The Other Duke (8 page)

She jolted at the unforeseen question and found both men watching her expectantly. “N-no,” she stammered. “Just tired.”

Rafe touched her arm briefly. “Of course you are. Lathem, we will retire.”

The butler nodded. “Yes, sir. I will take care of all these things before you rise tomorrow, and I shall make sure Mrs. Lathem prepares your favorites in the morning.”

Rafe made a rumbling groan of what sounded to be pleasure. “That sounds divine. Good night.”

He took Serafina’s arm and she followed him up the stairs and through the winding halls until they reached an open chamber door. When he urged her through, she came to a stop.

“Your room?” she asked, looking at him over her shoulder.

“Yes, and I’m afraid it is the only one currently ready for use. We were closing up the house, you see, since I assumed I would be staying at the ducal home for a while.”

She faced him. “But will there be another room for me until we settle on where I will take up permanent residence?”

She tensed as she prayed he would remember their bargain, that he would live up to his promise to provide her a place to live outside of the ducal home, away from her memories…away from
him
.

His expression softened, but it wasn’t pity in his eyes. She appreciated that a great deal.

“If you would like a separate room, I’ll have the lady’s chamber prepared tomorrow. It connects to this room through the sitting area, but it has a lock and will be private. As for your own home…”

She clenched her hands behind her back.

“It will take at least a few weeks to arrange it, but I made you a promise, Serafina, and you will find I don’t go back on my word, despite whatever my reputation says about me being a scoundrel.”

She swallowed. It was strange. A scoundrel was exactly what she had expected to find in Raphael Flynn, but this man continued to surprise her at every turn.

Her gaze darted to the bed, almost against her will. It looked far more comfortable than Cyril’s.

“You must be exhausted,” he said, stepping toward her.

She took a big step back out of habit and he froze in place. “I only want to help you with your gown,” he explained. “You can sleep in your chemise. By morning your clothing will have arrived. I’ll sleep in my trousers.”

She looked again at the bed. “Together?”

“Unless you wish to relegate me to the most beautiful but uncomfortable settee in the nation,” he said, motioning to a velvet couch on the opposite side of the room.

She shifted. “I…”

He moved closer yet again, and this time she forced herself to stay in place. “We will only sleep, I promise you,” he said softly.

She looked at him for a long moment, examining his handsome face, seeing a strangely earnest expression in his eyes.

“Very well,” she whispered. She blushed, turning her face as he began to undress her for the second time that night.

He performed the act slowly, without any attempt at a seduction. Yet, knowing he was just a step in front of her, feeling his hands occasionally brush over her chest or stomach as he did his work, sent strange shivers through her.

When the dress was open, he stepped away, leaving her to remove it on her own. She turned her back to him as she did so, suddenly embarrassed for him to see her in such a state, even though they had been totally naked together an hour before.

When she finally found the courage to face him, he had stripped off his shirt and sat down to remove his boots. She watched him from the corner of her eye, admiring, despite herself, how his muscles rippled as he tugged at his footwear.

Finally he had freed himself and got up to point to the bed. “My lady.”

She took a spot in the bed and slipped beneath the cool, clean sheets with a sigh she couldn’t suppress. He joined her and settled in against the pillows.

Once again, she couldn’t help but steal a glance at him. In the firelight he looked…
tan
against the stark white of the cotton sheets. As if he spent time outside shirtless.

An odd, unwanted thrill worked through her that she tried desperately to ignore.

“Goodnight,” she whispered, turning her back to him.

She heard him blow out the lamp before he said, “Goodnight.”

But even as they lay there in the quiet together, her exhaustion clouding her already wild mind, she knew she wouldn’t sleep for a very long time.

Rafe had been awake since the first hints of sunlight began to peek around the curtains. Now the light brightened the chamber, allowing him to finally see Serafina fully. She was lying on her back, her face beautiful and relaxed in sleep. In the days he’d known her, he had never seen her so at peace.

And now he knew the reason why. He also knew why she stiffened at his kiss, why his hands on her made her breath hitch in fear.

And yet, last night, before she confessed the awful truth of her mistreatment at the hands of his evil cousin, he’d felt her responsiveness to him as well. Even with all she had endured, her body still craved pleasure.

She made a soft sigh and her lashes began to flutter against her cheeks as she woke. Her arms had been beneath the sheets and she tugged them free, reaching a hand up above her head.

Rafe swallowed hard. When she did that, she revealed the soft curve of the side of her breast. One he wanted to explore with his hands, his mouth. Since he had withdrawn from her wet body, his cock had been throbbing, sending him constant reminders that pleasure had been prevented for both of them.

Her eyes fully opened and she sucked in a gasp of surprised breath as she remembered he was in the bed beside her.

“Good morning,” he said, smiling at her in the hopes he would reassure her. “Or what is left of it.”

She sat up partially and looked around his chamber. “What time is it?”

“After eleven,” he explained.

She flopped back on the pillow with a sigh. “I have not slept that well in…it must be years.”

Rafe pursed his lips in displeasure that fear had kept her from her rest for so long.

“If Cyril weren’t already dead, I would kill him myself,” he said softly.

Her eyes widened a fraction and she pondered his statement for a moment. “If Cyril wasn’t dead, you and I wouldn’t be here. You wouldn’t know anything about me except that I was your new cousin by marriage. And since you had no real relationship with the man, we likely would have never met.”

Rafe thought of those very good points for a moment. What she had left out was that if Cyril wasn’t dead, he also wouldn’t be forced to be a duke, forced to be a husband. He would be free as a bird, free as he’d always been.

And yet going back in time, changing it so that Cyril would live, didn’t seem all that appealing at the moment. Certainly not so appealing as the lady currently in his bed.

He rolled to his side, moving closer to her. She tensed and inched away slightly. He froze in his spot, allowing her to flee and gain whatever distance left her comfortable. When she blushed and stared down at her clenched hands in her lap, he drew a long breath.

“I would like to renegotiate the terms of our arrangement, Sera.”

Her lips parted and he saw the panic light up on her face. She began to scoot away further, but now he caught her wrist gently.

“Wait, wait,” he soothed. “Hear me out.”

She stared at his hand around her arm and he released her immediately.

“Please,” he added.

Her eyes darted to the door across the room, as if she were considering running, despite being clad in only her chemise. Then she looked back toward him and sighed.

“Very well.”

“When we opened our discussion into what our life as husband and wife would entail, I didn’t know all the facts of your past,” he began.

She stiffened. “I told you, I meant to confess the truth to you before—”

“Sera,” he cut her off. “I am
not
maligning you. I cannot imagine the deep pain of your position. If you never intended to tell me, but only hoped I wouldn’t guess the truth, I couldn’t blame you even then.”

“You thought you were marrying an innocent,” she whispered.

He reached out, unable to stop himself from dragging a finger down her cheek. “And I did.”

She shook her head. “You know that isn’t true.”

“I think it is. The description of an innocent doesn’t just involve a body that has never been breached. An innocent has never been introduced to pleasure and I think we both know that description still stands.”

She hesitated, her cheeks turning dark pink. “You are correct. I found no pleasure any time
he
put his hands on me.”

He nodded once, trying to keep his boiling anger at bay. It would do nothing to help this situation.

“Then that is the focus of my renegotiation, Sera. You see, I don’t want to take away anything we have agreed that I’ll give you, a home of your own, an income that I cannot dictate, peace once we have created my heir and spare… I actually would like to
add
something to what I give.”

She shook her head. “What?”

“Pleasure,” he said softly, leaning in once more, invading her space carefully.

She drew back and her frown deepened. “I don’t think that is possible, Rafe.”

“I can see how you would believe that, but I don’t think it is true. After all, you like kissing me, don’t you? I felt you stiffen, pull away the first time we kissed, but eventually that act became something you enjoyed, didn’t it?”

She nodded. “Yes. I…I do like kissing you.”

He smiled at the soft admission, the way her cheeks flamed again when she made it. “Then please trust that I can and will make the rest of the physical acts we could share just as good.”

She sank her teeth into her lip and looked at him with uncertainty. He leaned closer, sliding his fingers into her bed-tousled hair, drawing her near.

“For the moment, let’s continue just with kissing,” he reassured her.

She let out a brief sigh before his mouth covered hers. Almost immediately, she relaxed into him, her arms coming around his neck, her lips opening to him in welcome.

He took what she offered with a hunger that surprised even him. He delved into her mouth with his tongue, tasting, testing, teasing. After a hesitation, she became bolder returning his kiss, exploring his mouth and lighting an intense fire inside of him that threatened to explode out of control.

It was only his focus on what she had already endured that kept him from simply sliding her chemise up around her stomach and taking her then and there, consummating their union and claiming her as his own.

He pulled away from her kiss after a very long time had passed. His breath was broken as he said, “I’m going to touch you, Serafina.”

She immediately went stiff beneath him and he shook his head. “Not take you. I promise you I won’t, no matter how much I burn to do so.”

Her breath was fast and hard and there was no pleasure on her face as she stared up at him.

“I’ll stop any time you’d like,” he promised.

She watched him for a long time, a wary rabbit faced with a hungry fox. But finally she jerked out a shaky nod. “All right. I trust you.”

Those three words, which he knew were difficult for her, set him back and he stared down at her for a long moment. Her eyes were wide, dilated with both fear and the remnants of pleasure from their kiss. He wanted to erase the first and intensify the last. He wanted to make her crave him, not have anxiety turn his touch to poison.

He returned his mouth to hers, gentling his kiss as he cupped her breast. She gasped into his mouth and once again the fire in his loins was stoked to uncomfortable heights.

He began to circle his thumb around her nipple slowly, slowly, loving how the nub tightened at his touch, rising to meet him. Serafina turned her face, breaking the kiss. Her breath remained rough and ragged.

“Y-you did that last night,” she panted, not looking at his face, but at his ever-working hand on her body.

He nodded. “I did. Did you enjoy it?”

She shivered. “I don’t know. There were so many sensations, thoughts, fears.”

He laughed at her candor. “Well, today you don’t have to fear. I know your secret. I vow to keep it well. I also vow to help you make new memories of a man’s touch on your skin. Just like I did with a kiss.”

She seemed to ponder that statement for a moment, and then she let out a long sigh. “What should I do?”

“Today all you have to do is allow the sensations to take you away. To tell me what feels good, as well as what you don’t like.”

She arched a brow, and now she did look at him. “You will admit there are things I won’t like?”

He nodded. “Every person is different in what acts arouse them, what acts are not comfortable. For instance…” He plucked her nipple a bit harder now. “Do you like that?”

She gasped. “Yes,” she said on a garbled moan.

He smiled before he tugged the thin fabric of her chemise past her breast and darted his tongue out to swirl it around the turgid peak.

“And that?” he asked.

“Yes,” she repeated.

Her thighs were beginning to clench in a rhythm she likely didn’t understand but he read perfectly. Still suckling her breast lightly, stroked his hand down her body, over her flat stomach, her hip, until he settled his fingers between her legs.

She jolted at the intimate touch and turned her face toward him. “Rafe,” she murmured, halfway between a curse and a plea.

“Trust me,” he repeated as he had earlier. “I’ll stop anything you don’t like.”

She made a little sound in her throat and nodded.

He teased just the entrance of her sex first, smoothing his fingers over the pouting lips, stroking a thumb over her clitoris occasionally. She gasped at the contact, her face bright red as she stared up at the ceiling above.

“Is this wrong or right?” he asked. “Look at me, Sera.”

She swallowed a few times, then looked at him. “Strange,” she choked out. “But…but not painful or unpleasant.”

“Hmmm, we’ll have to do better than not unpleasant,” he purred, and spread her outer lips gently.

Now that her sex was exposed, Serafina clenched her fists against the coverlet, her eyes fluttering shut.

“Stop me if you wish,” he reminded her, even as he focused his attention on her clitoris.

The little bud swelled beneath his fingers, juices from her sex flowing to ease the friction of his touch. He watched her face as he touched her, seeing her relax as the pleasure built within her. She let out a deep, guttural moan.

“Good or bad?” he questioned, though he could see the answer on her face. Still, he wanted her to feel her control, to know that she could stop this if she wished.

“Good,” she gasped. “Good. I feel like…I haven’t…it’s…”

She stopped talking as he increased the pressure of his fingers against her clitoris. She arched and then let out a wail of pleasure. Her sex clenched at nothingness as her hips jerked up against his questing fingers. He continued to touch her, dragging out her release until she went utterly limp on the bed, her gasps of breath filling the air.

He lay back down beside her, watching her expression of wonder and loving that he had put it on her face.

“I-I—” she stammered, finally looking at him with wide eyes. “That never happened before.”

He smiled. “It is called orgasm. The French also like to say
le petit mort
, the little death.”

She scrunched up her face. “Why? It didn’t feel like death to me. More like flying.”

“Good. That is how it should be. Your body reaches a height of excitement and pleasure takes over, steals your control, makes you forget everything else for a moment.” He smoothed his fingers over her bare arm. “And that is only the beginning. It can be even better, Sera.”

“I can hardly believe that,” she said with a shake of her head.

“You compliment excessively.” He laughed. “But if you give me your trust, if you know that I would never do anything to force you, to hurt you, to make you feel shame, I could make what you just experienced happen again and again. If you want me to, if my cousin didn’t spoil these intimacies for you.”

He held his breath as he awaited her response. She looked at him closely as she thought about what he’d said. He couldn’t tell how she felt.

“I promise you, there was nothing intimate about your cousin’s touch,” she said softly. “And when you touch me, it doesn’t put me to mind of him, that is certain.”