How the Duke Was Won (17 page)

He'd forgotten the press
.

He wrenched free.

He had to stop the press from overheating and exploding.

 

Chapter 19

T
he duke leapt toward the machinery, tearing off his shirt to use as a barrier between his hands and the searing metal while he unloosened valves and twisted knobs, releasing steam.

Charlene didn't know how to help. She grabbed a book from a table and started fanning the hissing contraption.

When all was quiet, he leaned against the table, breathing heavily. “That was close. But there's no danger now. I've stabilized it.”

No danger. Charlene nearly threw back her head and burst into helpless laughter.

The press might be harmless now, but the duke was one hundred flavors of dangerous. With damp hair curling around his neck and condensed steam dripping down the daunting width of his bare chest. Down, across his firm abdomen, disappearing into buckskin stretched across muscular thighs.

He caught her staring, and a lazy smile lifted the corner of his mouth. Her cheeks grew warm. The satin of the negligee clung damply to her body, and the pulse between her thighs beat stronger.

“Why don't you come over here?” He patted the wooden table, his eyes gleaming.

The air was heavy with steam, fragrant with cocoa, replete with the promise of his invitation.

She hesitated. There was a nearly sick feeling in her belly. If she went to him, there would be no turning back. Maybe the countess wouldn't even find them. Charlene had to believe he was honorable enough to offer for her if . . . if she succumbed to her wicked self.

Oh, how she wanted to give in.

He is yours tonight. Take your fill. Don't fear tomorrow.

She ran damp palms down the fine fabric of the negligee, loving the way his eyes darkened and his gaze followed her hands.

He wanted her, but there was also a reverence in his gaze. He saw her as a promise, not something to be plucked and forced to flower early, tied in bundles, sold to the highest bidder.

He saw her as a living, breathing rose.

Or rather, he saw Dorothea as that rose.

Something to be nourished, tended, coaxed.

She wanted to be near him, as if he were the sun and the rain. She wanted to open for him.

“Come here,” he growled.

She gave him an arch smile. Her wicked self gained more control with each step until she stood before him.

“Turn around,” he commanded.

In her last defense test, she'd been blindfolded, and Kyuzo had attacked her from behind. She'd acted on instinct with an elbow jab to his gut, her senses alert and quick. She was trained to anticipate the unexpected. She had to will herself to trust the duke. Trust that he wouldn't hurt her.

He thought she was an innocent debutante. He would be honorable and ask her to marry him before anything spiraled too far out of control.

She turned and presented her back to him.

He hooked a finger under the flimsy strap of the negligee. Followed the line of the strap down her shoulder, sliding the negligee down several inches. Her neck and upper shoulders were exposed, naked.

Out of the corner of her eye, she watched him reach over, dip his fingers into the catch basin, and scoop up some of the butter.

When his hands spread the slick substance over her neck, she tensed.

“No need to be nervous,” he said.

Her shoulders slackened as he kneaded her flesh in slow circles.

“That's right,” he urged. “Relax.”

There was the slight scrape of the calluses on the pads of his fingers. His hands knew guitar strings. The heft of an axe. They knew work. And they certainly knew pleasure.

The knots in her shoulders began to ease. He rubbed the balm into her shoulders and massaged until her tension evaporated.

She took a deep breath, marveling at the small cracks and pops of her bones moving within her skin. She'd never been so aware of her body. He dug his thumbs into a tender spot, and she startled.

“Shhh . . .” he soothed.

He shaped her, molded her into a new substance, pressing away doubt. He lifted her hair and lowered his head into the hollow of her neck. His lips found her neck, her cheek, her earlobe.

He tugged the negligee lower. It pooled around her waist, baring her back.

Her back was bare
.

Abruptly she twisted away from him. Not fast enough.

“What's this?” He traced the small mark under her left shoulder blade. The place Grant had tried to brand.

She'd forgotten to hide her tattoo.

This is why she couldn't relinquish control. She had too many secrets to hide. When he saw his bride didn't have a mark, he would know without a doubt that Dorothea wasn't her. Ultimately it wouldn't matter, of course; he only needed a business partner, and sweet, feminine Lady Dorothea would be perfect.

She glanced over her shoulder, feigning confusion. “Oh, that? Only a . . . wager I lost.”

“Must have been some wager. I've only seen these on sailors. How strange that a lady would have one.” He traced the small, angular black characters. “What does it mean?”

Warrior
.

Kyuzo had many similar marks on his arms from his years at sea. He'd said they were his way of proclaiming freedom, of immortalizing his will to survive and escape.

After Grant tried to brand her, Charlene asked Kyuzo to give her a mark as well, to symbolize that she would never be owned by the baron. Kyuzo had sterilized a needle in candle flame, dipped it in ink, and pierced her skin. It had hurt, but it had been a way for her to immortalize her resolve.

When Grant returned, she would be ready for him. She'd never be his plaything. Never sell her body for a man's pleasure. She was a warrior. Strong. Uncompromising.

She was being compromised right now
. She shrugged the duke's hand away, repositioning her hair over her back.

“They tell me it means ‘butterfly.' ” She tried to make the lie sound flippant and careless. So many lies accumulating like soot in a chimney. She would never come clean.

He pushed her hair aside and outlined the tattoo with his tongue. The soft touch made her body turn liquid.

“What other secrets are you hiding, butterfly?” He nuzzled her neck. “Hmmm?”

Don't ask me that.

He wouldn't let her turn to face him. He held her against his body with one strong arm around her waist, while the other hand spread fragrant cocoa butter over her collarbone. Moved lower to shape her breast and rub butter across her nipple.

There was no way to remain passive. She arched into his hand, a moan escaping her lips. He tugged gently on her nipple, and the pulse between her thighs accelerated.

Fingers slipped beneath satin, questing lower, smoothing her belly and thighs, moving perilously close to the source of her need.

“You're so exquisite,” he whispered in her ear. “I've been dying to touch you.”

His body rested on the table, supporting her weight. The hard length of his arousal pressed against her from behind. She dissolved against his solid chest, and her head fell back against his shoulder.

She gasped as he found the seam between her legs.

“Open for me,” he murmured.

The pulse marched faster.

“Dorothea. Don't be afraid.”

Even hearing the wrong name on his lips couldn't jar the pleasure away. It was too strong now, this need.

There was only his finger, not quite touching her, in that secret place. She tilted upward slightly. He rewarded her with a light flick that sent shocks rippling through her whole body.

“Oh,” she breathed.

He rewarded her again, this time stroking long enough to establish a rhythm.

He stopped. Hovered. Teased.

No,
no.
“Please . . .” she moaned.

“Say my name.”

“Please, Your Grace.”

“My name is James,” he growled.

“Please . . . James.”

His breath rasped in her ear and his lips nipped her neck. “Very good.”

He stroked hard and fast across her core.

Abandoning all control, she moaned aloud and rubbed against his fingers.

“Yes,” he said. “That's right.”

He rubbed with exactly the right amount of pressure. Faster now. Sure and true.

His other hand left her belly and traveled to her chin. He tilted her head around, and when his tongue found hers, his fingers slipped inside her.

First one, an exploratory expedition. Then two. Three. Invaded, ravished, by tongue and fingers, and by his hard thigh between her legs.

Alternately stroking across the apex of her pleasure and then sliding inside her body, taking her closer. She tensed her stomach muscles, racing toward a precipice that was around the corner.

A few strokes away.

He broke the kiss. “You're so wet,” he moaned.

If he stopped now, her wicked self would beg shamelessly.

There. More pressure. So close now. Her mouth opened, but no sound emerged. She prayed wordlessly.

“Don't worry, I won't stop,” he said.

She heard the amusement in his voice. Didn't care. Just wanted those skillful fingers to keep moving, to fill her, stroke her, faster, harder.

“Come for me,” he urged. “I need to hear you come.”

He played her body like a guitar, teasing music from her soul. When her belly clenched, he strummed faster, knowing exactly what she needed.

“Now,” he said.

The command sent her over the edge.

“James . . . yes.” The pulse between her thighs tightened and loosened to a new cadence as pleasure reverberated through her body in a shattering release.

He wrapped her in his arms, turned her so that she was cradled against his chest with her head nestled into the hollow of his shoulder. If she could remain Dorothea, have him a few months more, she could learn what books he liked to read. See if she could coax him to read to Flor, to admit he loved her. There was so much pain in him, a deep sense of loss that she could feel as if it had been a void in her own heart.

She wanted to wrap her arms around him and never let go.

J
ames listened to her breathing slow, reveling in the slight tremors still racking her body.

When she'd climaxed, arching beneath his fingers and crying his name in a stuttering series of gasps, something inside him had shifted as well. Now, holding her in the dim lamplight, there was no driving need to find release.

He was content to stroke her hair, hug her close.

He felt raw somehow. As though she had pierced through his skin and left a tattoo on his heart. He told himself that she would be a good mother to Flor. Patient and kind.

She might not have been the perfect, blameless duchess, or even a prudent choice for a bride. She certainly wasn't a candidate for a bloodless business arrangement. But her family name would compensate for any social gaffes.

She was scorching fire and passion, but fire always burned to ash. Eventually this heat between them would go cold. And if it didn't, he'd be across the ocean, far from temptation.

At least that's what he told himself.

She nestled tighter against his chest, and her yielding curves immediately made him stiffen. It would be so easy to position her hips and drive home.

But he would never do that. Not with a young, trusting debutante. She could have no awareness that ruin twitched against her belly, growing an extra inch every time her lush breasts rubbed against his chest.

What was the harm in opening a few buttons? He wasn't going to ravish her.

Not tonight.

He reached down and opened the fall of his breeches. Took himself in hand. He turned her until her bum nestled against his stiffness.

Leaning back against the solid table, he placed his hands on her hips. He slid between her butter-­slick thighs, under her sex. With the butter and her spending lubricating him, it was easy to rub back and forth without entering.

“Oh,” she breathed. “That feels good.” She rocked against him instinctively.

He smiled into her tangled curls, thinking about the months ahead, all the ways she would find pleasure. All the things he would teach her.

He tightened his grip on her hips and moved faster. Her wet sex cradled him, and the hot tunnel of her thighs quickly brought him to the brink. But it wasn't enough. He needed to be inside her.

To claim her.

One small adjustment.

His cock nudged her entrance.

No, he couldn't.

But she would be his duchess in a matter of weeks.

He stilled. “Dorothea,” he whispered. “I didn't mean for this to happen. Not tonight, but I—­”

He didn't complete the sentence because the door crashed open and Countess Desmond stood in the doorway, her pale eyes ablaze with righ­teous outrage.

“What is the meaning of this?” The countess's question echoed through the room.

James set Dorothea off his lap and handed her the dressing gown from the floor. She pulled her negligee up and covered herself with the dressing gown, knotting it around her waist. James swiftly adjusted his trousers.

How had the countess known where to find them?

Dalton's words echoed in James's mind.
You'd better keep your door locked at night, or you might have a debutante bent on ruin slipping into your bed.

He shivered. The room was cold without Dorothea in his arms. He needed to rekindle the fire. Find another shirt. Not finding anything within reach, he stood with bare chest and pulled himself up to his full height.

“Lady Desmond.”

The countess advanced, spine rigid. “Harland,” she said, deliberately refusing to give him his honorific.

Dorothea avoided his gaze. Guilt was scrawled across her shadowy face. She'd known her mother would come. They had planned the entire scene.

He'd been set up.

Ice settled in his gut, freezing emotion until he felt nothing when he looked at Dorothea.

“I'm waiting for an explanation,” the countess said.