Taken by the Duke (9 page)

“A gentleman would not ask something so direct,” she said, but then she stared at him. “But you are not exactly a gentleman, are you? At least not when it comes to me or my family.”

He tilted his head. “I certainly do not feel particularly gentlemanly at present. But I asked you a question to which I already know the answer. I make you nervous.”

She lifted her chin. “There is no use pretending otherwise.”

He nodded. “But not only because of our families and their long history. I make you nervous because you
want
me despite that history. Being a lady, you have been taught that desire is wrong, and it must feel particularly wrong given the subject of your longings.”

She folded her arms and backed up a step, only that action took her closer to the bed, so the increased distance did not make her feel any more comfortable in this odd interrogation.

“You are so bold to assume I desire you,” she said with a sniff.

He shrugged. “I assume nothing. I know you want me.”

Her lips parted at his assertion. One she had no intention of verifying even though she feared it was utterly correct. This…this
thing
between them, this thing that stirred her body so easily, she feared it
was
desire.

“How do you know what is in my heart, in my mind?” she asked.

He moved toward her, backing her even farther against the bed. “Because when I kiss you, you return my caress without hesitation. And when I touch you, your body almost instantly grows ripe with it. A man with any experience knows these things. And by the time I am finished with you, you will recognize your desire as keenly as I do. You will welcome it, welcome
me
, even though it goes against any and every impulse in your mind.”

She shivered at the thought of being so wantonly out of control. “And
that
, I suppose, will be my final punishment?”

He slid a finger beneath her chin. “Only if you view it that way.”

She might have retorted, but the closeness of his body to hers made her pause. He took advantage of that hesitation and covered her mouth so swiftly that she had no time to raise any defenses to the feelings he inspired. Just as had happened in the office a short time before, his kiss pushed her body to a precipice of neediness she didn’t recognize. In fact, she feared it, and yet she lifted up to be close to him, she found her fingers wrapping around his upper arms for support.

He chuckled against her lips and then slid a free hand into her hair. Angling her head, he drove his tongue between her lips and stroked hers, coaxing her, tasting her. Hesitantly, she darted it out to meet his and found their tongues dancing against each other. He tasted of mint and tea and something sharp and masculine that made her needy and weak.

He pulled away. “You see, Ava, that is the desire I was talking about earlier. That pull to touch me, that need to taste me, that heavy ache that fills you from head to toe but makes you feel alive…
that
is desire. And it will only get better the further we go in our association.”

She stared at him, unable to reply, but he seemed to require no answer. Without breaking his stare from hers, he set his cane aside and reached for the buttons along the front of her dress. The same ones she had tried to loosen for him earlier in his office. Now he swept them open with what seemed like no effort at all.

She flushed as her gown parted, revealing inches of flesh, then more than inches. He stared at her bare collarbones, the curve of her breasts that disappeared into the thin fabric of her chemise, and let out a shuddering sigh of his own.

“Very pretty, Ava,” he murmured, then tugged the dress from her arms and down to her waist. “Very pretty indeed.”

She lifted her hands instinctively, covering her nearly naked chest as heat flooded her cheeks.

“You shouldn’t—” she began, but stopped because it was so foolish.

He arched a brow. “This is what we bargained for. Are you reneging?”

“No,” she managed. “But I…I’ve never…”

He nodded. “I realize that.”

He said nothing more, but stroked his hand over her breast. In the office, she had been protected at least a little by the layer of fabric of her gown plus the chemise beneath. Now there was nothing but a thin scrap of silk that kept him from touching her intimately and shockingly.

She felt the roughness of his palms through that scrap, the heat of his thumb as it strummed her. She felt the way her nipple responded by hardening to a tight, aching bud that seemed to betray all she had been taught as a lady.

“God,” she whispered and reached back to find some balance on the edge of the bed.

“Don’t fight that feeling,” he murmured, placing the opposite hand on the strap of her chemise. “Let it happen. Let yourself feel every pleasure. Let yourself ache.”

She shook her head, and her voice barely carried as she murmured, “I don’t know how.”

“I’m teaching you,” he said, lifting his gaze to snare her with blue, steely heat. “Now surrender.”

Such a dangerous word, and an even more dangerous concept. Surrender? To this man? To do so was madness, given their history. And yet her eyes fluttered shut of their own accord. She did not fight him as the chemise strap slipped down her shoulder and one breast was bared to him. She did not pull away.

“Yes,” he breathed and his head moved, lowered. Her eyes flew open just as he gently licked the naked nipple of her left breast.

Heated, powerful and utterly wild pleasure mobbed her. Wetness suddenly flooded her thighs, and her womanly parts flexed over and over as sharp sensations overtook her. She cried out and clung to him, holding him against her as the crisis intensified and then faded, leaving her to collapse, shocked and shivering, against the bed.

Chapter Eight

Christian stared at her a moment with astonishment lining his face. Ava flushed, even as her body remained warm and satisfied from whatever unexpected explosion had just rocked her body and her very soul. From his expression, she could see she had done something wrong, something he hadn’t expected. And now she had no idea what he would do in response.

But then he surprised her again by smiling.

“Without even touching your pussy, without stimulating you in any way beyond that vague touch,” he said, easing onto the bed beside her and urging her to move and lay against the pillows beside him.

“My…?” she trailed off.

He shook his head. “Your pussy. It is a vulgar term for your womanly parts. I apologize.”

Renewed heat flushed her cheeks at his frank explanation, but she refused to turn away. She had to be strong now that she was on this path with this strange and seductive man.

“I don’t understand what happened,” she whispered as she rested her head against the comfortable pillows and glanced at him. “What was that feeling?”

“Release, my dear.”

Release, that was a good word for it. The pressure from his touch had built up in her, becoming maddening until that moment when pleasure mobbed her, freed her.

“Release,” she repeated.

“Orgasm,” he explained further. “Many women struggle to attain it, but a few are so responsive that the slightest touch, the barest excitement can overtake them and make them come. You appear to be one of the latter.”

She bit her lip. “Come…”

“To find orgasm, to experience that release,” he explained as he stroked her shoulder lightly. Electric heat seemed to flow from his fingers and through her body when he did so. “Did you like it?”

“Coming?” she said, looking at him to see if she was using this new terminology correctly.

He nodded.

She swallowed, her mind still spinning as she tried to process it all. “I—I don’t know. It was so powerful, so confusing.”

“You’ll expect it the next time it happens,” he soothed her, dragging his fingers down to the swollen nipple he had been teasing when the…the thing had happened. “Eventually, you’ll come to crave it.”

She arched her back as he plucked the sensitive peak of her breast. “I—I thought there was more to
it
than this,” she admitted on a blush.

“It? You mean our joining?” he asked.

She nodded slowly, her mind addled by the warmth of his caress.

“Indeed there is,” he chuckled, dragging the other chemise strap down so she was entirely naked from the waist up. “Are you ready?”

“I don’t know. I’m so…so…”

“Shhh,” he whispered, moving to cover her body with his. She saw the slight strain of discomfort around his eyes until he maneuvered himself into a better position. “Let me show you. Relax.”

She almost laughed. Relax? While he was lying atop her? While she was nearly naked in his arms? While he was lowering his head for another deep, probing kiss?

And yet despite all those outlandish things, his kiss
did
relax her. She settled back and found herself enjoying the pleasure, enjoying his kiss and the light way he stroked her body here and there, strumming her as if she were an instrument he was learning bit by bit.

A talented student, he certainly was, too. The sharp, intense pleasure that had so taken her off guard had faded now, taking her surprise with it. What was left was a dull version, a throbbing ache that seemed to build slowly as he touched her, stroked her.

She could have lain that way with him forever, but he seemed determined to charge forward, driven for more, though she couldn’t fathom how much more there was to give or take.

He broke their kiss and glided downward, nuzzling and nipping her neck, back to suckle her breasts. He took his time, switching between them to caress them both with the tip of his tongue until her languid body lit on fire again. This time it was a slower burn, but it was most definitely there, hot and insistent and hinting that it could rage out of control at any moment.

When she was mewling with pleasure, when she felt sure she would shatter once again, he pulled away, gliding lower. He tugged her gown and undergarments over her hips, then tossed them aside. She was naked.

Her eyes flew open, and she stared down as he pressed warm kisses to the flat plane of her belly.

She was
naked
with this man. Utterly and completely naked. And he was resting his head just inches from the most secret part of herself.

“Stop staring at me as if you think I’m going to murder you,” Christian said, looking up at her through hooded eyes. “I might eat you, but never hurt you.”

“Eat me?” she said, not understanding until his mouth came down against her thigh. Surely he couldn’t mean—

But he continued his shocking exploration, adjusting himself to lie between her legs, kissing her sensitive flesh as he urged her to open her legs by pressing his hands to her thighs. She let them fall open without meaning to do so and blushed as he looked at her sex.

No one had ever done this. She didn’t even look at or touch herself. Now he was mere millimeters from her and staring at her like she was something delectable.

He looked up and his wolfish grin flashed his teeth.

“So lovely,” he murmured and then he dropped his mouth to her.

She gasped as he pressed a kiss to her sex. But the gasp vanished, as did her breath to produce it, when he spread the outer lips of her body and pressed a second kiss far more intimately. His tongue came out then and he swept it along her length, like she was a fruit to be savored.

Worse than that, her body reacted. That hard, harsh pleasure that had swept her away a moment before returned and she gripped the sheets, twisting them as she lifted her hips to meet the strokes of his tongue. She was out of control. She was completely wanton. She didn’t know what she was doing, and yet her body led the way without any assistance or guidance from her at all.

He sucked at her and suddenly there was a starburst of color that flashed before her eyes. Her body thrashed with little quaking shivers and she…came. That was the word he had used.

He was relentless in his ministrations. Although she was crying out and arching wildly beneath his mouth, he carried on, sucking and tasting, licking and caressing until she fell back against the pillow in weak and utter exhaustion.

It was then that he maneuvered slightly. Through the fog of release, she saw that he had opened the fly of his trousers and now his member was free. She tried to see it, for she had never seen one before, but he moved too quickly. She felt him at her slick, wet entrance.

“There will be a moment of pain, Ava, when I claim your innocence fully. But once it has passed, that pleasure you have felt twice now will be common to you when our bodies become one. Please trust me in this if in nothing else.”

She flinched. Trust? How could she do so?

She might have asked him that, but he covered her mouth with his and kissed her deeply, passionately. She wrapped her arms around his neck and clung to him.

He drove forward and she cried out in pain. He felt big. Too big as her body stretched inch by inch to accommodate him. And yet, despite her anxiety at the entry to her untried body, some primal part of her still lifted to meet him, maneuvered to allow him better access. Once again her body knew what her mind did not and welcomed this joining in ways she did not expect.