Desperate Duchesses (32 page)

“Oh, yes you did,” she said hastily. “I thoroughly enjoyed it. Truly. I was simply—”

He swal owed al her words, and her protests, and her sensible points, just by pul ing off his shirt, and then his breeches.

A protest died in her throat. Without a word he lowered his hard masculine length on top of her. It was unsettling. A sort of hunger settled deep in her stomach that made her feel uneasy.

Then Damon started kissing her, and with a little moan, she opened her lips to him. She could taste his hunger, as if they passed it back and forth to each other. The uneasiness in her stomach was turning into something else, some sort of restlessness that brought her hands up to his powerful forearms. Her fingers trembled as she traced his muscles.

The feeling alarmed her, and with a sudden twist she rol ed out from under him and sprang away from the bed. “I’d prefer not to be intimate again,” she said, dismayed to realize that her breath was coming fast.

Damon didn’t even seem to hear her. He started padding toward her, without a word, like a predator.

Roberta backed up as far as she could go, against her little armchair. “Damon!” she cried, trying to make her voice sound commanding. “I prefer not—”

But he was kissing her again, fierce in his possession, and al her flimsy words blew away because the mere touch of his hands had her shivering.

“No,” she gasped, but it was like throwing kindling on a fire; he laughed, deep in his throat and kissed her again, kissed her until she was trembling, her mind swirling, her body rocking against his, her voice strangled with the need to beg him—

She never begged.

Never.

But then he stopped touching her and suddenly her body raged with the memory of his large hands shaping her breasts, rubbing her. He was just kissing her. That’s al . As if—

Of course, she wasn’t touching him either. They were standing together, and the only thing touching was their mouths and it wasn’t enough.

“Damon,” she said, her voice husky.

“I’ve never lost control like that.”

“It had nothing to do with your control. I think I just didn’t enjoy that part of it very much. It’s—It’s so fast, isn’t it? And not—”

He groaned. “Can we talk about aberrations?”

“What?” she said, confused.

But he was there, scooping her up. “This one’s for you, Buttercup,” he said, putting her back on the bed and sitting down next to her.

Roberta was stil trying to think what to say when he pul ed open her dressing gown. Instinctively, she grabbed it back.

Roberta was stil trying to think what to say when he pul ed open her dressing gown. Instinctively, she grabbed it back.

“No!”

“Yes.” His eyes were ful of slumberous intent, but she hung on. “Roberta,” he said slowly, “if you don’t let go, I’m going to bite you.”

“What!”

He put a finger on her breast and it sizzled, straight through the silk of her dressing gown. “Here,” he said, his voice husky. “And perhaps”—his finger wandered down, leaving a trail of fire in its wake—“here.”

“You’d bite my stomach?” Her voice squeaked, so she sounded as foolish as she felt.

He laughed at her. “I thought you learned so much from your informative discussions with Selina?”

“She never talked about
biting
. And I’d real y rather not do that again,” she confessed, though her cheeks turned pink.

He looked down at her, eyebrow raised, and there was such a flare of desire in his eyes that she instinctively moved her hips. But they encountered something hard and hot, and she shrank back. “I bathed,” she said. “Please, could we just
not?
”

He groaned and his eyes shut. “I’m such an idiot.”

“No, you’re not,” she said reassuringly. Her fingers trembled as they slipped down his arms onto his broad back. “I thought it was very interesting. Not at al as Selina described it, but—”

“How did Selina describe it?”

“Wel ,” she foundered, “I thought it—it—”

“It would take longer,” he said grimly, his mouth a straight line.

“No,” she said, frowning at the look on his face. “No, not at al . It was just as she described it, that way.”

He groaned. “Wonderful. What else did Selina say?”

“She said that a woman has to take her own pleasure,” Roberta said, “but I don’t think there was any pleasure for me to take that you didn’t give me, Damon.” She didn’t like that look on his face at al , so she arched up against his body to kiss him, her lips sliding over his lips to his cheek. “Truly,” she said anxiously.

“You,” he said, “are an innocent.”

“No, I’m not!” she said, flopping back down on the bed. “No one raised in my father’s household could cal herself an innocent!”

He suddenly grinned. “Al right.” He pushed back on his forearms and rol ed away to lie next to her on the bed.

“What?” she asked, confused.

“Take your pleasure.”

“What?”

“That’s what you learned from Selina. And believe me, Roberta, you didn’t get a chance to do it downstairs. I took al the pleasure there was to be had.” His eyes had a shade of self-condemnation that she hated.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she told him, “but it was enormously pleasurable. Truly.”

In response he just flung his arms above his head. “Go on,” he said. “Take your pleasure.”

Roberta was confused. Selina had never been entirely clear about what she meant, but Roberta had (obviously mistakenly) formed the conclusion that a woman should demand that her partner kiss her…in an intimate spot. But that didn’t seem to be what Damon had in mind at al , as he had made no move to kiss her anywhere other than her breast and her lips, and now that she thought about it, that kind of kiss would be so tremendously embarrassing that she had to be wrong.

She could feel the color creeping into her cheeks at the very thought. What if she had asked Damon to do such a thing?

Not that she would have, but—

“Roberta,” he said patiently, and her eyes flew open. “I’m waiting.”

Roberta looked down at his hardened length. Just what was she supposed to do?

As if he could hear her thought, he said, “Your pleasure, not mine.”

Roberta was starting to feel a bit like a failure. How was she supposed to know what to do? “And we won’t do the rest of it again?” She real y didn’t want to take another bath. It was too awful even to think of summoning her maid again.

“We won’t do anything you don’t ask me to do.”

Satisfied, she moved a fraction of an inch closer to him. “But what do you expect me to
do?
” she said, a second later, unable to think of anything.

“Think about pleasure,” he said to her, his eyes slumberous and dark. “What gives you, Roberta, pleasure about me?

About my body? Is there anything? Because it’s yours. You can touch me however you wish. If you tel me to do something, I wil .

If you don’t tel me, I won’t raise a finger.”

A shiver went through her. “Go on,” he said. “You’re not showing Selina’s tutelage to the best advantage.”

Roberta bit her lip and put his teasing out of her mind. Her pleasure? And what did she particularly—wel , like? She had been absolutely wrong about Selina’s advice, obviously, so what was Selina actual y saying?

She didn’t meet his eyes because she didn’t want to discover he was laughing at her naïveté, after she boasted of learning so much from Selina. So she looked at his arms instead. They were broad and muscled, as unlike her slender ones as possible. She reached out a hand and placed it on his arm, slid over the bunched muscle there to the strength of his shoulder, to the breadth of his chest.

Suddenly she noticed something. He quivered under her hand. Perhaps…

She tried it again, running her hand over his muscles. Her fingers brushed his armpit and touched his nipple. He did it again. He shook, just slightly, from her touch. She scooted over on her knees so that she was just beside him and could use both her hands to touch him.

She flattened both hands on his chest, and then drew her fingers down his chest to his taut stomach. That was

…pleasurable. The feeling of powerful muscle under her fingers, rippling slightly under her touch was pleasurable. The low sound that came from Damon’s chest was definitely pleasurable, though she didn’t look at his face. She was too busy swirling a finger around his nipple, and listening to his breathing grow short and hoarse. She was smiling now.
This
was what Selina meant! Selina meant that she should learn to take pleasure from her lover’s body, from making him react to her touch.

His stomach was rock hard, not flat, because it was covered with organized bumps of muscle. She’d never seen anything like that. Her father, as far as she could tel , had a nice flat stomach for a man coming perilously close to the age of fifty. But she’d never dreamed that men had such very different stomachs from her own.

She actual y glanced down at her own stomach, but her dressing gown was stil firmly tied. In the sitting room, he had kissed her breast. Could Selina have meant her to do the same to him?

Final y she looked up at his face, her fingers stil caressing his abdomen. Damon’s face was dark and taut. There was a fierce hunger in his eyes that made her blood sing. Yes,
this
was pleasurable! Suddenly she knew exactly what she wanted to do: she wanted to drive him mad with desire.

She didn’t know it, but the smile that touched her lips made another groan slip from Damon’s lips…her smile had the slumberous joy of a woman who had just surrendered to her own sensual nature.

She bent her head and her glossy hair fel over her shoulder and brushed against his nipples. Damon’s hands stayed at his sides, but he bucked his hips into the air. Roberta was so startled that she froze. Then slowly, her smile growing, she picked up a lock of hair and rubbed it over one of his nipples. “Roberta!” he said, and his hips arched again.

“Yes?” she asked sweetly.

“If you sat on top of me…” but she was experimenting with rubbing a little harder, and the words died in his throat.

Stil , she heard what he said. “Would you like that?” she whispered.

“Aye.”

“But you won’t leap on me, or something of that nature? Because,” she felt sil y tel ing him again, but it had to be said, “I real y don’t wish to become messy again. I’m sorry.”

He shook his head. “I wil not do anything you don’t ask me to do.”

Satisfied, she pul ed up the silk of her dressing gown and straddled him. He groaned out loud this time, and Roberta froze. Suddenly, she was feeling his muscles with a whole other part of her body. It made her feel feverish, hot, as if she were melting.

When he had kissed her breasts earlier in the evening—it was shocking to remember it, and yet the memory sent a twist of liquid heat down to her thighs—he didn’t just touch her with his tongue. He suckled her, as a babe might its mother, at least so she thought. It was a strange idea and yet…She lowered her head to his chest.

It wasn’t at al like being a baby. He twisted under her mouth, and made a hoarse groan, and the sound sent another wave of liquid heat down her body. So she suckled harder, and he writhed under her.

Which had the most peculiar effect on the place between her legs.

“Roberta,” he gasped, “would you please ask me to touch you?”

“No,” she said immediately, straightening up.

His eyes were fevered with desire, but there was a lurking smile too. “I can’t stop moving if you do that,” he said, his voice rasping.

“Al right,” she said, her fingers brushing over his nipples again, just to see what he would do.

What he did was arch up, which made him rub against…

She gasped and clutched his shoulders.

“Not that!” she cried.

“No?” his eyes were so disappointed.

“No.”

“Sometimes I can’t stop it,” he whispered achingly. “When you touch me, Roberta, I feel mad, out of control.”

That was a very pleasurable thing to hear. So Roberta kissed him again, and a groan tore from his throat and he was moving under her.
That
was rather pleasurable as wel though not, of course, in the way that Selina was talking about.

“May I touch you?” he gasped.

“No!” But she wanted to touch more of him, even…even that part of him. So she moved backward, careful not to touch him, and sat on his legs instead.

Damon instantly propped himself upon his elbows, watching her. That part of him was like smooth velvet, hot to the touch, jerking against her hand.

“Don’t you have control over it?” she asked curiously.

He groaned. “Normal y I do. That was an aberration.”

“What aberration? Look, every time I touch it, it moves.” She cupped her hand around him, and he fel flat back and that hoarse sound came from his throat again.

One had to wonder, Roberta thought, what he would do if she—of course, she couldn’t do that. It wasn’t done, she was sure. Except that she had a fragile memory of something Selina said…something about just this subject.

She’d thought it was disgusting at the time, but now, looking at Damon’s rigid face and the way he was breathing quickly and harshly, she rather thought that it would give her a great deal of pleasure to make him mad, as it were. Perhaps even lose control.

She tried touching her tongue to it first. It was smooth and hot on the top. Just like the rest of Damon…sleek and muscled. She actual y licked it. The sound he made sounded almost like pain. She jerked up her head.

“Is this wrong? Should I not—”

“Oh God, please don’t stop.”

He tasted clean and slightly sweet.

“I think you are designing this whole night to make me understand my limits,” he gasped.

She smiled and tasted him again.

“Roberta.” Damon’s voice was strangled, dark, coming from some deep place in his chest. “Don’t you want me to touch you at al ?”

Confused, she sat back up. “What?”

“This is about your pleasure,” he said, up on his elbows again. “Yours. If you’d let me touch you, the way you’ve touched me…”

Roberta thought about that. Her body didn’t have to think about it. She shivered al over instantly.