The Heart of a Hellion: The Duke’s Bastards Book 2

by Michaels, Jess

  “I’ve probably snuck out of a few parties with the same excuse, especially in my youth,” he said, moving toward her. “I don’t judge.”

  “Good,” she said, reaching for him.

  Their hands tangled. His bare one, her gloved one and a thrill of desire shot through him. Hardened him. This woman was a drug and he never wanted to be free of the influence.

  He cleared his throat. “Your companion is…interesting.”

  Her fingers tightened a fraction on his. “She already knew about us,” she whispered.

  “I assumed so, by the way she talked,” he said. “She’s…blunt.”

  Selina’s gaze flickered up to his face. Color had returned to her cheeks, but now it was a blush. “I suppose she can be.”

  “She isn’t your typical lady’s companion,” he continued to press. Why he did it, he couldn’t say. Only that his conversation with the other woman had aroused such…suspicion…in him. A feeling he didn’t want, not when it came to Selina.

  Her brows lifted. “Are you judging her because you think she might have a past?”

  “No. We all have a past,” he said. “Are you saying I’ve guessed correctly?”

  She let out her breath in a sound of almost frustration. “Derrick.”

  “I’m simply curious.”

  She shook her hand from his and crossed away from him. She stood before the fire, a silhouette of curves and angles that was so achingly beautiful that he wanted to fall down on his knees and worship. That was the flame Vale had implied earlier. That beauty and allure that sucked everyone closer to this woman.

  And at what cost?

  She pursed her lips. “It isn’t my place to share her past.”

  “Then tell me yours,” he said. “How did you meet? How long have you known her?”

  Her lips pursed, annoyance, he thought. Perhaps something more. Something darker. “How does anyone meet in these circumstances? She was looking for work. I was looking for someone to fill her position.”

  Derrick’s frown deepened. And there it was, that cagey reluctance to tell him something that should have been so benign. Which meant one of two things. Either she didn’t trust him enough to give him even the most harmless of information, or…it wasn’t harmless at all. There was something she hid because it was worth hiding. Especially from a man like him who represented the law to her.

  He didn’t like either answer. He drew a short breath. “Selina—”

  She interrupted him with a lifted hand. “I’ll tell you that she’s been a friend to me when I needed her most.” Her gaze got distant. “Loyalty is hard to come by in my world.”

  He pulled away slightly at the turn of phrase. “Your world?” he repeated. “And what world is that?”

  She stepped back in his direction, her blue eyes wider, her hands shaking ever so slightly at her sides. “Why are you here, Derrick?”

  He knew she was changing the subject. Trying to distract him from the line of questioning she didn’t want him to follow. Why, he couldn’t say. As an investigator, it increased his doubts.

  But in this room, with her standing so close, was he an investigator? When he stood before this goddess, trembling with need for her, was he the man sent to look for a thief? Or was he just a man? Standing before a woman who made his blood burn and his body ache?

  In this moment he didn’t want to be anything more than that. So he set his questions aside.

  “Are you just here to interrogate me about my companion?” she continued.

  “No,” he murmured and he slid his fingers into her hair. He bunched them against her scalp, feeling her pins shift against his hand. One pricked at his skin, sharper than he’d expected, and he smoothed the locks anyway and the pins clattered to the floor around her feet. “You know why I’m here.”

  She shivered, an expression of surrender. Of desire. Of the need that burned in her as much as it burned in him. “Why?” she pressed, making him say it. Making him own it.

  “To finish what we started earlier tonight,” he whispered, and then he lowered his mouth to hers and claimed her lips.

  She lifted her gloved hands to his face, the silky fabric stroking along his jaw as she made a soft groan of desire into his mouth. It wasn’t enough. He wanted her skin on his.

  He pulled back and met her eyes as he lifted one hand between his own. He kissed her knuckles, blowing steam through the glove before he unfastened the button at her elbow, gliding his thumb beneath the fabric and swirling a circle against her flesh with the pad.

  Her eyes fluttered shut and she whispered his name in the quiet. He was going to make her groan it, scream it, offer it as a prayer.

  He rolled the glove down. Her initials were stitched in the lining in a pink thread. He traced them with his finger before he leaned in and kissed a path along her inner arm as he inched the fabric lower. He nipped her flesh. Her hips surged, bumping his, asking for what would come in a moment. He ignored the demand, though it was almost impossible to do so, and instead exposed her wrist. There was a tiny scar there, and he swirled his tongue around it, feeling the raised flesh, tasting the lightly salty flavor of her.

  He tugged each finger of the glove, and at last he tossed it away over his shoulder. He sucked her index finger between his lips, swirling his tongue around its length. When he allowed her finger to pop free, she rubbed it across his lips, her gaze wide and dilated.

  He repeated every single action on the opposite hand, removing her glove the same way he would soon slowly and purposefully remove the rest of her clothing.

  And she seemed to have the same idea. She grabbed his lapels and used them as leverage to drag him to her mouth. Their lips collided again in rough, powerful passion. She devoured, driving her tongue with certainty, biting his lip gently and then less gently, pulling him as close as she could while her fingers tugged the cravat she had only helped him tie a few hours before.

  It felt like a lifetime since they last touched.

  She unwound the long swatch of fabric and tossed it to the ground with her gloves. Continuing to kiss him, she tore at the buttons on his shirt, freeing enough of them that he could push away from her and tug the contraption over his head. He was ready to step back into her, but her stare stopped him.

  “What is it?” he asked, breathless.

  She was staring at his chest. At the scar that slashed across his left pectoral, the other one on his stomach, marks of war and sacrifice. She lifted a shaking hand and pressed it to the hot flesh, and he felt like he would die from it and it would be a happy death.

  “I’ve never seen you naked,” she murmured.

  He nodded. “Neither one of us has seen the other unclothed. We’ve always been too…rushed.”

  “Well, we have all night now, don’t we?” she whispered, her gaze fluttering up to his. “And I’d like to savor every moment of it.”

  Chapter 14

  It was a funny thing, vulnerability. Selina hadn’t really felt the emotion when this man had taken her against a library wall or when she had sucked his cock until he spent in her throat. But now, fully clothed, staring at his bare chest and admitting she wanted to revel in everything that would happen next…

  That was vulnerable. Because it revealed too much of what she’d begun to feel without wishing to feel it. It revealed that this was more than some fun little tup with a near stranger.

  There was connection here now. Something deep and powerful that had meaning she didn’t want to analyze.

  So she didn’t. She pushed it all away and returned both hands to his chest. She shivered as she touched him, all hard muscle and bright scars. Scars that proved what he’d been through. Scars that were linked to the near-death of someone she loved dearly. Derrick had saved Nicholas. And she could never repay him for that.

  No matter how many times they did this.

  He watched her as she rubbed her hands over him, fingers clenching through the curly hair across his pectorals, thumbs teasing his nipples, palm fla
ttening across his toned belly. He was a god, only not made of stone or legend.

  He was made of flesh and bone, and that flesh and bone was moved by her. Wanted her. She wasn’t about to waste it.

  She lifted her gaze to his, challenging him as she always did because she knew he liked that moment when his practiced control snapped. Even now she saw him wrestling with it. Trying not to become the animal who rutted with her. And both of them anticipating the moment when he’d be just that.

  It was all just a game of how they would get there.

  She unfastened the fall front of his trousers for the second time that night. And for the second time, she found a hard and ready cock hot against her hand. She stroked him and his eyes fluttered shut.

  “Do you know how much I wanted you before supper?” he asked.

  She smiled as she leaned in to nuzzle his neck, still rubbing his cock with long, firm strokes. “I could hazard a guess,” she whispered.

  “So much that I could hardly control myself,” he growled, nipping her ear and sending a shockwave of pleasure through her body. “But do you know the funny thing that you sucking me dry does?”

  She lifted her head and found his gaze again. “What’s that?” she asked, wary now, because there was a wickedness in his tone that she’d never heard before. One that called to her, made her stomach clench, made her hands shake.

  “You make me all the more capable of maintaining control so I can torture you for hours. I can make you beg for hours, Selina. I can make you come over and over until you’re weak and shaking for me.” His brown eyes glittered in the firelight, a predator, she his prey. “So let us begin.”

  “Derrick,” she whispered, but he didn’t answer. He just swept her into his arms and carried her to her bed. He tossed her there, motioning her to lie on her pillows as he stripped out of the rest of his clothing.

  She was still dressed, and she stared at him now. Naked. Good God, so beautiful in every way. She wanted to trace her tongue along every line of him. She wanted to rub herself on him like a cat. She wanted to touch all those hard curves and valleys until she knew him as well as she knew herself.

  And she hated herself for wanting those intimate things that went far beyond mere sex.

  He braced his hands on the bed and caught her ankles. She squealed as he dragged her down toward him with one yank. She splayed out because he forced her to and leaned up on her elbows to see what he would do.

  He held her gaze as he removed one slipper, driving his thumb hard into the arch of her foot through her stocking, and she threw her head back with a hiss of pleasure-pain combined. He repeated the action on the other foot, and then his hands dragged up her calves, pushing her dress up, digging his fingers into her stockings. And she was lost in sensation.

  Sex had been a favorite pastime of hers from the first time she’d surrendered her virginity. But this was different. It was always different when it was them. He woke something in her that wasn’t like anyone else. He dragged something from her that she wasn’t even certain she wanted to share. And when his hands cupped her kneecaps, she made a sound unlike anything that had ever squeezed from her throat before.

  “You make it so easy to know where to torture you,” he laughed.

  “Is that the kind of interrogation you like to participate in, Mr. Huntington?” she asked, wishing her voice wasn’t so breathless. “Torture?”

  “Not the worst idea.” He leaned in and pressed his mouth to her knee as his hands moved higher under her skirts. He found the top of her stockings and tugged, rending the fastenings away with a tear of fabric. “Confess.”

  Her mind was spinning so fast, she hardly had the ability to feel anxiety at that demand. Confess. Right now she might be so foolish as to confess anything.

  “I have done no wrong,” she lied, squirming when he pulled her torn stockings down, baring her thighs, her knees, her calves.

  He tossed the stockings away and pressed his hands on her thighs. His fingers dented her flesh. “I doubt that, Miss Oliver. Confess to me.”

  His voice was so deep, so hypnotic that it was almost impossible not to obey. “What do you want to know?” she panted. “A little more specificity, if you please, sir.”

  He laughed before he shoved her skirts around her stomach and pushed her thighs open wide, exposing her to him. He shuddered as he looked at her, her sex glistening, her legs already shaking. “Confess that you want to come,” he demanded, his gaze lifting to hers. “Confess that you want my mouth on you.”

  She heard the garbled sound choke from her throat and nodded. “Oh, I most definitely confess that. Freely. I want your mouth on me, your tongue in me. I want you to taste my release.”

  “Christ, Selina,” he grunted, and then he settled between her legs, cupped her backside and lifted her so he was granted better access. “Your wish is my command.”

  His head dropped and she felt his breath on her sex. Hot and steaming against flesh that felt almost too sensitive. She lifted toward him, seeking and begging without words. But he didn’t deny her, even if he had promised erotic torture. His mouth found her as he peeled her open with his thumbs, and he licked her hard from the rosette of her bottom to the tingling nub of her clitoris.

  She settled back into the pillows, letting her body go limp and focusing only on sensation as he lavished her with his tongue, awakening every nerve in her sex, spreading pleasure through her limbs. He did that for a long time, just licking and teasing, tasting her like she was fine wine he wanted to savor. But as time drew on, endless and limitless, he began to focus his tongue on her clitoris.

  And he was as proficient at this as he was at everything else. He sucked her, swirling his tongue around the swollen nub, flicking the hood back so that the pleasure got sharp and heady. She lifted into him, grinding against him as she tried to find more, more of anything. More of everything.

  He gave it. He watched her as he licked, changing his pace when she sucked in her breath, angling his head when she covered her mouth with her hand so her moans wouldn’t ricochet through the house.

  And just when she thought she might go mad, he slid two fingers deep within her sheath, pumping into her slowly and gently. The pressure of his tongue increased, the pace of her hips joined. She began to shake as she edged herself toward the cliff of pleasure, needing it as much as she needed breath or water in this moment.

  And then the waves hit her. One after another, they washed over her and she rode them as she bit back screams and dug her fingers into the coverlet so hard she feared she’d rip the fabric. He tortured her through it all, as he’d promised he would, sucking her as she quivered, pulsing his fingers into her as she clenched around them. Taking and giving in equal measure until she was weak and gasping, her vision blurred and her ears ringing with the most powerful orgasm she’d ever experienced.

  She felt him moving, but couldn’t lift her head to watch. Felt his fingers withdraw from her, felt his mouth release her. The weight of him bowed the bed as he kissed a path to the buttons along the front of her gown. He unfastened her and tugged her to an upright position to pull the dress away.

  She was naked beneath it. She’d never seen much value in a chemise except to make lines where they didn’t belong. He chuckled as he tossed the gown over the edge to join the rest of her abandoned items. She waited for him to just slam into her, to ease his own ache, but he didn’t. Instead, he lay on his side, tracing her curves with his fingertips as he stared at her as if he were in no rush to claim her.

  “You are lovely,” he murmured, leaning in to press a kiss to the side of her throat. “So lovely.”

  “I bet you say that to all the ladies you shatter with your tongue,” she teased, an effort to take away the power of what he whispered.

  He didn’t lift his head but nibbled a path down her throat, lower to her breast. He licked one taut nipple and she gasped in pleasure.

  “I don’t remember the last lady I shattered,” he said. “I’m not sure I’
ll ever remember another. There will only be you and that amazing display I just witnessed.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut as she lowered her hands into his crisp hair and held him at her breast. When he was licking and sucking her, he wasn’t just pleasuring her. He also wasn’t looking at her. He couldn’t see how he moved her and how much she wanted to believe this attraction between them meant something.

  Even though she knew it couldn’t. She shivered, both from the stimulation of his mouth at her breast and from disappointment at that truth. That it wouldn’t last. It couldn’t.

  So she was going to live every moment of it now.

  She cupped his chin and turned his face toward her. His pupils were dilated to almost pure black, and there was a slight smirk on his face that made him look far less honorable than she knew him to be.

  “I want to taste myself on you,” she whispered, pulling him toward her.

  He growled like an animal seeking its mate and lunged up, smashing his lips to hers. They were still slick, sweet with her release, and she devoured them and him until there was nothing in her mind but pleasure. She opened her legs, welcoming him to settle there. His cock was hard at her entrance, heavy with desire as he nudged her with it.

  “Yes, yes, yes,” she murmured, over and over until he reached between them and pushed himself into place. He lifted his head, watching her as he glided forward, deep into her body, claiming her and filling her and making them one, if only for a little while.

  He surged then, thrusting hard and deep. She clenched against him, grinding up to stimulate her already sensitive clitoris all over again. His eyes went wide and he stroked a second time, his hands gliding up her sides. He dug one hand into her hair, holding her in place, and the other he wrapped gently but firmly against her throat.

  She spasmed in pleasure, nodding against him so he’d know she wanted this. With that permission he transformed into that wild animal again. He took and took, his fingers pressing gently into her flesh, his cock not gentle at all, but probing and claiming in a way she’d never known she wanted.