The Ugly Duchess (8 page)

“Rules sound good,” James said agreeably. He had the yoke of her chemise undone and was starting to slide it forward, off her shoulders.

Theo had a moment of panic, and then let him do it. He plucked her up and then pulled the chemise free. Without a word he nestled her back against his chest, quite as if she wasn’t almost entirely naked but for her lacy little drawers.

“That’s a very pretty garment,” he said, with a distinct note of masculine satisfaction as he ran a finger along the lace trim.

“I designed it myself,” Theo said. “It’s made of knotted silk. That’s double-edged lace.”

“What
are
your rules?” he asked in her ear just as one of his hands settled on her bare knee.

He didn’t seem to be looking at the lace, but Theo couldn’t think very clearly. She was too fascinated by the contrast of James’s sun-darkened hand on her white knee. In that moment, she actually felt rather pink and white, at least compared to his brownness. “Here’s one:
Look to the Greeks.
”

“Don’t,” James said. “They have an awful lot of facial hair as a rule, Daisy. Besides, you’re married to me now. You shouldn’t look at any other men.”

There was a note of hot possession in his voice that made her feel ridiculously joyful. “It’s not about
men,
” she said with a giggle. “I was thinking of Greek gowns.” She felt even more naked because James was still covered by his dressing gown except for where it gaped in the front. Although she could feel something beneath her. “You are no periwinkle,” she observed.

James laughed. “True.” He sounded suddenly happy, without that subtle grimness that hadn’t left his eyes even during the wedding ceremony.

She hopped from his lap, turning around with hands on hips. “Perhaps it’s time you removed your dressing gown.”

It was gratifying to see a hard pulse beating in his throat, and the way his eyes seemed to devour her. Perhaps she
could
live in a world in which she was thought ugly, as long as she had James waiting for her.

She came quite close and bent down to undo the knot holding his dressing gown in place. His eyes were hot and painfully eager. “So, is this a
winkle,
if it’s not a
periwinkle?
” she asked mischievously, brushing the organ that burst up the moment she pulled the fabric to the side.

He gave a husky laugh. “You may call it whatever you like, if you’ll just keep . . . ” His voice trailed off. She ran her fingers over his velvety hardness, coming down on her heels so she could see better.

“That’s a great deal bigger than I realized last night,” she said at last, her voice rather weak. She felt a painful little twinge between her legs at the very sight of it. A winkle indeed. With a capital W.

“But we did fit together,” James said. His breath was uneven. “Do you think you might take your drawers off, as long as we’re both undressing, Daisy?”

The timid side of her would rather that winkle didn’t come near her again. But it was James asking, so she nodded and stood up. She twisted to reach the tiny metal hooks that fastened her drawers, when James made a hoarse sound, like a little gasp. Under her eyelashes, she saw his body strain forward.
He
didn’t think she was ugly.

Instead of immediately unfastening her drawers, she started pulling pins from her hair, shaking it free so that it tumbled down over her breasts, all twisted strands of honey and cognac and amber. Her skin prickled at the touch of her hair, as if the strands were fingers caressing her.

“Daisy,” James breathed.

“My drawers are fastened with small hooks,” she said, hiding her smile. “I have to undo them carefully or I might tear the lace.” She slowly, slowly slipped the first hook from its eye, allowing the lace garment to dip lower on her stomach. Another hook; another glance at James from under her lashes. He was beautiful, and intimidating. With the third hook, the silk started to slide down her hips, but she caught it.

“Let it fall,” James ordered hoarsely. He was vibrating with impatience.

She grinned at him, feeling a flash of power. “Say
please.
”

Instead he reached out, lightning quick, and her smalls fell past the little twist of amber curls between her legs, down to her ankles.

“You don’t need to wear that sort of thing,” he said, his eyes feasting on her.

“I wear them because they are outrageous,” she told him. “Mama never allows me to copy French modes except in matters of undergarments. Though now it’s all different, of course. I no longer need obey her restrictions. I can wear whatever I choose.”

“I prefer to think of you with nothing under your gown at all. No corset, no drawers . . . just you, so I can touch you under your gown any time I please. Please don’t wear those things again.”

Theo’s eyes widened. “You wouldn’t!” It came out a squeak.

“Why don’t you come sit on my lap again?” James shrugged off his dressing gown and then sat back, appearing not the least shy about the fact he was utterly naked and his male organ was in such a state.

In fact, his eyes made Theo feel warm and confident, as if she weren’t standing naked in a ray of sulky evening sunshine.

“Why don’t you come and get me?” she asked. “You can practice whatever it is you intend to do if you ever talk me into leaving off my drawers. Which you won’t.” Without bothering to look at him, she scampered to the other side of the bedchamber.

James didn’t run; he merely rose and padded deliberately toward her, his face as hungry as that of any self-respecting tiger. But what caught Theo’s attention was his body. It had shadows and definition, like a marble statue, but the similarities ended there; she knew it was hot and alive. And his male part . . . even looking at it made her feel giddily alive, flaring with heat and desire.

A nervous giggle erupted from her mouth as he drew closer. “This is so different from last night!”

“Why?” James asked. “Now just stay still, Daisy. Stay still.”

She danced sideways at the last moment and ran around the end of the bed. “Because we’re
looking
at each other.”

“I always look at you,” he said, his voice hoarse and low. “I’ve looked at you ever since you grew those breasts. I just never let myself acknowledge what I was feeling while I looked. But it was hell the year you turned sixteen and suddenly started wearing lower bodices in the evening.”

Theo tiptoed backward. “You must be joking!”

His mouth tilted into a wolfish grin. “I had a cock-stand under my napkin for months.
Months.
”

“I had no idea,” Theo said, wonderment stopping her for a second. Which was just long enough for him to snatch her into his arms.

It felt as if they were touching for the first time. Last night, when they had consummated their marriage, it had been in the dark, and they had said almost nothing to one another. Theo had been too shy, fascinated and frightened, all at the same time, and couldn’t think of a remark that didn’t sound witless.

His chest brushed her breasts and a shiver went down her body. She put her arms around his neck. “Were you really lusting for
me?
” Theo marveled. “Right there in front of everyone. Really?”

“How could I not?” His hands slid to her slim hips and pulled her tight against him. “God, Theo, you were sitting there at every meal, and your breasts would peek out from the top of your gown, just begging to be touched. There was that time you spilled a glass of water down your bodice . . . do you remember?”

She shook her head. Her breath was ragged, and she couldn’t think clearly. Every time he nudged her or touched her, a swell of pleasure overtook her body.

“Your nipples turned into little acorns standing out against your gown,” he said, wrapping a hand around one of her breasts so they both looked down at his bronzed hand holding her. “All I could think was that they wanted
this.
”

He pulled her backward onto the bed; she fell on top of him and he rolled. A second later his mouth was on her breast. Spiraling waves of pleasure swept through Theo’s legs.

Her head fell back and she arched against him, feeling her breast as if she saw it with his eyes, tasted it with his tongue, felt it with his fingers. She knew with absolute certainty that in his eyes and under his hands her breast was the perfect size, the perfect shape. A groan broke from his lips and he moved to her other breast, giving it the same worship, a devotion that bordered on frenzy.

“Oh,” Theo heard herself crying over and over. “Oh, James, oh, James . . .”

Her cries were inarticulate but sweet. James heard them like manna, like forgiveness. She did love him. She would forgive him. She was finding pleasure. For the first time since their betrothal, his heart was lightened by true joy.

“What do you want, Daisy?” he asked. “Tell me what you want.”

“I don’t know,” she said, sobbing it. “But, James . . .”

“Yes?” He rolled his hips forward into the cradle of her legs. His breath caught in his throat and he did it again, slow and teasing, and all the time his fingers played first with one breast, then the other.

She was trembling, those intelligent eyes of hers dazed with longing, her elegant limbs askew. He would bet the fortune he didn’t have that all those milk-and-water misses she so envied would never look as delicious as she did right now. They couldn’t.

“You’re so beautiful,” he said, truth echoing in every hoarse word. “Just look at you, Daisy. All satin skin and long limbs, and those gorgeous breasts like the apples Eve offered Adam.”

Her eyes widened. “Eve didn’t offer Adam her
breasts,
silly.”

James rose up, straddling her with a knee on either side of her hips. “Maybe she did. Maybe these are the apples of paradise. Breasts like yours, the perfect size, delicious, designed to drive a man mad.”

Her eyes were alight with laughter now, laughter and joy and desire all mixed together.

“I would like to see you with this expression every morning,” he said, leaning down to put a kiss on her lips. “Every night, and every afternoon.”

“I watched you these last few years, too,” she said, her hands caressing his shoulders. “You started growing up, and every time you came home for holidays you were taller, and taller, and you were hungry all the time.”

She had the sweetest little tuft of hair there. He would love to touch it. But Bella hadn’t allowed anything like that. “No dirty hands near my treasure,” she’d say, slapping him, though she had let him play with her breasts as much as he liked.

He hadn’t cared very much. It was different with Daisy, though. He wanted to watch her, to feel her desire, as much as he wanted to feel it himself.

“And now you’re beginning to broaden here,” she was saying, caressing his chest.

James looked down at himself. He had no illusions about his body. “I have muscles in my arms, but not in my chest yet, at least, not much. You should see the men who box regularly at Gentleman Jackson’s Saloon.”

“But I like you this way. Some men look like bulls. Their chests and thighs are so thick that a woman would be terrified of being suffocated. I’ve seen them working in the fields. But you . . .” She ran her fingers down his arms. “You’re muscular without being grotesque. Beautiful,” she whispered.

And then she curled up toward him, just enough so that she could dust his arms with kisses. While he was still dazed by the sweetness of it, her mouth danced to his nipple, paused, licked.

A kind of hoarse groan erupted from his chest, and she looked at him with a flash of mischief and desire. She reached up and gave that nipple another lick, and then a little bite.

Lust simmered through James’s limbs and he fell onto her, about as gracefully as a fallen tree. She squealed, but her body was soft and giving under his. “Are you—are you ready, Daisy?” he said in a near stammer.

A tiny frown crinkled her brow. “Can you kiss me again?”

“God, yes.” His cock throbbed against her thigh, but he bent his head. Daisy’s kisses were like no one else’s. Not that he’d kissed many women, because he hadn’t. When he kissed Bella, he was always thinking about burying himself inside her, finding her silky warmth, diving inside, and plunging away. As fast and as furious as he could. “Faster!” she would say.

It was different, kissing Daisy. She was sweet and intoxicating at the same time. When he kissed her, the blood seemed to drain from his head and he forgot about what he was doing . . . about getting there, about moving fast.

With Daisy, it felt as if minutes turned into drops of honey, and he could spend an hour playing with her tongue, nibbling and licking, swallowing the throaty little sounds she made, his fingers wound through hers.

After a while, their fingers slipped apart and hers played a symphony down his shoulders, his back. He managed to position himself so that he was almost where he longed to be. Every time he pushed forward, she gasped. She felt warm and soft.

Finally he simply had to ask her. “I would love to touch you there, Daisy,” he whispered, and then waited, holding his breath, to see if she was as revolted by that idea as Bella had been. “My hands are clean.” His fingers hovered on her stomach.

“Why not?” she whispered back. Her eyes were alive with desire—and laughter. “I do it!”

A sound rose in his chest that was something like a sob as lust and gratitude flooded him at once. And then he
was
touching her there, and she was just as silky and wet and plump as he had ever imagined. Even better, his touch made her arch against him in a rhythm his body recognized.

“Do you like this?” he asked, his body aflame, more concentrated than he’d ever been in his life.

She twisted up again, a sob in her throat. Her hands clenched his arms.

He tried something else, and it must have been the right thing, because suddenly she felt wetter around his fingers, swollen and even more enticing. He’d like to kiss her there, if she’d let him. Obviously, she liked his touch. Her eyes were squeezed shut, intoxicating whimpers breaking from her lips. Maybe he could convince her that his tongue would be even better.