The Devilish Pleasures of a Duke Read online

  “Please,” she whispered, swallowed dryly. The heat in her belly intensified until it hurt. How his voice enticed her.

  “It must be your choice,” he mused. “Other men have tried, haven’t they? That dandyprat today.”

  She couldn’t answer, could barely breathe. And he understood. He told her as much with a touch that moved over her trembling skin, half consolation, half warrior’s conquest. No one else had presumed as much until today. Panic and desire mingled deep inside her.

  The worst part of what he’d said was that the absence of love, of passion, in her life had seemed bearable until now. Oh, she’d suffered the lack, but a lady would not acknowledge it.

  Not even to herself if she were strong.

  Certainly not to a practiced stranger who was subtly awakening all the parts of her that ached so deeply to be caressed. All the parts that a decent woman should pretend did not exist.

  Dear God. Oh, God. She swallowed a sob. Adrian barely had to stroke her shoulders, her breasts, and the curve of her hip, and her body quivered, answered to his mastery. In disbelief she became aware of the wonderful tension of her inner muscles, an overwhelming sense of surrender that she had known only a few times in her marriage to Stuart. It was as if a wave of sensation had gathered deep inside her.

  How dare this mercenary…this man, how dare he make her feel, force her to acknowledge her sexual desires when she had succeeded in ignoring them for so long.

  For years she had struggled to master her emotions. She’d deceived those dearest to her until at last she had managed to deceive even herself. She had been born one of the wicked, passionate Boscastles. And while she’d scolded her boisterous siblings, she had at times envied their ability to enjoy their lives, to fall deeply, irrevocably in love. She’d had a chance. She had loved a quiet man and lost him. She’d begun to believe that passion, that true love, would never be part of her life.

  She suppressed a whimper. Restrained the instinct to writhe. Instead, she lifted her hand to her mouth as if to stifle another sob.

  How dare he commit that valiant act today and then, only hours later, completely undo her?

  “Emma,” he whispered, “do you wish me to stop?”

  She stared up into his luminous hazel eyes and saw not the guile of a practiced rake, but the unadulterated desire of a man who did not bother to hide what he felt. It devastated her.

  “I want you to kiss me,” he urged. “Just once.”

  “Just once,” she whispered, her voice skeptical, unsteady. “Have two more dangerous words ever been uttered by man or devil?”

  He paused, gazing deeply into her eyes. “‘I do?’”

  “Oh!” She began to pull away. “Lie down.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “Adrian, please. You’re a dangerous man.”

  He frowned. “I’m not dangerous to you.”

  “You are.”

  “Why? Because I’ve sold my sword?”

  “That’s a good start,” she replied.

  “I would never hurt you.”

  “Not on purpose.”

  He drew her tightly into his arms, ignoring her whispered protests. Her body tingled and burned with the forbidden pleasure of being held to the heat of his hard-muscled male body. His gaze hooded, he stroked his long fingers down her shoulders to her sides, stealing sinful little touches here and there until, by the time his hand slipped under the hem of her gown to her knee, she was shaking, utterly prepared for his seduction. And yet unprepared.

  His mouth captured hers in such a subtle assault that it did not seem natural to refuse. Her lips parted in expectation. A sweet pain pierced her, quickened the pulses that beat through the depths of her body.

  She tilted her head, answering his dominance. Whereas before the candlelight had gentled the hard contours of his handsome face, the darkness stripped away all illusions of refinement. He was a dangerous man. One who had turned his back on Society. One who mesmerized her for reasons beyond her understanding.

  He had sold his services to other lands. She wondered why. Surely a duke’s heir did not need a fortune. Was it danger that he, like so many other young gentlemen, had sought? Perhaps he’d been running away. Had he done something he regretted in his past? She supposed it was more important to ask why he had come back.

  Her brothers trusted him. And she—

  She acknowledged his allure. It drew her, not merely the danger of him, but his openness. Few men recognized her spirit of fun. She did not often allow it to show. She felt the fire inside her now, too, steadily rising.

  His lips brushed her wet, swollen mouth again. His hands sought her most vulnerable places. Her back arched. Her body begged for something she was ashamed to admit. He was a conqueror by choice. A moan rose in her throat.

  He heard, his instincts sharp. His eyes glinted down at her in the dark. He knew. Scarcely had she released another breath than his hot mouth skimmed her breasts to suckle her nipple through the thin silk.

  She shivered, aroused, her body weightless. Emma Boscastle letting a man she had only just met nuzzle her breasts, suckle at her so indecently. Pleasure lanced like sunlight through her senses, her confusion.

  “Lord Wolverton,” she said, unable to subdue another shiver, “this cannot be good for your health.”

  His tongue encircled her nipple, a slow tease of sensation that intensified her breathless pleasure. “Believe me, it is.”

  “What about your injury?” she asked, her muscles tightening.

  He raised his head and kissed her wetly on the mouth. She moaned again. “What injury?” he asked, managing to sound guileless and wicked at once. “You have a beautiful body, Emma Boscastle, and a keen mind. I kept looking at you today during the wedding.”

  “Because of my mind or my body?” she whispered wryly, wondering why his confession should scandalize her when what he was doing was far worse. Her nipples stiffened impudently against his mouth. She was practically offering herself, her breasts at least, to his advances.

  “Both,” he answered with a fleeting smile. “You appealed to me. That is all I know.”

  “You desired me…at the wedding?”

  “Yes,” he said, hesitating only slightly. “Does that offend you?”

  “In front of witnesses?” Her voice was almost inaudible. The clamoring in her body drowned out everything else, the measure of her breath, the deep ticking of her pulses.

  He was taking soft, sensual bites of her breasts, and she seemed unable to discourage him. Thick warm fluid lubricated the folds of her sex. She could only imagine what it would feel like for his agile swordsman’s hand to touch her there, to penetrate her aching recesses.

  “It’s too much,” she said in a raw voice, her spine bowing.

  “I have to be honest,” he murmured, “it’s not enough for me.”

  She swallowed. “There is such a thing as being too honest. Certain thoughts shouldn’t be expressed.”

  He appeared to ponder this, but obviously at no great concern, for his attention soon returned to kissing her throat and nibbling tenderly at her breasts again. “I disagree,” he said in a low disarming voice. “We are both of us past the age of indecision—and both of us have made love before.”

  “Certainly not with each other.”

  “Isn’t that what makes this all the more tempting?” he challenged quietly.

  Tempting.

  “I’m a widow,” she whispered. “That part of my life is over.”

  “You’re a woman, Emma. That won’t ever change.”

  She felt a bittersweet little twist of acknowledgment, of longing. “It has.”

  “I do not remember ever being this attracted to a woman before,” he said thickly.

  His hand drifted from her hip to the hollow between her thighs. She bit back a sob. His touch, or lack of it, was torture. Her cleft pulsed in silent need. She dared not move.

  She glanced down, realizing her legs were bare, and her gown was bunched aro
und her hips. How different they were. How carelessly this man sinned while she diligently pounded sin with her bare fists back into the gutter where it belonged.

  In fact, she could imagine her students’ exclamations of wicked glee if they could see her now. Emma Boscastle in bed with a dashing aristocrat, having merrily abandoned all the principles that not only the academy represented but those she had made personal sacrifices to uphold.

  “I am at your mercy, madam,” he said unexpectedly into the lengthening silence.

  She gazed up at his beautiful face with cynical resolve. “At my mercy?” she asked faintly.

  “I think I’ve lost my senses,” he whispered, his voice penitent.

  “Well, you certainly won’t find them under my gown.”

  He laughed and slid his large arms around her waist. “Emma, oh, Emma. I’m dying of desire for you. Why do you have to be a Boscastle?”

  “I’ve asked myself that same question on many occasions.”

  He slid his hand up her belly to her neck and undid the buttons of her gown. Her soft white breasts swelled, the pink rims peeping above the silk.

  “Very nice,” he murmured. “And what about down here? All delicious and tender, too?”

  She swallowed thickly as his hand wandered down into the warm hollow between her thighs. “Oh, Emma,” he said, briefly closing his eyes, “you’re so wet, darling. Let me bring you off.”

  “Bring me—” A blush of shame rose to her skin. Her woman’s place softened, opened moistly at his invitation. She made no move to stop him.

  “You need it.” His scarred knuckles drifted over her mons to the engorged folds beneath. Her inner muscles melted, awaiting his touch. “Don’t you?” he murmured.

  She closed her eyes against the temptation burning deep in her belly.

  He bent his head and licked tenderly across the tops of her breasts. Her face heated, and the heat spread, meeting the fire in her belly.

  “I can’t—” Her voice broke.

  “Hush. I’ll take care of everything.” His thumb glided across her tender nipples, back and forth, until the pleasure-pain made her tremble. He shifted closer. His erection throbbed through his long cambric drawers and dressing robe against her bare thick belly.

  “Why am I allowing this?” she asked with a helpless groan.

  One long calloused finger pressed into her pulsing cleft. “Because your body is asking for it. Dear Emma, am I welcome here?”

  He kissed her as she struggled to answer. He tangled his thumb in the soft tuft of hair that crowned her cleft. Slowly he inserted two more fingers into her crevice, flexing and unflexing them inside her. She gasped. Sighing in pleasure, he removed his hand and lifted it above her shoulder. Her pearly essence glistened enticingly on his knuckles. She heard him growl his approval deep in his throat.

  He kissed her forehead. “Tell me,” he said huskily. “How long has it been since a man has entered your body? Since you touched yourself?”

  Her eyes flew open. “You impertinent man.”

  He grinned, the cleft in his chin deepening. “We’ll deal with my impertinence later, shall we? For now we have to take care of you.”

  She squirmed. He laid his other hand flat on her belly, imprisoning her. His eyes fastened to her face, he gently pinched her hidden bud between his fingers until it tautened and her hips bucked. His gaze darkening, he forced his three fingers back inside her tight, aching passage. She felt exposed, vulnerable, ripe.

  She shook her head. In denial? Delight? Perhaps both. He kissed her again, his tongue ravishing her mouth, absorbing her soft moans. His hard thigh pressed against her flank. She put her hand on his powerful forearm. He raised up slightly, his shoulder muscles corded with strength. He was as sexual and beautiful, and as unprincipled, as an ancient god.

  In a moment she would put him in his place.

  But now, ah, now. She stared up at his gorgeous face. The heat in his eyes sent a current of sexual awareness down her spine. So uninhibited. So male.

  Somewhere outside she heard the clatter of carriage wheels and hooves upon the cobbles. She lifted her hand to the back of his sun-burnished neck. She felt his muscles tighten at her hesitant touch. His breathing deepened. His shaft thickened against her thigh as he drew his body against hers.

  He rotated her hooded bud again. The pleasure in her body intensified. Hot. Tight. Forbidden. All the while he watched her, understanding her every weakness.

  Her brother’s home.

  Her school.

  A practical stranger.

  Viscountess Lyons being ravished by a man she’d only known for hours. His large, warm hand wandered in a caress over her breasts. His agile fingers worked her, thrust between her plump wet lips. In and out. Warm blood swirled in a pool to the aching hollow of her sex.

  “Too long,” he whispered. “And now I’m here. When I met you today, when we talked at the wedding, I felt as if we had known each other before.”

  “Less than a day,” she whispered.

  “No. It did not seem so, at least not to me.”

  She bit the inside of her cheek. He was leaning on one elbow now, intensifying the wicked pleasure he gave her. His gaze was riveted to the shadowed juncture of her thighs. Her excitement grew.

  Her hips lifted into his hand. She couldn’t control her movements, her need. He exhaled, closed his eyes. “It must have been a long time,” he murmured. “You’re trembling and so very snug inside.”

  She could not speak. The warm droplets of moisture that gathered between her thighs betrayed whatever protest she might attempt. How long had it been? Her belly quivered, and a deep pressure built at the base of her spine.

  She had never known desire like this.

  “Give yourself this one pleasure,” he whispered darkly. “Come alive for me.”

  And she did. Her body clenched. She was powerless to stop it. He held her as she peaked, as her ability to breathe stopped, as instinct stormed her senses. She fell under his spell. She sobbed, years of subdued desire unchained. Who was he, this man? What devil’s power did he possess to do this to her?

  “Emma.” His deep voice penetrated her bewilderment.

  She shuddered. She refused to look at him, awash in pleasured shame and wonder.

  “Emma,” he said again, his face pressed to hers. “Are you all right?”

  She felt herself slowly return to sanity. Her body pulsed in the aftermath. To her surprise she found herself stroking his hair, the hard planes of his face. Offering him comfort. Who was this man? Who was she? After this day, she did not know.

  “When I first saw you at the wedding,” he said, “I—”

  She pressed her finger to his lips. “I am a widow, Lord Wolverton. Despite what just happened, that part of my life is over.”

  “You didn’t die with your husband,” he said after a long pause.

  She lay unmoving for several moments. His eyes were closed. His face rested against hers. “I thought I’d died once,” he said. “God knows I did everything in my power to destroy myself, but I didn’t.”

  She felt tears sting her eyes.

  It was evident that his head injury had not affected his more basic functions. Her limbs shivered involuntarily as she finally attempted to disengage her body from his.

  Feelings familiar and yet not.

  She had married before the middle of her first season, her husband a cultured Scottish viscount and modest landholder. She’d thought that his reserved nature would suit her. They had been good companions, more friends than lovers. In fact, the sum of her sexual experience with her quiet-mannered husband had consisted only of stolen touches and hurried couplings under the covers. Indeed, Emma had emerged from their rushed matings more dissatisfied than not. To this day she blushed remembering how Stuart had announced on their wedding night that it was time to put his little sausage in the oven.

  She could not think of a man as well-constructed as Lord Wolverton possessing anything as inconsequential as a
sausage. Her limited contact with his heavy male appendage had been proof enough. To think of taking an organ of such proportion inside her own body made her breath quicken. Adrian and her late husband could not have been less alike, in physical form and character.

  She slid out of his arms, a poorly planned strategical move if ever she’d made one. Every part of her body came into electrifying contact with his. Her dressing gown dropped back down to her bare ankles. She felt his hot, hard gaze travel over her naked trembling body.

  She found her footing and with it the remnants of her control. She wasn’t going to cry. “I’m leaving you now.” Her voice sounded steady. Her emotions were not. “You must stay in that bed until the physician gives you permission to leave it.”

  He studied her in smoldering silence. “I have no excuse for my behavior.”

  She retreated to the door. “Nor I.”

  He sat up, his hard face hidden in shadows. “I swear to you I will never tell anyone what just happened. On what little honor I have.”

  She turned away.

  “I swear to you, Emma.”

  “Good night, Lord Wolverton.”

  She opened the door. His deep voice followed her into the darkened hallway. Her heart pounded in her throat. “You have my word.”

  The word of a mercenary.

  He sank back onto the bed as the door closed with a sharp reverberation that sent a thunderclap of agony through his head. He laughed out loud, defying the pain. Reveling in it, in fact.

  He felt incredibly foolish, elated. Yes, his head hurt. But—he was blessedly lucid enough to recognize his infatuation with the tidy Emma Boscastle, a proper lady who’d thought to put him in his place and had almost done it, too.

  He knew she didn’t trust him. Why should she? But from the instant he sensed her watching him at the wedding today, he had felt his first spark of hope since returning to England. Perhaps there was a purpose to it, after all. Blow to his skull be damned, he had met a woman he wanted to impress.

  He’d just made a hell of an impression, too, demanding intimacy on their brief acquaintance. Did she already despise him? Of course she must. What he’d liked most about her was her mettle, her way of noticing every misstep made by others, as if she were silently lamenting the entire world and trying to put it all right.