Desperate Duchesses (33 page)

“Please? Please, Roberta, may I touch you?” The aching sound in his voice made her shake even more.

“Al right,” she whispered. “Al right.”

In one smooth movement, he sat up and lifted her off his legs. “You tel me.”

“Tel you what?”

He gently pushed her backwards. “Tel me what would give you pleasure.”

“Oh!”

“Shal I kiss you here?” He put a finger on her wrist.

That seemed acceptable. Roberta nodded. He didn’t just kiss, though, he nuzzled her wrist, and licked it.

“Your hand?”

Something like an assent came from her throat and he was kissing each of her fingers, and then swirling his tongue around the tips of them, and even suckling them, which against al commonsense made her shiver. He pressed a kiss into her palm.

“Where next?”

She blinked at him.

“If you don’t tel me, I suppose I could just make a choice for you?”

There was something violent and tender in his voice that made her lose her head. “Here,” she gasped.

“Where?”

Her hand touched her breast. “Here.”

“I’l have to untie your dressing gown. May I?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Because I could kiss you straight through the silk.” His large hand pul ed the frail silk taut against her breast, and there was her nipple, puckered, straining against the fabric. Roberta could feel herself turning crimson, but she was so hot it hardly mattered.

She tremblingly untied her dressing gown.

“I’l take that as an assent,” he said, a tone of deep satisfaction in his voice.

She didn’t tremble or gasp when his mouth came to her breast. She shrieked. It was a smal shriek, but stil —

Roberta clapped a hand over her mouth.

He was laughing, of course. And then kissing her again, sweet and rough, and her body arched toward him precisely as his had toward her.

“Oh,” she said, helpless in the face of delight. “I…” but the words slipped away from her. He was moving from one breast to the other, expert and slow. Just when she thought she couldn’t bear it another moment, he would move back to the other breast, and his rough fingers would replace his lips.

“I can’t—I can’t—” Roberta said, those little screams building up in her throat until she couldn’t keep silent. She couldn’t—

“Roberta, may I kiss you in other places?”

“Wha—”

His fingers trailed down her body. “Just to demonstrate,” he told her, his fingers leaving a fiery trail. “I’d like to kiss you here.” The sweet mound of her stomach, so different from his.

“Here.” Her hip.

“Here.” The inside, secret curve of her upper thigh.

And final y, “Here.” He put a finger on her curly patch of hair and slowly, deliberately, drew it downwards.

Roberta shook like a sapling in a storm. His finger lingered, slipping deep, tutoring her body to a kind of pleasure she hadn’t imagined.

“Roberta?”

She sobbed in response, and he must have taken it as a yes, because a moment later he started fol owing the path he had laid out. Roberta’s mind sank into a haze of desire. His lips brushed the skin of her stomach, and she squeaked. He migrated to the curve of her hip, and his hands slipped underneath her and shaped her bottom.

“How does that feel?” he asked.

She could hear the control in his voice now, the way he’d taken charge. Al she could do was moan. He kept his hands there but his lips went lower and now he was skating across her thigh, nipping her a little, and she was breathing in little pants

…which would have been embarrassing but there wasn’t a place for that emotion, not even when he pul ed her legs apart and settled between them like a man dedicated to one cause.

Her pleasure.

From the moment his tongue touched her, she surrendered. He may not have known it, but Roberta was lost in a fever dream that had tongues of fire licking in her body. Her hands clenched in the sheets, she was sobbing rather than breathing, when he stopped.

Stopped!

“I forgot to ask permission to kiss you
here,
” he said, his fingers tracing a particular sensitive spot.

“Yes,” she sobbed. And oh, it was coming again, she was climbing some mountain toward—

He stopped.

“I apologize, Roberta. I forgot to mention
this
place.” His thumb brushed another sweet fold.

“Oh—
yes!
” she cried.

The feeling grew in her like a gathering calm before a storm. She was twisting against his hand now and gasping for air.

He put a hand on her breast, and the fury broke in her blood, rol ed like thunder through her legs. He didn’t stop—he didn’t stop

—she arched her back and cried out, let the sweet storm rol over her again and again and again.

Slowly she opened her eyes, and Damon was above her, on his knees.

“You,” she said foolishly.

“Did you like that?” His eyes were dancing and she felt a wave of some emotion she didn’t want to catalog, some emotion that made her wind her arms around his neck and pul him down into a kiss.

His hard body came against hers, and for the first time she realized that a woman’s body is a perfect cradle for a man’s, and that the whole silky soft warmth of her was shaped perfectly for the hardness of his.

He was there…there…“Roberta,” he said, his voice hoarse. “May I?”

There was no thought of baths in her mind. “Yes,” she whispered, her fingers cupping his face. “Yes.”

His eyes darkened, and he kissed her as he thrust into her…which meant that he caught her scream on his lips.

Damon had never felt anything like this. In a life not starved for sensual encounters, he had never experienced anything like making love to Roberta. She was gripping his arms as if he were her savior in a strange land. Perhaps it felt that way to her.

He knew only that she was breathing in deep breathy sobs that brought him to the edge of control. Even without the silky clasp of her body. But if there was one thing he was going to do, it was stay in control.

And he did.

He thrust into her again, and again, and again—fiercely, softly, trying this, adjusting that, listening to her squeaks, and then her cries, and final y, her pleas. When she started pleading, his proud, lovely Roberta, pleading, he put his hands on her sweet bottom and pul ed her up, bringing their hips together in a vol ey of passion. His chest burned, and his whole body was fighting for release but he held back, guided her over the brink, watched as her eyes flew open and she clenched her hands in his hair. Watched her luscious breasts arch toward him as she rode him up, up…up.

And stil he didn’t lose control, though his teeth were clenched and he was panting like a stal ion after a long ride.

He settled, though, let her body rest for a moment…til her eyes opened again and she smiled at him, al wonder and the shadow of joy there.

“I forgot,” he said.

“Forgot what?” Her voice was husky; it made him pulse inside her, and he had to wage another silent battle with himself.

“I forgot to show you something,” he said. He slipped out of her, not without an internal groan, picked up her boneless body, flipped her over and slid her off the bed so her toes touched the ground. And came around behind her.

“Oh,” she said, startled.

And then, when he rubbed against her, slipped into her impossibly silky depths,
“Oh!”

Damon didn’t say anything. He couldn’t. It was taking every ounce of control he had to keep plunging into her while he shaped her breasts in his hands, feasted his eyes on her heart-shaped rear, counted to forty, counted to forty again, and then final y, slowly, she started moving back toward him a little bit, arching and then—final y—she began breathing in that little sob that he knew he would listen for his entire life.

She understood now and was pushing back at him with the same strength with which he thrust into her, giving her everything he had, until she convulsed with a little shriek.

And yet he stil didn’t lose control because he wanted to see her, this first time, this first real time.

So he turned her over and slid back into the place where he belonged most in the world, and simply let go. Took her mouth in a kiss that was as savage and possessive as his thrusts. Her hands twined in his hair, and he couldn’t hear for the thundering sound of his own blood in his ears, so he gasped her name, thrusting again and again. Fil ing her; fil ing him, if only he’d had the words for the emotion that flooded him.

The room was silent for a long time.

“You’re marrying me.” His voice was deep and certain.

Roberta didn’t answer. She nuzzled into the strength of his arm around her and sighed blissful y.

“Just so you know,” he said.

But she was asleep.

Day seven of the Villiers/Beaumont chess matches

R
oberta woke up alone.

She stared at the bed curtains, realizing that she ought to think about serious subjects, like her marriage to the Duke of Vil iers. But she didn’t want to think: she wanted to dream about Damon…about the way his large hands spanned her breasts, and then slid between her legs, and…everything else.

Until she suddenly woke up again and realized that her heart was beating fast, her breasts were tingling, and her maid would be there any moment to draw back the curtains.

She felt rather foolishly blissful. Almost poetic, in fact. Which was surprising enough to make her rethink the whole idea of poetry.

She wandered down to breakfast to find her father there, sitting beside Teddy. He looked up as she entered. “Mrs. Grope has gone to visit her friends at the theater,” he told her. “Master Teddy is showing me his col ection of rocks.”

Roberta sat down beside Teddy. He had a number of smal brown rocks in front of him. The dirty kind that one finds anywhere.

“Very interesting,” she told Teddy.

He threw her an exasperated look that was just like his father’s. “The rocks aren’t interesting,” he told her, “it’s where they’re
from
.”

She peered over again and then hazarded a guess. “Persia?”

“West Smithfield!” he said triumphantly.

“Yes, I wil have some eggs, thank you,” Roberta told the footman. “And what’s interesting about West Smithfield?”

“That’s where the mermaid landed. And these rocks come from there, too.”

“Thank you,” Roberta said, accepting some toast as wel . She felt unusual y hungry.

“Master Teddy and I are thinking of going to see this mermaid,” her father said. “Would you like to come, dear? She’s at the Smithfield Market, as Teddy says. I’ve never seen a mermaid, though I’ve read Homer’s warning about their dangerous propensities, of course.”

“She speaks in verse, Rummer says,” Teddy contributed.

“Rummer says she speaks in verse,” Roberta corrected him.

“A real mermaid!” Teddy’s eyes were huge. “I hope Papa wakes up soon. I know that he wil be so excited.”

Just then Damon walked in the room. Roberta’s heart sped up and she felt herself going pink. He bent to drop a kiss on Teddy’s head. “Why aren’t you in the nursery?”

“Nanny’s sick as a fish,” Teddy reported. “She says her stomach is turning itself inside out and”—he looked enraged—“she says it’s my fault!”

“Why?” his father said, looking unsurprised as he sat down just to the left of Roberta.

The moment he sat down, even though he hardly looked at her, Damon’s muscular thigh pressed against hers. Roberta took another bite of eggs. This would never do. She couldn’t survive with her heart beating so quickly; she felt as hot as a housewife boiling rags.

But that’s what the day was like. They set off to see the versifying mermaid, and though Damon paid her little outward attention, certainly nothing to attract her father’s notice, he kept touching her. She climbed into the carriage after Teddy, and a warm hand cupped her bottom. She sat next to Damon in the carriage, and somehow his hand got trapped behind her and started to caress her back.

Smithfield Market was crowded. “Mostly horses here,” Damon said cheerful y.

“Real y?” her father said. “Is this a good place for horseflesh, then? I always thought that Tattersal ’s was the best venue.”

“You were right. Smithfield is not a good place. You’l find many an old horse with dyed hair, with an owner promising he’s a yearling.”

“Humph,” her father said, stumping ahead of them.

Roberta adjusted her parasol to keep off the sun.

“Can you see the mermaid yet?” Teddy asked.

“The marquess wil see her first,” his father said. “Why don’t you walk with him?”

Teddy darted ahead and that very second Damon spun Roberta about and pul ed her into a kiss. She gasped in surprise, his tongue slipped between her lips, and the kiss hardened. He kissed her lingeringly, possessively, as if they weren’t surrounded by crowds of farmers pushing their way toward the horse auction.

“Anyone can see us!” she gasped a moment later, staring up at him.

“I’m making a spectacle of you,” he said with a smile in his voice.

She blinked at him and then looked around. No one was showing the faintest interest in a pair of daft gentry kissing in the sunshine.

And even looking at his eyes made her feel hungry. Hungry…as if it didn’t matter how people stared at her. As if—

She came up on her tiptoes and kissed him.

A man pushed by them, and shouted back over his shoulders, “Get yerself a bed, then!”

Damon laughed, of course, but Roberta didn’t even flinch. “I feel like kissing you,” she whispered.

His eyes flared, but he shook his head. “No more kisses. There are spectacles and then there are spectacles. And I’m wearing a French cut-away.”

She frowned at him, and then fol owed his eyes…down the front of his body. Sure enough, his coat was cut back in a beautiful arch, the better to show off the twelve pearl buttons on his waistcoat, his breeches…and something else.

Roberta opened her mouth—but Teddy was on them like a tiny whirlwind. “Come
on,
” he cried. “What are you doing? The mermaid is in a boat!”