To Desire a Wicked Duke (24 page)

To her gratification, Ian made good on his promise that very night. With no sign of either smugglers or thieves, he turned duty for guarding the cave over to his secretary and servants and escorted Tess to his bedchamber. There, he spent the remaining hours till dawn showing her precisely what he’d meant when he pledged to see to her enjoyment, rousing her to depths of passion she never knew were even possible. They fell asleep entwined just as day was breaking.

It was nearing noon when Ian awakened Tess by pressing arousing kisses all over her body, culminating with a tender kiss on her lips as he slid into her. The beauty of it—the exquisite feel of his hardness molding to her softness—stole her breath.

At her husky gasp, Ian sank even deeper inside her, deliberately inflaming the shimmers of pleasure that were radiating from her in waves.

He moved in a rhythmic motion, with slow, hot strokes that she felt in her very core. Liquid wanting poured through her, her flesh absorbing the heat and
strength of him, her tension mounting with his every sensual thrust.

In only moments, the quaking excitement in her body built to shattering proportions … until she shuddered and melted around him. As she shook and sobbed his name, Ian came also, emptying inside her in a powerful climax that left them both weak and gasping.

In the drowsy aftermath of their passion, he stroked the curve of her hot cheek with a soothing finger.

“I would say we are making progress,” he murmured in husky satisfaction.

“What do you mean?” Tess asked hoarsely.

“You cried out my name rather than my title.”

She sighed with grudging contentment. She couldn’t regret surrendering to him. No doubt it had been inevitable after spending so much time alone together these past few days. The wonder was that she had managed to resist Ian’s allure as long as she had.

But the almost smug note in his voice compelled her to reaffirm her position.

“I thought you claimed to be a man of your word,” she breathed in an accusatory tone.

“I am.”

“Then how do you explain going back on your pledge? You promised we would not consummate our marriage until I begged you, but I never begged.”

When Ian lifted his head, she saw a lazy, heated smile glittering in the gray depths of his eyes. “Not yet, but you will. And I might point out that
you
are to blame for precipitating the consummation. You
came to my room clad only in a provocative nightdress.”

Although Tess couldn’t deny his logic, she sidestepped the issue with a smile. “I will never beg you, Ian,” she insisted.

His mouth lowered to hers with heart-stopping languor, then finally drew back. “I will refrain from mocking you when you renege on your vow, love. For now, however, I propose we ring for breakfast. All this passion has left me famished.”

Tess was starving also, but she raised an eyebrow at his suggestion. “It would be more proper to dress and go down for breakfast.”

“Propriety be damned. I mean to spend the remainder of the day here making love to you.”

A fresh shiver of excitement ran through her. “Is that not rather decadent, as well as lazy and self-indulgent?”

“Perhaps, but newlyweds can be forgiven their inordinate carnal lust. And it is time you indulged your own needs for a change. You have acted the role of Saint Tess for so long, you have forgotten how to enjoy a leisure hour or two.”

Acknowledging the truth of his charge, she gave Ian no further argument just then. They breakfasted in his room, wearing only robes, and while they were being served, he ordered a bath to be filled in the adjacent dressing room.

Tess waited until the footmen had left to do his bidding before lodging a protest. “You cannot mean for us to bathe together.”

Ian sent her a taunting smile. “Are you afraid of a
simple bath, darling? Or merely afraid I will make you beg?”

“I am afraid of neither,” Tess replied defiantly.

Ian was obviously taking her declaration as a challenge, and she thought it wiser to respond in kind. Keeping their marriage adversarial would go a long way toward maintaining her emotional distance from him, she rationalized.

For the remainder of breakfast, Tess tried to tamp down the anticipation and excitement welling inside her, yet she felt Ian stealing her breath every time their gazes collided.

His servants carried cans of hot water into the dressing room and eventually filled the copper bathtub. When the last one left, he shut his bedchamber door and locked it behind them, then turned to face Tess.

Awareness coursed through her with an intensity that made her burn. The air was crackling between them again, charged with a suppressed sexual chemistry … that blood-pounding, swept-away sensation that always made her feel so alive.

Then Ian shrugged out of his dressing gown, baring his nude body. Tess was unbelievably stirred by his striking beauty. He was strong and tall and handsome enough to take her breath away—but then, breathlessness was becoming a habit with her whenever she was near him. She wanted him with a greed that she had never experienced before.

He crossed the room to her, moving with a masculine grace that titillated the senses and only emphasized the leashed power in his long limbs.

“What are you waiting for, love?” he asked when Tess remained motionless.

“Nothing.”

“Then take off your robe or I will do it for you.”

The words were a gauntlet, a threat, and there was a distinct challenge in his gaze. But Tess mutely shed her robe and stood before him naked.

His expression turned frankly sensual as his gaze slowly swept downward, over every part of her. Raising his hands, he brushed his palms over her nipples, making all the nerves in her body shiver with delight. Then his fingers spread, fanning over her breasts.

His warm caresses sent a jolt of desire through Tess and set the inner passage between her thighs to aching. She wanted his magnificent length pressing deep inside her, filling her emptiness with heat.

A faint moan escaped her as he thumbed the taut peaks, but when she clutched at his shoulders to draw him closer, Ian stepped back.

“Not yet. The pleasure will be greater if we delay.”

Hiding her disappointment, Tess accompanied him to the dressing room, where she pinned up her hair so as not to get it wet. Then Ian led her to the tub and supported her as she stepped into the water. When she sank down, he joined her.

To her surprise, however, Ian would not allow her to wash herself. “I intend to play lady’s maid today,” he informed her, taking the soap and cloth from her.

Then he proceeded to bathe her, making Tess understand why so many women longed to be his lover.

She had never seen this playful side of Ian, nor had she ever been the sole target of his wicked, seductive
charm, even though undoubtedly he had used it to devastating effect on other members of her sex.

“You can be exceedingly charming when it suits you,” she said tightly as he washed her aching breasts.

“Indeed.”

The corners of his fascinating mouth turned up in a slow smile that was full of sin. Tess was nearly undone by that smile, but she forced herself to think of something other than his enchanting attentions.

“I suppose all your mistresses were exquisite beauties,” she observed.

“Are you fishing for compliments, love?”

“Not at all.”

“You compare favorably with any woman I have ever known.…”

As if to prove his point, he began commenting on each part of her body as he washed and rinsed her inch by inch, punctuating his observations frequently with his mouth as well as his hands. Her blood was pounding by the time he finished.

As his husky laughter caressed her nipple, Tess pulled back and commandeered the soap and cloth. She washed him in turn, pleased that Ian was obviously as aroused as she felt, judging from the size and hardness of his swollen male member.

When they emerged from the bathtub clean and dripping wet, he resumed control and used a towel to dry her off, paying particular attention to the sensitive folds between her legs. A shock of fierce pleasure shot through her nerve endings when he cupped her sex, then sank two fingers into her, his teasing slow and deliberate.

“Wicked man,” she said in a strangled voice, closing her own fingers around his thick shaft.

“Wicked woman,” he countered with a low, devilish laugh.

She held on for another moment, marveling at the hard length of him, before reaching for another towel to dry his skin.

When she was done, they left the damp towels behind and returned to his bedchamber, where they faced each other. Ian’s gaze held hers, and Tess could only stare back, enthralled by the challenge in his eyes.

The battle lines were clearly drawn, but she intended to meet his challenge measure for measure. Ian was an expert at lovemaking; if she hoped to remain unscathed by their love games, let alone be victorious, she would have to become much better at arousing him.

Reaching up, Tess unpinned her hair and shook her head, sending the long tresses tumbling over her bare shoulders. His gray eyes darkened with a heated look that only fed the aching need inside her.

Taking a step toward him, she ordered him to lie down on the bed. After a moment’s hesitation, Ian obeyed. Moving to the bedside, Tess stood staring down at his splendid nude form.

She had kissed his body briefly yesterday. Now she wanted to explore him at her leisure, to learn him with her hands, to taunt him until
he
lost control.

She wanted to make him feel the same wonder as she felt, the same melting need.

In short, she meant to make
him
beg for
her
.

*   *   *

Ian felt a sharp jolt of desire for Tess, but he clamped down on his own need for the time being. All his instincts warned him to allow her at least the illusion of control. He wanted Tess to know passion, to feel the savage pleasure he could give her, yet he could perhaps accomplish his aims best by allowing her to explore her wild side at her own pace.

Therefore, when she stood there looking enticing and oh so female, he kept his hands firmly at his sides.

She leaned closer, however, her full breasts dangling above him, pale and perfect, her dark hair swinging forward in a silky wave. He wanted to pull her down on top of him and kiss those lush breasts, to bury his face in that gleaming sable mass.

He reached for her then, yet her hands pressed down on his shoulders insistently. “No, I mean to do this.”

He lay back, pretending quiescence.

Easing onto the bed, Tess knelt between his spread legs and bent over him. Ian nearly shuddered, feeling the silky strands of her hair against the skin of his chest. And then she pressed her lips against his bare shoulder.

She kissed his entire body slowly, deliberately sweeping her hair over him as she moved lower, letting her taut nipples graze him as well. He was already heavily aroused, his rigid cock rising toward his belly, but he hardened even further when she swirled her tongue over the sensitive area of his inner thighs. Then she moved back up his body, her lips trailing fire over his flesh.

When she bypassed his loins, he grasped her hand and guided it to his erection, wanting her to feel how
ready and swollen he was for her. When Tess raised her head briefly, he could see by her pleased smile that she knew very well what her touch did to him.

Bending down once more, she attended to him again, her mouth sweet and hot and demanding as it covered his body, her tongue tentative at first, but then growing bolder. The pleasure that rippled through Ian in the wake of her taunting kisses was savage enough to make his heart pound.

It required almost Herculean effort for him to lie totally still while she attended him, licking, stroking, tantalizing.… She paused to flick his male nipples with her tongue before returning to his mouth, delivering a featherlight kiss that made his stomach clench in a mixture of tenderness and gut-wrenching desire.

The coiling tension tightened even further as Tess moved downward again, her tongue skimming along his throat, exploring his chest, dipping into his navel, gliding over his belly to his groin. When she finally touched his shaft with her lips, his breath caught in his lungs.

He sensed rather than saw Tess’s smile of satisfaction. Her fingers cupped the heavy sac of his testicles, brushing the seam-like line underneath, then molded over his hardness. The thick length surged in her hand, sending a fierce, fiery ache shooting through him and making him reach for her.

“Be still,” she commanded in a husky voice as she raised her head.

She held his gaze, looking directly into his eyes before she lowered her head once more. His heart slammed against his ribs as her warm, wet mouth
closed around him fully, and he groaned with the sheer pleasure of it.

Tess suckled him, her grasp firm as she tasted his rigid flesh, her touch inflaming him with need. His fingers dug into the mattress as he fought for control. Every muscle he possessed was quivering, straining with hunger.

She went on arousing him, though, her hands a continuation of her mouth, stroking, squeezing, exciting, while her tongue stimulated him relentlessly. The lash of pleasure was almost cruel. His body shuddered under the exquisite impact of it.

Arching against the delicious torment she inflicted, Ian started to slide himself slowly between her lips, his hips rising reflexively off the bed.

“Tess.” He grated her name between his teeth. “I want you … 
now.
”

She only increased the searing rhythm of her mouth.

“Sweet God, Tess …” He said it like a caress, like a curse.

“Not yet,” she paused to murmur, repeating his own words. “The pleasure will be greater if we delay.”

His patience was limited, though, and so was his control. It almost hurt to breathe, he was holding himself so tightly in check.

Then Tess suckled him harder, and Ian lost even that tenuous thread of his willpower. His control breaking, he grasped her shoulders and drew her up to claim her mouth with an almost violent pressure. This kiss was not about power, though. It was all about hunger and need.