Duke I’d Like to F…

by Sierra Simone

  Oh. Yes. Eleanor had needed to observe it all for a very long time indeed.

  The trouble was, she’d had no idea how to insert herself into the moment, and later on, she had no idea how to approach anyone about it. Whenever she rehearsed a conversation in her head with the countess or any of the other guests, she sounded fumbling and awkward even to herself, and of course, she’d have to admit to her sneaking around the folly. Her willful voyeurism. She’d been too terrified of being scolded, ostracized…or worse, laughed at.

  So she’d kept that afternoon inside herself, imagining that one day she’d be brave enough to ask one of the people she’d seen in the folly about it. Brave enough to ask for some kind of invitation or initiation. The kinds of slow touches and lingering kisses that led to long, shivering releases.

  The Duke of Jarrell would be good at those, she wagered. He seemed the kind of man who would scoff at short, cursory pleasure. Her body sparked anew just to think of it.

  And it felt quite nice to rest now. Her hands didn’t hurt so much, and neither did her feet. The shivers too had eased and melted off, and she nearly felt warm.

  Maybe she was warm, now that she thought of it. Warm enough not to worry about the gusts that spattered her face with rain, warm enough to stay here like she planned. She could rest and think of Jarrell touching her, of her and Jarrell in that folly, his hand between her legs and his mouth everywhere, everywhere…

  “Eleanor. Eleanor, please. Please wake up . . .”

  She’d rather not. She’d only just fallen asleep, and the dream of her and Jarrell in the folly was too exquisite.

  “Eleanor.” The voice was rough and deep, and it would not be gainsaid. It was a voice used to getting its way. She frowned and tried to roll away, which the voice did not like. “No, little blossom, come here.”

  It said more things then, its words low and impatient and threaded with fear, but she couldn’t make them out. She was too tired, and the rain was too loud, and she wanted back to her dream now, please.

  Then suddenly she was being held. Cradled. Carried.

  She tried to turn into the touch, snuggling into it, but this wasn’t allowed her. She was hefted, settled, and tugged back into his arms, and then the swaying and jolting began.

  A horse, she realized dazedly. I’m on a horse.

  But further thoughts were beyond what she could do.

  She nestled into the shelter of a broad chest, shut her eyes, and fell back into darkness, back to the folly where her dream-duke waited impatiently.

  A fire crackled. Light moved on the other side of her eyelids—reddish and flickering, and underneath her was something more firm than soft, but not uncomfortable. A blanket spread over a floor, maybe.

  Warmth—like melting butter—was everywhere. In her chest and in her stomach, along her thighs and the arch of her neck. Low in her belly and between her legs.

  In fact, she was aware of the melted-butter feeling before anything else, before the fire and the blanket, and was aware she’d been feeling it for some time now. It was strange, this warmth, because it made her dozing fitful and full of more dreams of Jarrell and the folly, but the sensation resisted action, it resisted fully waking. She didn’t want to wake up and move from here; she didn’t want to leave this feeling with its beautiful aches behind.

  And the aches were so beautiful, but so cruel too. The tips of her breasts throbbed. The soft place between her legs cried out for contact so strongly that she squirmed for it, seeking pressure, friction, relief.

  She found it.

  There, all along one side, was a wall of firm, wonderful heat. She arched against it, feeling damp linen and silk, smelling something like fresh heather and cold rain, and something else she couldn’t identify but that stoked the torment roiling in her body. She continued arching, seeking, until her body was pressed entirely against it.

  And then—to her immense frustration—the wall tried to move away, making her hiss softly in displeasure.

  She followed it. Him. Jarell.

  Just like in her dreams.

  But better, because he felt—oh, he felt like she thought he might. Long and muscular and superb.

  I shouldn’t touch him.

  I should open my eyes.

  But this dream feeling, this sleepy, shivery wonderfulness of him and her—and finally—

  He was lying on his back now and she could drape herself over him. Just partly. Just enough to make a large arm band around her back in instinctive support, and enough that she could press her neediest spot against a hard, silk-covered thigh.

  “Eleanor—” a deep voice said in warning, but she rocked against him anyway, a little noise escaping her as she did. It felt so good; it felt necessary. Each time she ground against him sparks flew everywhere in her body, like a blade on a grinding wheel. She was catching fire; she couldn’t stop. Inside of her, there was a twisting, a hot and urgent twisting, and all around her was a strong body and the sharp scent of the moors at night, and—

  Right as the voice muttered a low curse, the twisting inside of her snapped.

  Her mouth opened against his chest and her teeth scraped over the fine linen of his shirt as sweet and agonizing release shuddered through her . . . waves of greedy pleasure wringing everything below her navel into absolute disarray. Delicious disarray. She wanted more of it, and more, and more—until the shudders gradually faded away and she slumped back against the muscled arm cradling her close.

  The satisfaction of it all was almost enough to lure her back to sleep, but then Jarrell spoke her name again, and with an abrupt mental lurch, she came all the way awake.

  Chapter Six

  He didn’t know what his face looked like then, only that it must have reflected all the fear he’d felt earlier, all the barely leashed lust, all the needs of a man too long denied.

  She blinked up at him, her smile fading but her eyes staying curious and bright.

  It was the brightness that undid him. Goddammit, didn’t she know what it could do to a person, having her looking at them like that? Right after she’d used their body to give herself pleasure?

  What slid through his veins then was something that wasn’t rage or terror or lust. It was something far, far more dangerous.

  Possession.

  “We are going to talk now,” Jarrell told her very quietly, doing his best to ignore the possessive burn in his blood, but fuck, it burned so hot. “You have choices to make about what happens next.”

  She pulled her lip between her teeth and then released it, nodding. The sweet sleepiness in her face was melting away, receding, and in its place was a look that brought him back to his senses.

  Mostly.

  He carefully separated their bodies and reached for the blanket behind him, draping it over her chemise-clad body, studying her as he did. He’d been terrified earlier, terrified in a way that made him realize he barely knew the meaning of terror at all. How could he have when he’d never before felt the chilled, limp weight of Eleanor Vane in his arms?

  Only a single day ago, he would not have thought himself capable of so much fear. Even Helena’s death—and the excruciating worry which preceded it—hadn’t been marked so much by fear as by dread. He’d known he was going to lose Helena; he’d already lost everyone else by then too.

  But this was not the slow creep of illness; this was not a crawling slog into oblivion.

  This was being plunged into the icy waters of hell without warning. This was having a hole blown right through his heart.

  He’d ridden as fast as he could given the downpour—the rain meant mud and moonlessness, two things anyone traveling at night tried to avoid—and it had only been pure luck that lightning had lit the miserable night as he was about to pass her huddled, red-cloaked form. For a moment, as he dismounted and knelt beside her, he’d thought she was already dead. That she’d already succumbed to the cold and that it was too late—he’d killed her.

  He’d driven her to this. Driven her out in
to the storm and the desolate wild because he hadn’t been quick enough to realize his own mistakes, and now there would be another ghost to haunt his steps—

  She’d stirred then. Which should have helped dissipate the terror, but only made it worse, because she could still die at any moment, because in the intermittent flashes of lightning, she looked yet half-dead and safety was miles away. Unless—yes, his refuge at the far end of his property was maybe only a mile and a half away, much closer.

  He’d gathered her into his arms and muttered prayers into the darkness the entire way there.

  He’d never brought anyone to Far House before.

  It was a small but elegant dwelling he’d had built at the edge of Dartham lands, tucked into a forest and girdled on three sides by a loop in the River Teign, and where he’d hidden for the last several years. It was his sanctuary—a place free from the ghosts of Far Hope, or freer at least—and no one, save for a few trusted people and his lawyers, knew it existed.

  Until tonight.

  He’d burst through the door with Eleanor in his arms, barked orders for a fire in his room, and then swept her upstairs. He kept a very small staff at Far House, but just like the staff at Far Hope, they were familiar with the ways of the Second Kingdom. Which meant that the sight of a Dartham man whisking someone unceremoniously up to his room wasn’t unheard of, although it hadn’t happened in this house or at any house in the realm since Helena had died, as Jarrell had withdrawn from the Kingdom. From the rest of life in general.

  Once the situation was made clear, everyone moved quickly to help. Blankets, water and wine were sent for, the fire was laid in, and he dispatched the groundskeeper to Far Hope, to inform her parents that Eleanor been found and to gather in the search party. As soon as the storm cleared, he’d return Eleanor to Far Hope or bring her parents to Far House, since the roads were too treacherous to attempt a journey by carriage in these conditions. He’d also instructed the groundskeeper to send a rider from Far Hope to Chagford for a doctor, although he didn’t dare to wait to act until the doctor came. The man could be hours yet, or more, depending the weather and the roads.

  As a young man, Jarrell had once heard a gamekeeper tell a story of a man caught outside in winter, who’d managed to make it to safety only to die when an overeager neighbor had plunged him into a near-boiling bath.

  Too sudden a shock, the gamekeeper had said sagely. Slow heat is better for those who’ve taken the cold into their blood.

  Slow heat. Slow heat.

  He’d repeated those two words to himself like a prayer as the servants bustled out of the room and he stripped Eleanor out of her wet cloak and clothes and down to her chemise. He’d peeled off his coat and jacket as well, since they were both soaked through, wearing only his shirt and a fresh pair of dry breeches.

  He’d spread a blanket some distance away from the fire, wrapped a soft blanket around them both, and then gathered her into his arms, the way the old gamekeeper had said was the best way to cure someone sick from the cold. And he’d held her that way for an hour. Then two.

  Keeping his fingers webbed over her ribs to make sure she was still breathing. Burying his face in her damp, sweet-smelling hair. Swallowing over and over again in relief as the color returned to her cheeks and lips, as her skin warmed under the kiss of the fire and his embrace.

  Gradually becoming aware—as the fear ebbed away—of her body against his.

  Of the thin chemise that barely hid her skin.

  Of the firm curves of her small breasts and the rise of her hip from her waist.

  Of her thighs against his own… and of the hollow between her thighs.

  He could feel that small cove, that slight dip where her thighs pressed together right beneath her mound, and that lack, that tiny, barely there absence, was just as palpable as any luscious contour or flare. It would take nothing to push his cock into that space, to fill it with himself, and through his breeches and her chemise, he would finally be able to feel her, he would be able to notch himself against her heat and mimic the act he would commit murder to do right now.

  An eager erection throbbed insistently against his stomach, and his blood simmered, and his hands shook with the need to haul her even closer, to rub her entire body against his.

  How long has it been?

  He knew the answer as well as a sinner knew the day of their conversion: he hadn’t lain with anyone since Helena. Since his wedding night, if he wanted to be entirely precise.

  Sixteen years of chastity. Every day of it hard-fucking-won, but none harder than the days he spent with Eleanor. It wasn’t temptation—it was torment, and nothing was more tormenting than holding her like this, knowing so little separated their flesh. All he’d have to do was move a hand, and he’d be cupping her bottom. All he’d have to do is reach down and he could make her come on his fingers.

  His muscles began to ache, and not from holding her, but from restraining himself from doing more.

  He wouldn’t do more. He couldn’t.

  The kingdom he used to rule over at Far Hope had very few rules, but the eager acquiescence of a partner was an edict they’d all lived by. It had been etched deeply onto his psyche as young man by his parents, and he’d never violated it. So even if Eleanor were awake, even if she were well, he would do no more than hold her until he was certain she was better. And then he would let her go, no matter how much he burned to keep her in his arms.

  Half an hour later, he no longer had an excuse to cradle her curvy body against his own. Her cheeks were pink, her lips were rosy, and she sighed and snuggled into him like someone happily asleep rather than someone on the verge of death. It was time to tuck her into the nearby bed and start planning for the morning.

  He’d violated the bounds of propriety tonight—they’d spent the night alone, he’d undressed her and held her in only her chemise—even given the extreme circumstances, he wasn’t sure that would be enough to deflect her father’s ire when he heard. Or Gilbert’s ire.

  Would Gilbert be ireful though? Would Pennard?

  Did it matter?

  What truly mattered was how Eleanor felt. Because if she’d been willing to fling herself onto the thorn-choked mercy of the moors, then clearly a marriage with Gilbert had become impossible. Not that he could blame her, although it begged the question: What next?

  He had hoped to talk to her tonight, yes, but then there would’ve been time to make a plan, to weigh every consequence and proceed with calculation and care.

  Eleanor’s flight meant time was no longer a luxury they could afford. There were the guests to think about, and her reputation—because there would be rumors. And selfishly, he wondered how would he bear it after she left and there were no more green eyes, no more husky laughs? No more eyebrows arched in private amusement? The plan had always been to leave after Gilbert married, so he would have been sundered from her anyway, but . . .

  Stop being selfish.

  He would. He would stop. But the selfishness stirred nonetheless, along with a possessive hunger.

  You could have her.

  Ask her to be yours.

  He dismissed the thought as soon as it came. She wouldn’t want him. And he’d already planned the rest of his life—it was meant to be a life alone, a life free from memories and free from violating those memories by wedding another.

  I can’t.

  And that was when Eleanor started moving.

  It took Jarrell a long minute to realize what was happening, to understand that her contented little snuggles had turned into a restless seeking, and by then it had become all too clear what was driving her restlessness. Her eyelids fluttered as with fervid dreams, and the tips of her breasts were drawn up tight against his chest under her chemise. Splotches of color bloomed on her cheeks as she began arching against him.

  He tried to roll away, onto his back, but even he could recognize it wasn’t a very valiant attempt at escape. And she followed him anyway like a needy kitten, rubbing herself aga
inst him, pressing her cunt against his thigh and riding it in slow, sleepy waves.

  He should stop her. She didn’t know what she was doing, and she’d be mortified when she woke up, and his body was strung so tight he feared it would snap. He feared he’d shove up her chemise and kiss her awake—but not on the mouth.

  Somehow, he managed not to move, not to touch her other than to support her with his arm as she found her release against his body. As she awakened with a small smile on her lips and sweet, sated eyes fluttering open.

  And now here they were, both sitting upright and studying each other, embarrassment, guilt, desire, relief—all of it staining the moment between them.

  Chapter Seven

  Choices to make, he’d said.

  She adjusted the blanket over her shoulders and tried to meet the duke’s inscrutable gaze with a steady one of her own. Steady gaze, steady heart, steady Eleanor.

  It was a lie. She didn’t feel steady at all. Her body still thrummed from release, her mind brimmed and bristled with scores of contradictory thoughts, and her heart couldn’t decide if it belonged in her throat or in her stomach. It wasn’t unpleasant—the heart feeling—but it did mean that any time the duke did anything—lift a hand, furrow his brow, breathe—her insides melted again and all she wanted to do was giggle. Or purr.

  Not steady at all. And why should she be? She’d just—

  And in her chemise—

  And he’d let her—

  He’d let her.

  Heat bloomed in her stomach all over again, thinking about how he’d held her as she moved against him. She’d found those releases before, but always by herself and always with some effort. But experiencing it with someone else, and so easily—