart and mind, body and soul.

Her silken moans transported him to a throbbing frenzy. He had never wanted anyone with such a deep and elemental need. He freed his raging member, then captured her hand by her delicate pinky, and led her fingers to his feverish shaft, clasping her hand around it.

A small sound of wonder escaped her. He didn’t know whether to laugh or to wince with frustration, but she delighted him. Then he quivered violently as her delicate fingers wrapped around him with an endearing enthusiasm for this new task. He fantasized about her mouth, but there was a time and a place for everything.

He had his work cut out for him tonight to conduct her initiation without causing her too much pain.

He pushed his breeches lower down his hips but tensed with a groan of pleasure as her hand’s tight grasp began stroking him harder, faster. She had moved onto her side to get a better hold of him. She was amazing.

“Does that feel good?” she ventured, sounding eager to work him into a lather.

“Very. But—” he whispered as he stopped her, “I know something that feels … even better.” Goaded on by climbing lust, he laid her on her back again and maneuvered himself gently atop her, taking care not to crush her with his weight. He slid his arm around her, cradled her lovely head in his hands, and gazed at her for a heartbeat. “I’m going to take you now.”

“Mm, yes, Rohan, please.”
She writhed beneath him. He lowered his head and consumed her mouth with kisses as he entered her. Inch by inch, pressing in, he gave her what they both so desperately yearned for. She welcomed him, though he could feel her feverish uncertainty.

He moved slowly, throbbing inside her. He was only about halfway in, pleasuring her with small motions, caressing her tight inner walls. Her breasts heaved against his chest as she grew accustomed to his incursion, warily accepting it; he sensed the moment she had need of more.

He gave it to her, riding in more deeply, resolute in his taking. She licked her lips, opening to him, but still he held himself back. He moved slowly until her head thrashed back and forth on his pillow and her body squirmed beneath him in quivering frustration.

He drove in harder, quickened his pace. She arched, clawing at his trembling hips, a whispered curse torn wildly from her. He could bear no more self-denial. As she lay trembling beneath him, he braced himself on his hands above her, gazed fiercely into her eyes, and thrust again, taking her completely.

This time he drove in to the hilt, and a small cry of pain escaped her; he instantly regretted it. But when he started to pull back, she clung to him, her arms around his sweat-dampened waist.

He swallowed hard, for a quick glance down at the juncture of their joined bodies had revealed a scarlet streak of her blood.

Dear God.
He had not expected the rush of emotion he now felt as it truly struck him that he had just deflowered her. She was the most beautiful, most astonishing creature he had ever met. And she had willingly given him her virginity.

All of a sudden, Rohan did not know what to do next; he was lost, just for a heartbeat. Should he stop? Should he continue? Had he just committed a terrible sin, taking her innocence, when he had only darkness to give her in return?

Kate made the choice for him, curving her body up to kiss his chest over and over so sweetly he was sure he’d lose his mind.

He cupped her head against him reverently and closed his eyes. Without a word, she told him it was worth it to her, and though it might have hurt, she wanted him like this, all the way inside her. That he was her choice. But the angel had no idea what she was getting into.

Rohan shuddered, stroking her hair with a hand that shook slightly under the violence of his passion. Never before had any lover moved him so deeply.

After a moment, slowly, they eased down together onto the mattress. Taking pity on her inexperience in light of his notorious size, he lay beside her; they stared at each other, their bodies still joined.

With her left thigh draped over his right hip, he pleasured her at a more leisurely pace. She closed her eyes and let him love her.

Before long, however, he had stoked her fire until it blazed again. She pressed him onto his back and, looking intrigued with the possibilities, sat astride him; he never left her body. Victorious atop him, she appeared to savor this position—and her newfound power over him.

There was no denying it. At the moment, he was hers, body and soul, whether she knew it or not. Whether he was quite ready for that or not.
He
was sure as hell not ready to admit it.

“Rohan,” she murmured, “why haven’t we been doing this all the time that I’ve been here?”

He gave her a licentious half smile. “I was trying to convince you that I was a gentleman,” he replied, his low tone roughened by desire.

She smiled at his irreverent answer and dragged her dainty fingers down his chest. “What would I want with a gentleman when I could have a Beast?”

“I beg your pardon,” he protested in mock indignation. Then he tumbled the saucy wench onto her back. “I’ll have to teach you a lesson about calling me that.”

“Please do.” She smiled into his eyes as he moved back into position between her legs. God’s truth, it was like coming home. “Now, then, my little present. If you don’t mind, I am going to give you an orgasm. I trust you are familiar with the term.”

“How exciting! Of course I am,” she answered breathlessly. “I’m not a prude, I’ll have you know.”

He lifted an eyebrow.

“Orgasm,” she said matter-of-factly. “From the Greek:
orgasmos
. To be ripe. To be lustful. ‘The little death.’ ”

He laughed softly. “Book learning, my little scholar. That’s all … just … book learning,” he whispered wickedly between kisses on her neck.

Then he began to tutor her so his little scholar might learn from experience.

Their bodies glided together in trembling harmony. Heated skin, rhythmic panting, slamming heartbeats. They made love as if their lives depended on it.

“Oh, God—
Rohan!”