The Confessions of a Duchess (27 page)

Laura’s heart beat violently against the flimsy cotton of her bodice. She could feel the beats echoing through her body and through the chaise on which she lay. She was transfixed by the glitter of heat she could see in his eyes and by the brush of his lips against her neck and over her bare shoulder. The tiny hairs rose on her skin, which felt so unbearably sensitive as it begged for his touch. Her nipples tightened and she squirmed on the chaise, a movement that only served to inflame her further.

“I knew that you were not free,” Dexter continued remorselessly. He bent his head to the neckline of her gown, his tongue flicking across the swell of her breasts as they strained against their confinement, dipping into the hollow between them. “It should have mattered to me but it did not. I was not as honorable as I had believed. Not when it came to wanting you.” His lips paused above her breast and then he nipped at the swollen peak that was outlined so clearly against the silk of her gown. Laura smothered a gasp and grabbed his shirt in both hands, arching up toward him.

“I fulfilled my wildest fantasies with the duchess in my bed.” Dexter’s voice had sunk to no more than a murmur. He drew her bodice down to bare her breasts to his lips and tongue. “It was exquisite. You were exquisite, Laura.”

He kissed her again and she slid her arms around his neck and drew him closer, feeling the silkiness of his hair between her fingers and the roughness of his cheek against her softness. Beneath the constriction of her clothes her entire body ached to touch his. She wanted no barriers between them. His words had conjured all the memories of their time together in all their sweet, devastating urgency and Laura wanted that time over again, suddenly, desperately; she wanted to lose herself in the past and in the illusion of loving and being loved.

Her urgent fingers delved beneath his shirt, pulling it from his trousers so that she could run her hands over the muscular planes of his back. Her caresses wrenched a groan from him. She felt a shudder go through his entire body. It roused an answering need within her. She had forgotten where she was, had almost forgotten
who
she was, for her feelings were so caught up in the sensations of the moment that she could think of nothing else. The warmth of the room, the flickering of the fire in the grate, the shadows that danced along the wall all served to create an intimate and private place where the two of them were alone and the world could not touch them.

Dexter shifted slightly and Laura felt cool air touch her thighs as her skirts rode up about her hips. The chill feeling was acute, contrasting with the flare of warmth deep within her. Dexter was kneeling between her thighs now and she felt so desperate that the need for him almost choked her. His face was grave in the shadowed room and when he raised his gaze to hers his expression was intent and urgent.

“Laura…” He sounded dazed.

She knew that he was, somewhat belatedly, making an extreme effort to regain his self-control and suddenly she did not want him stop. She could not bear to be left wanting again, after so many empty years of missing him and longing for his touch. All her natural desires had been repressed for so long. The loneliness yawned within her. If he left now it would devour her. It would be intolerable. It would break her.

She reached up and brought his lips down to hers and felt the resistance in him before he sighed against her mouth.

“I want you,” she whispered. “Don’t leave me. Please don’t leave me now.” She reached for the fastening to his trousers, not wanting to give him time to think in case he denied her. She fumbled the buttons because her fingers were shaking so much and heard him laugh ruefully.

“Wait.” His fingers brushed hers, putting her hands gently aside. Laura sank back against the cushions, closing her eyes, trying to draw him down with her, but he resisted.

For a moment she was terrified that he was going to get up and simply walk away, but then she felt him flip her petticoats up to the top of her thighs and she gave a gasp. His hand stroked across the soft skin of her bare abdomen, a gentle caress that sent the tremors rippling deep within her body.

She made a little needful noise deep in her throat. Her skin felt hotter and hotter as he traced a line from her belly to her thigh. He cupped her sex in his hand and she moaned, her whole body shivering uncontrollably as he parted her and teased and explored her. Her breath was coming in shallow little gasps. She ached and shook. But this was not what she wanted. Not this time.

“No!” She grabbed his arm. “This time I want you inside me.” She felt him pause. “Laura…” His voice was so rough she barely recognized it.

“Please.” It was the only way she could feel complete. She needed to banish the darkness. “I need you.”

She looked at him. His body was so taut with the effort of control that she thought he shuddered with it. His eyes were dark with concentrated desire. She put out a hand to him and saw his self-control splinter.

He was shaking as much as she was as he lowered himself between her thighs and she felt the tip of his erection slide within her. Pleasure drenched her and she reached out to him, kissing him with a desperate hunger, her hands sliding over his back and down to his buttocks to draw him into her. He pushed a little deeper and she was afraid she would come apart with the bliss of it. His hands slid beneath her, tangling in her skirts, raising her up so that he could plunge in deeper, and a sweet agonizing sensation swept through as he drove into her, pushing her close to the brink.

He had seen how close she was. He withdrew a little. His lips brushed her brows before dipping to hers in a kiss that was gentle but hot.

“Wait…”

“I can’t!” Laura gave an anguished cry and twisted beneath him.

“Tell me that you loved me when we made love before.” His voice was a dark seduction. His lips hovered over the tender skin at the curve of her neck. “I know I was the man you loved.
Admit it.
”

“Ah!” The cry was wrenched from Laura in utter despair. Ecstasy shimmered tantalizingly close but just out of her reach. She tried to pull his head down so that she could kiss the question away from his lips and banish the thought from his mind, but he held back, bending his head instead to taste the hollow at the base of her throat. The flick of his tongue sent another spike of lust through her. She shuddered on the brink.

“Tell me.”

His voice was so quiet, so insistent, so undeniable…

Her feelings for him were too strong now, too exposed, too raw to be denied.

He moved inside her, barely a movement at all, but enough to torment her past bearing.

“No…” She found a flicker of rebellion. “I
won’t
tell you—”
But I will always love you…

“Ah…” She heard the anger and the amusement conflicting in his voice. “My Laura, so stubborn…”

My Laura…

His mouth brushed her throat in the gentlest of caresses, then moved to her breast and she felt the echo of that touch deep in her belly. Her body took one shaking step closer to fulfillment. She moaned for more. He held back. She writhed, seeking his body and the completion it could give her.

“Damn you…” She almost hated him for withholding that pleasure from her.

He thrust into her hard, fast, again and again, taking her cries of relief into his mouth in another long, deep kiss. Laura’s head spun. The pleasure built irresistibly, shimmered so close.

Dexter stilled again. He held her still with his weight on her and Laura’s body twitched and jumped to feel him still inside her, hot and hard, filling her. She hung on the edge of ecstasy.

“Are you trying to punish me?” she demanded, wriggling desperately to try to achieve surcease, “Because if so, you are succeeding…”

“Perhaps…” She heard the smile in Dexter’s voice and her indignant fury mingled with frustrated desire and she groaned aloud.

Dexter moved at last, but only to slide deeper inside her. He raised her up to meet his thrusts. His mouth on hers held her silent. The shock shattered within her. Harder, deeper, relentless…She felt Dexter’s mouth curve into a smile against the slick skin of her breast as he licked and tugged at her nipple. Her body shuddered helplessly, screaming for fulfillment, rocking to meet Dexter’s thrusts and Laura forgot everything as the world finally spun and smashed about her. Dexter’s mouth was on hers again, taking her cries even as he took her body. He did not stop, but plunged into her again and again and Laura’s whole body jolted against the rough velvet of the chaise, and she felt his back arch and his muscles lock with tension and he came in violent spasms, his climax pushing her over the edge again to drown in exquisite sensation.

For several long, heavy heartbeats they lay together, and then Dexter shifted a little and tucked her protectively into the curve of his shoulder. Laura had no idea of how much or how little time had passed. She felt sweaty and sticky. She wanted to let go of everything and simply sleep, but she knew that soon she would have to move.

Soon she would have to think.

She had no idea where to begin.

“How can I ever cure this wanting?”
Dexter had said, and she understood that for him their lovemaking had been an attempt to exorcise the ghosts of the past and to banish the power she had over him.

But for her it had been an expression of love.

She turned her head and looked at Dexter and he smiled at her. His lips brushed her hair and she felt another huge and helpless wave of love overwhelm her even as she was afraid of what he might say to her. How could she ever deny her feelings for this man?

“Laura—” he began.

“We can’t talk now,” Laura said. She felt panicky and scrambled up, out of his arms.

Her hands shook as she haphazardly rearranged her disordered clothing. She did not want to hear him apologize or diminish all the feelings and emotions that were so jumbled inside her. She was not the sort of woman who could indulge in mindless lovemaking and deal with the aftermath with sophisticated aplomb. Nor could she deal with the practical details, either. She had a sudden horrified vision of Carrington waiting patiently outside the library door for them to emerge before he locked the house up for the night.

“Perhaps it would be better if you left via the window,” she said. “The servants—”

“I am not climbing out of the window like a thief and skulking off through the shrubbery,” Dexter said. His voice was so angry that Laura jumped. “I arrived by the front door and I will leave the same way.”

He stood up. He seemed completely unselfconscious of his nudity. In the firelight his body was bronzed and firm. Laura gulped, forgetting what she had been about to say. He reached negligently to draw on his trousers and slip his shirt over his head. Laura, distracted, groped for words.

“All I thought was that if you leave now we could pretend that nothing had happened….”

“An outstandingly bad idea.” Dexter’s mouth had set in hard lines. He came up to her and gently fastened the buttons that were slipping through her shaking fingers.

“Laura, you must see that it would not serve,” he said, in a softer tone. “You are not thinking straight.”

“I cannot think straight around you,” Laura said.

“Neither can I with you,” Dexter admitted, “which is why we are in this situation in the first place.”

“Your neck cloth is ruined,” Laura said hopelessly, fidgeting with its folds. “I do not know how to tie it and you look…” She stopped, for he looked dangerously virile and masculine and totally as though he had been making mad passionate love to her, and she knew it was impossible to pretend otherwise.

“Oh dear,” she said inadequately.

There was a sharp knock at the library door. Laura jumped violently. The handle turned but fortunately the door remained closed.

“Don’t open it!” Laura gasped. “If you are not going to escape out of the window then I think I will.”

Dexter ignored her, strolled nonchalantly over to the door and turned the key. For a moment hysterical laughter bubbled in Laura’s throat at the thought that she, the gracious, the utterly proper Dowager Duchess of Cole was about to be caught
in flagrante
with her lover and that matters were spiraling with dramatic and spectacular style right out of her control. Then the library door opened and Carrington stood in the aperture. Not a muscle flickered in his face as he looked them over.

“Lord Vickery and Miss Lister are here, your grace,” he said.

“Ask them to wait—” Laura began, but it was too late.

“Lal!” Miles hurried into the room. “I was worried about you. I called at Spring House and Miss Lister said that you had walked home so I thought I should make sure you were quite safe—”

“And I insisted on coming, too,” Alice put in, “because it was my fault that you did not have the carriage.”

Miles shot her an exasperated look. “Even though,” he said, “I assured Miss Lister that it was quite unnecessary and she should stay at home and nurse her mother—” He stopped. And looked from Laura to Dexter and back again. There was a long, long silence whilst both he and Alice took in the scene before them.

In that moment Laura could see through her cousin’s eyes, see her rumpled gown and disheveled hair, see Dexter’s state of undress that was more telling than any words could be. And then Miles had crossed the room and before Dexter could defend himself, had struck him a clean and scientific uppercut to the jaw. Alice gave a little squeak of alarm.

“Miles! What on
earth
are you doing?” Laura grabbed her cousin’s arm and dragged him away. Dexter had put one hand up to his jaw and was wincing as he touched it, but he made no attempt either to defend himself or to retaliate and Laura understood why. In Miles’s eyes he was utterly and completely in the wrong. He would bear the blame for this even though she was the one who had begged him to stay with her and make love to her.

“I am defending your honor since you seem so careless of it, Laura,” Miles bit out.

He turned on her. “What the
hell
has been going on here? No, on second thoughts, do not answer that. It is patently obvious from the look of you what has happened.”