What a Duke Dares (30 page)
B
utterflies the size of ponies cavorted in Pen’s stomach. She wasn’t nearly as confident as she pretended. Even worse, she suspected Cam recognized her uncertainty.
But beneath the playfulness, what happened tonight was important. To her. And to her future with her husband.
She’d been a fool to think that she could sustain her submissive spouse act. How unexpected that Cam asked her to be herself. Somewhere he’d developed an appreciation for unconventional females.
“Come here, my wife.” His voice was hoarse with need. The desire in his gaze could set London alight.
He caught her in his arms, but she slid out of reach. “No.”
She’d held the upper hand until now. She had no intention of surrendering it until she achieved her aim. Tonight she’d made Camden Rothermere strip naked physically. Little did he know she launched a campaign to strip him naked emotionally.
Dark brows lowered over his deep-set eyes, shadowing them into mystery. “What’s this?”
Her laugh was mocking as she lolled shamelessly against the pillows. “Cam, haven’t you understood yet?”
“I’ve done what you wanted.”
“Nowhere near,” she said lightly, and wondered if he heard the implicit threat. She hoped not. If he guessed her plans to pierce his armor, he’d be out the door before she could blink.
His hands opened and closed at his sides. The air sizzled with frustration. And arousal. He stared at her like he was starving. She flicked her hair behind her shoulders. Cam’s attention immediately leveled on her breasts.
Only a brazen hussy would respond to that rapacious stare by arching her back. But then, only a brazen hussy would succeed on tonight’s reckless quest.
Suspicion darkened his expression. “Pen, what are you up to?”
“I promise to be gentle.” Actually she didn’t promise that at all.
He looked so magnificent spread naked across the bed that Pen’s courage faltered. Then she reminded herself to stop thinking like a starry-eyed virgin. She recalled discussions in France and Italy, late at night, when the wine flowed, when the gentlemen weren’t present.
Squaring her shoulders, she kneeled above Cam. This time he didn’t make the mistake of reaching for her. He’d always been a quick learner.
Assessingly, she stared at her husband. She knew from many a scandalous
duchessa
or wanton
comtesse
that men requested services from a mistress that they’d never impose upon a wife. She even, thanks to those frank ladies, had an idea of what some of those services entailed.
The question wasn’t whether she could imagine those acts. The question was whether she could bring herself to initiate them.
Then she recalled the way Cam closed her out, even at the height of passion. Her heart slamming against her chest, she started with what lay within reach.
“Pen, what are you doing?” he asked sharply, tugging at the foot she held.
“I’m tasting you.” She carefully avoided looking at his erection as she pressed her lips to his ankle.
“Then kiss me.”
She stroked his foot. She’d never before taken time to consider what a marvelous piece of natural engineering he was. “I am kissing you.”
“On the lips.”
“Soon.” His body was fascinating, so different from hers. A scattering of black hair covered his skin. She tested the difference between bone and muscle, feeling him flex under her touch.
“We’ll be here all night if you examine me like a damned quack,” he said despairingly.
She slid her fingers between his toes. “Do you have another appointment?”
“You’ll kill me, you know,” he said almost conversationally.
A smile tugged at her lips. “All in a good cause.”
“And what’s that?”
“My education, for one thing.” She straddled his legs and kissed up past his knees to his thighs.
His muscles went as hard as rock, and heat sizzled off his skin. She cursed herself for not exerting her power earlier in their marriage. Turning him helpless with need was mightily enjoyable.
Cam’s scent had been her definition of heaven since she’d been a little girl and he’d carried her to safety from one mishap or another. Now that she lingered over him, she
discovered subtle undertones. As she slowly wended her way across him, closer and closer to the part that rose hard and demanding, male musk intensified with every inch.
His animal arousal stirred her. She shifted to relieve the slick ache between her legs.
“Holy God in heaven,” he groaned, quaking under her lips.
Stroking his hips, she kissed random trails across his torso, feeling as much as hearing his breath catch when she played a sudden variation, like a bite where she’d licked or a scratch where she’d stroked. His hands tangled tighter and tighter in the sheets beneath him as he struggled not to grab her.
Of course he wanted to grab her. What she did offended all his notions of command.
“You push me too far.”
She laughed against his sternum. “If you can still talk, you’ve still got a way to go.”
He tugged at her hair, hard enough to compel attention. She stared up past his sharply cut jaw to eyes as black as her own with excitement. He must be gritting his teeth. His cheeks looked tighter than the skin on a drum.
“What are you doing, Pen?”
“Seducing you.”
“Into complete subjection?”
She shrugged, her breasts tingling as they brushed his ribs. “This is war.”
Cam was a man gifted with almost unnatural perception. Even teetering on the edge of control, he recognized that she was serious. “I don’t want a winner and a loser.”
“Unless you’re the winner.” Despite anticipation turning the air to invisible flame, she couldn’t altogether contain her bitterness.
He stared at her. “I want to make you happy. That means we both win.”
How she wished she believed him. With all the longing in her heart, she kissed him. She’d expected rapacious passion, but his lips were tender.
The frantic crescendo of desire fleetingly paused and something else hovered near. Something sweeter, more enduring, more powerful.
Then the moment dissolved as she broke away and slid down his body.
She took him in her hand, feeling the vital leap of his flesh. The man capable of speech only moments ago responded with a guttural groan.
Listening to her friends describe this act, Pen had been completely revolted. But a quick glance at Cam’s face told her that right now he was in her thrall.
Curiosity gripped her. Curiosity and daring. And a profound wish to give him pleasure.
This was a gift of love. Cam would never know that. But Pen would. That must be enough.
She bent and took him into her mouth.
Cam watched Pen’s silky dark head move down his chest, his abdomen, then lower. All night, she’d stretched him on a rack. Now she tightened the ropes until she threatened to rip him apart.
The nearer she edged to his aching cock, the more frantically his blood pounded. Wanton images tumbled through his mind. Even as he watched her position herself, he knew that a not-much-past-virginal lady wouldn’t use her mouth on a man.
She wouldn’t do it…
His world exploded into a million blazing stars. “Hell’s bells, Pen,” he grated out in shock.
His belly hollowed in despair as with a hot wet glide that nearly blew his head off, she lifted her mouth away from him. “Don’t you like it?”
He focused on her lips. Pink. Plump. Glistening. His brain struggled to comprehend what she did. Or almost did.
“Cam?” Those witch’s lips curved into a smile. He searched her face in vain for shyness or disgust. He saw neither, just a sensual eagerness that made his heart crash against his ribs.
“How—” Dear Lord, why was he wasting time talking? “Pen, you were—”
She laughed low in her throat and he realized that his wife’s days of succumbing in wide-eyed wonder to his worldly experience drew to a close. “You don’t usually have trouble finishing your sentences.”
Damn it, she was right. He wasn’t a schoolboy with his first sweetheart. He swallowed. He still didn’t trust his voice. He swallowed again and grabbed a breath. Only then did he dare speak, hoping against hope that he didn’t sound as bedazzled as he felt. “How does an innocent girl know to do this?”
That smile still flirted with her lips. “I’m not exactly an innocent girl.”
“Not far off.”
Her eyelashes fluttered down. “The gossips were right about one thing. Conversations in Rome’s salons were more risqué than at Almack’s.”
Still straddling him, she slid upward until her sex brushed his aching cock. He bit back an agonized groan. Heat seared every thought from his brain but one. He must have her. He must have her now.
Through the ferment in his head, he heard her speak. He was in such a state, it took a few seconds to translate the sounds.
“I thought you’d like it.”
He dragged his mind back from his need to plunge inside her. “I did.” He paused in case she misunderstood. “I do.”
“I’m working purely on hearsay.”
She looked so serious that even half-demented with desire, Cam couldn’t contain a laugh. “My sweet wife, whatever you do will please me.”
Triumph lit her face. “I’m glad to hear it, Your Grace.”
Tonight sarcasm had edged her use of the formal address. Each time, the bite in her mellow contralto set his desire spiking.
“I’m so mad for you, this house could burn down around my ears and I’d still choose to stay in this bed.”
When she kissed him, she tasted of woman and desire and everything he wanted. He devoured her mouth, plunging his tongue deep. “Let me have you,” he whispered against her lips.
“Not yet.”
In an excess of frustration, he dug his hand into her mane of hair and held her still. “You really do want to kill me.”
Her eyes glittered with excitement. “Perhaps.”
With a blatant eroticism that set his heart galloping, she pressed down. She was so close. He tilted his hips, but before he could slide inside her, she retreated.
“I should finish what I started.”
He couldn’t trust himself not to spill into her mouth. “Have mercy. You test my control.”
Her eyes flared with unholy interest. “I don’t mind.”
Pen shifted to take him inside her luscious mouth. His vision dissolved into a long dark tunnel. Her name emerged as an incoherent protest.
She licked the sensitive head and any impulse to stop her went south, along with every drop of blood in his body. Then—dear God—subtle suction.
She increased the pressure, squeezing her fingers around the base. Despite her clumsiness, this level of pleasure ranged beyond his experience.
The act blazed through him like fire through dry tinder. She moaned with enjoyment. Another jolt of excitement. Another thread ripped from his frayed control. He strained against losing himself.
“Pen, stop.” His voice emerged as a raw husk. “Enough.”
Tauntingly slowly, she rose, lingering at the tip. His neck muscles were so tight, he feared his head must break off. He closed his eyes. Speaking was painful. “Let me take over. You’ve made your point.”
Whatever that point had been. He’d forgotten it the minute she’d used her mouth. Her hand still curled around him, warm and firm. She needed to let go or she’d get a nasty surprise.
Warm silk tumbled over his belly and she took him again.
Heat. Pressure. Pleasure.
Demand. Resistance.
The throbbing necessity of need.
Release…
Every cell in his body screamed for surrender. On a choked curse, he gave up the struggle, bowed toward the ceiling, and spurted his hot seed into her mouth.
H
er actions the previous night still occupied Pen’s thoughts the next evening when she accompanied Cam to the Duchess of Matlock’s ball.
Despite the power that had surged through her when Cam had lost control, her victory had been hollow. Yes, he’d acceded to her wishes. Yes, he’d relished what she’d done. But when he’d taken her afterward with unashamed command, she’d recognized her failure. Cam had surrendered physically, but behind his green eyes the barriers still rose. She’d conquered his body, not his soul.
