How to Dazzle a Duke (41 page)

you, Lord Iveston.”

298 CLAUDIA DAIN

“No?” he said, closing the doors of the conservatory behind

him, standing in front of them almost menacingly. Ridiculous.

Lord Iveston could not menace a small dog, let alone a fully grown

woman who had some small history of kissing experience beneath

her sash, as it were. Not that any man had ever gotten beneath her

sash. In fact, no man had even tried. It was almost, when ponder

ing it on some dreary dead of nights, insulting. “Not the degree to

which you have been previously seduced? I confess to having had

my curiosity aroused upon that topic. I should like satisfaction,

Pen, and I should very much like for you to provide it.”

Well, perhaps a small dog. Even a small child. Even, in this

rare instance, a small woman, which she happened to be. Iveston

was tall and built precisely as a man should be, and the hot blue

look in his eyes was just the tiniest bit menacing, in the most

delightful manner imaginable. He wanted satisfaction?

Very well, then. So did she.

“You presume quite a lot, Lord Iveston,” she said, back

ing away from him. “Yet, I do find I have my own curiosity

about you.”

“Have you? Regarding?”

“If you have questions regarding my innocence, it is equally

true that I have questions regarding yours. Can you complete

a seduction, Lord Iveston? Can you woo? Can you pet? Can

you seduce? At all?”

“This is not the sort of thing one discusses with a lady.”

“I’m not asking you to discuss it. I’m asking you to prove it.”

Iveston looked at her from beneath his golden brows, study

ing her quite seriously. She stood her ground and met his stare.

“Very well then,” he said softly, his eyes as bright as turquoise

stones. “I shall prove it upon your body. Will you stand still or

will you require me to run you to ground?”

Her heart hammered and the beat echoed between her legs,

causing her knees to go all wet and wobbly again.

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299

“I have not yet decided,” she answered in a conversational

tone. “Must you be forewarned, my lord? Are you afraid I will

outpace you?”

Iveston shook his head at her, the smallest smile tugging at

the corner of his mouth. “Shall we put it to the test?”

And then her heart trembled within her breast and she tingled

in all the right places, and, with a smile, she turned and ran

through the roses.

He had her in three steps. Three of her steps. She had no idea

how many steps he had taken, likely one large one would have

done the job. He had very long, well-turned legs. The thought

was enough to make her head swim.

He wrapped one long arm around her from behind, pulling

her hard against his length. And he was hard. With the other

hand, he tucked his fingers beneath the neckline of her dress and

pulled it down as far as he could without tearing the fabric, and

then he kissed the top of her shoulder. Her neck. Her back.

His mouth moved slowly, leisurely, deliberately over her skin

leaving the whisper of moist heat and carnal hunger in its wake.

He ground his hips against her bottom. She pressed back against

him. He groaned softly and the hand at her waist moved upward,

upward. Her nipples tingled in anticipation and her bosoms

ached heavily. He did not disappoint. With unerring accuracy,

Iveston untied her bodice. It fell loosely down, a muslin crumple,

and caught on the crests of her nipples in an exquisite agony of

sensation.

Iveston, that imbecile, did not remedy the situation in the

slightest. No, Iveston, backward as ever, turned her in his arms

and kissed her fully on the mouth, her breasts and her turgid nip

ples apparently forgotten. The only thing he was doing right was

that he had his leg pressed between hers, which was quite delight

ful, and he had his hands firmly on her waist, truly encompassing

her, and he had his delicious mouth deeply and fully on hers.

300 CLAUDIA DAIN

Oh, very well. He did have most of it right, but what about

her slack bodice and her tempting breasts? Didn’t he fi nd them

tempting in the slightest? How was it that he was able to resist a

quick fondle? Or a slow one, as to that.

What sort of seduction was it when the woman wondered

what was wrong with the man, with her, and with the moment?

“Touch me,” she commanded as his mouth lifted from hers,

working at his cravat with her hands. She wanted the thing off

him; she wanted everything off him, to see his naked body, to

feel his heat. How white was his skin? Did he have hidden freck

les? Was there blond hair on his chest? Did it curl or was it as

straight as his hair? “Can’t you touch me?”

“What do you think I’m doing,” he snarled, grabbing her to

him even tighter, her bosoms flattened against his coat. She

pulled his cravat off with a growl, tugging it across his neck, hold

ing it in her hands, fighting the urge to strangle him with it.

“Not enough,” she snapped. “It’s not enough!”

And with that, she grabbed his lapels and yanked his mouth

down to hers again, eating him alive. His mouth was hot and wet

and furious. She was equally so, everywhere. Hot. Wet. Furious.

This man, this mild, wild man, did things to her, made her think

things and feel things that she hadn’t thought she was capable of.

That she hadn’t wanted to do or feel until meeting him. Tasting

him. Touching him.

“It will never be enough,” he said, grinding his hips into hers.

“Don’t you know that yet?”

“Ridiculous,” she said. “It would be enough if you did it right.”

She punctuated her quite valid critique with bites to his neck, his

throat, pushing past the tie of his shirt to open it up, to taste the

skin of his chest. She had at least one answer; his chest was nearly

hairless, just a light sprinkling of pale golden hair.

“And you know how to do it right?” he said, pressing his

thumbs against her nipples and flicking them. She groaned and

How to Daz zle a Duke

301

almost fell to her knees. “Just what did you do with that groom?

And where is he now? I think I must kill him.”

“Shut up. Shut up, shut up, shut up,” she said, her head thrown

back, her eyes closed tightly against the sharp pleasure of his

hands at her breasts, his thumbs rubbing hard circles on her

nipples, his mouth at her throat, lower, moving lower, excruciat

ingly and slowly lower.

“Did your groom do this?” he whispered, and then he took

her nipple into his mouth and bit down, his hand strumming

hard at her other nipple.

She cried out and, her knees being all of water, would have

fallen at his feet if he had not been holding her so tightly around

the waist.

“I truly will kill him if he did this to you, Pen,” Iveston said,

his breath warm against her skin.

“You don’t even know where he is,” she said, for truly, some

one had to point the truth out to him as he seemed ever to lose

the important bits. And, she did suspect it would drive him to

distraction.

She was right. It did.

“You love to torment me,” he said, moving his mouth to her

other bosom. She tried to appear nonchalant about it. She was

not at all confident of her performance. “You have an appetite for

torment. Shall we test that as well?”

“Oh, no, not at all necessary,” she began, and then his hands

pushed her bosoms together and he laved them both, nipping

and licking and utterly, utterly tormenting her.

She didn’t know how she kept her feet. She was trembling

all over and her legs were shaking like branches in a winter

wind.

“Not necessary? Very well, then,” he said, and abruptly stood

away from her. Whereupon, she promptly fell to the hard fl oor,

her bodice a complete disaster around her waist.

302 CLAUDIA DAIN

“You truly are the most peculiar man I’ve yet to meet,”

she said.

“And you’ve met so many men,” he countered, not even offer

ing her a hand, but standing well back from her with his arms

crossed over his chest. There was something suspicious about

that. Something quite important. For all that Iveston was an im

becile and exceedingly peculiar, he had never been impolite.

“Enough to have an opinion on the matter,” she said, pulling

up her bodice and retying it before making any effort to stand.

When she did stand, his cravat still twisted in her hands, she

said, “I do think that this would have gone better in the dark,

don’t you? I can’t but think that all this light can’t have helped

you in your efforts.”

“You think I need help?”

“Well,” she said with a negligent shrug, “you do seem to have

petered out rather quickly, and I was under the impression, my

past experience with the groom notwithstanding, that men were

able to keep at it a bit longer than you have done. Are you feeling

quite the thing, Lord Iveston? Maybe you’d do better after a lie

down?”

Iveston stared at her, nodding, with the smallest and most

unfriendly smile upon his face. He walked over to her, the roses

no hindrance, their blooms full and fragrant, seeming almost to

bow as he passed.

Nonsense. He walked through the rose shrubs. There was no

more to it than that.

When he reached her, he took the cravat from her hands

and said, “Better in the dark? Let’s try that, shall we?” And with

out waiting for a word of permission from her, he took his cravat,

that long length of smooth linen, and, standing behind her, tied

it around her eyes.

She was instantly, and provocatively, in the dark.

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303

She stood as still as stone, and waited. All her senses, save

sight, were quivering in heightened expectation. She could hear

his breathing, slow and steady, the frantic thudding of her heart,

the faint sounds coming from the kitchen below their feet.

He did not move. She could feel that, feel his nearness and his

restraint. It came to her like the humming of harp strings, a

thrum of tension that he wouldn’t unleash. Not yet. Perhaps not

ever. No, surely not that. She wouldn’t allow that.

“Is it better in the dark, Pen?” he asked, his voice soft against

her ear.

She shivered at the sound of his voice, and suppressed it.

“Talking? Is talking better in the dark? I shouldn’t say so, Lord

Iveston. Not at all. Not a bit of difference.”

She heard the quick intake of his breath, a laugh sup

pressed.

“Not talking,” he said. “Right then, we’ll make a list and you

shall keep the memory of it. Not talking. But then, what of this?”

His hands rested on her shoulders, moved down caressingly,

firmly, purposefully to her bosoms, cupping them through the

muslin, fi ngering her nipples. The sensation pulsed through her

like an arrow shot and she gasped into the darkness that sur

rounded her and only her. She was alone in the dark. Iveston

watching her in the soft light of late afternoon, the sounds of the

street coming softly through the windowpanes, the sound of a

door closing somewhere in the house, footsteps distantly . . . and

Iveston’s hands. His scent surrounded her in the dark. He smelled

of cologne, the faint scent of cloves undercutting a musky odor.

Or was that the roses?

He undid her bodice ties, an unhurried motion, and pulled

the muslin down, exposing her fully to the suddenly chill air of

the conservatory. She felt wicked, was certain she looked the

worst sort of jade, and she didn’t care. No, worse. She liked it.

304 CLAUDIA DAIN

He ran his hands over her bare breasts, a fingertip inspection,

trailing down and around, a man at his leisure exploring a woman

designed for his pleasure. He toyed with her, avoiding her nipples

while she arched into his evasive touch, flicking her lightly now

and again. She moaned and bit her lip, her hands clenched in her

skirts, submitting to his touch and the blatant willfulness of his

choices over her body.

“Better?” he whispered, his voice magically felt against her

bosom, his tongue fl icking a nipple almost negligently.

“Marginally,” she said softly, lying with the skill of a diplomat.

“Can you measure the difference? I do know how you trea

sure precision in all things.”

And so saying, he kissed each nipple tenderly before suckling

deeply, taking her fully into his hands and nipping her. She

flinched and groaned. He braced his hands on the sides of her

ribs and held her upright.

“What say you, Pen? Are you a woman who requires darkness

or will you burn in sunlight with just as hot a fi re?”

“I think, Lord Iveston,” she said, “that it must depend upon

who is wielding the torch.”

“And who wields the torch that lights you up?”

She could not see him. But she knew. She knew he was star

ing at her with all the heat of a hundred suns lighting his eyes to

blue fi re.

She took off her blindfold and held it in one hand, its ends

tumbling onto the floor, and stared at him. He was on his knees