Duke I’d Like to F…

by Sierra Simone

That he wanted to fuck her, and fuck her, and fuck her, until there was nothing left to do but sleep and then wake up to fuck again?

  No. She’d asked for his touch, she’d asked for pleasure, but Jarrell was the former master of the Second Kingdom, and he knew better than anyone that there was a gap between gentle lovemaking and the carnal acts of the inherently wicked. Many people enjoyed the former and despised the latter. Also it was absurd to think a woman who’d rather die than marry his young nephew had any wish to further entangle herself with that nephew’s far-from-young uncle.

  And what does it mean that I haven’t thought of Helena this entire time?

  Jarrell wanted Eleanor like he hadn’t wanted anyone since Helena, and it made him doubt himself, doubt his capacity for loyalty and his commitment to Helena’s memory.

  With great agony, he tore himself away from Eleanor’s mouth.

  A pretty frown pulled at her lips as he raised himself to his knees. “Ajax?” she asked.

  His name in her husky voice—even huskier post-climax—was enough to make his already-throbbing erection surge against his falls. But what nearly undid him was the sight that greeted his eyes as he got to his knees and was able to see between her spread thighs once more. Her cunt—slick and rosy—was still exposed and waiting for him. Her petals still open and softly swollen. Her tight opening beckoning . . .

  His hand went automatically to his aching prick, squeezing to alleviate some of the pressure there. He absolutely would not go any further, but fuck, he thirsted for it, and that troubled him. After sixteen years, anyone would be in physical need, and so he didn’t blame himself for that. The problem was that he wanted more than just her body: he wanted her. He wanted this little blossom, lush and brave, and so secretly reckless, so privately turbulent, like a churning river hidden underneath a layer of solid ice. Not that there was anything cold about her.

  No, when she was being spoiled as she should be, she was hotter than the fires of hell.

  He forced his eyes up to her face, his hand still wrapped tight around himself, and then he let go of his erection, wincing at the throb it gave.

  Eleanor, perceptive thing she was, noticed. “Does it hurt?” she asked him.

  She as curious as she was coy, and it unraveled his control, his guilt, everything. Was it possible to want someone so much that it could change what he thought he knew about himself? Because right now he could taste her on his lips, recall how the turgid point of her nipple felt on his tongue. The need that frothed and simmered in his blood frightened him—he wanted her so much. He wanted all of this so damn much.

  He closed his eyes, knowing he shouldn’t answer. He should cover her nakedness and ask her forgiveness.

  That’s what a good man would do.

  “Yes,” he answered, opening his eyes.

  He wasn’t a good man, unfortunately for them both. “It needs release.”

  She reached for him, and he didn’t stop that first tentative brush of her fingertips over his clothed erection.

  “Can I help it feel better?” she whispered. “I felt so much better after—” She searched for the words. “After you kissed me there.”

  He shuddered as she stroked him again. Even over the silk breeches, her touch scalded him.

  “Eleanor,” he said, and he meant to say next: we should not. We should stop right now. But those weren’t the words that left his mouth. “Hold it tighter. Yes, that’s it. Like that.”

  She pulled her lower lip between her teeth as she watched her hand mold over his shape. She squeezed and released, caressed and explored. He wanted so badly to unfasten the falls of his breeches. To show her how deeply she riled him. To teach her how to attend to his coarsest needs.

  After a minute of this torture, he covered her hand with his own and halted her attentions. “Enough,” he said.

  She lifted her spring-green eyes to his. “Why?”

  It took him a full minute to understand that she was asking why he stopped her. To understand that she didn’t want to stop.

  “We shouldn’t, little blossom,” he said, the endearment clearly surprising her—and then, if her renewed flush was any indication, pleasing her. He pushed her hand away.

  “But why?” She looked back down to the tumid length between his hips. “I don’t want to stop.”

  “It’s been an eventful night for both of us. I don’t want to take advantage of that. Of you.” He closed his eyes, tried to gather his thoughts. When he opened his eyes and spoke, it was more to convince himself than her. “I won’t pretend that your leaving will be unnoticed, and I can’t promise it won’t cause some damage to your reputation. But right or wrong, you know as well as I do that some boundaries mean more than others. Some acts might mean more to a future husband.”

  Something moved in her eyes that he couldn’t catch: the moment he noticed it, it was gone. “I see,” she said evenly. Her expression was neutral. “And you don’t wish for that to be the case.”

  He didn’t like it when she was serene with him, when she used her equanimity as a shield to keep him at bay. He didn’t like it at all. He wanted her curious and unfettered. He wanted her reckless—although the mere thought of her running away again and putting her life in danger elicited a storm of fury and fear in his blood. “Why would I?” He’d only known her a week, but he felt violently protective of Eleanor and her future. And that extended to protecting her from himself, and also protecting himself from his ravening urge to claim her, to plunder her when he’d already decided his future. It was better for everyone if he stayed away from her and abdicated his title as he’d planned. Right?

  Right?

  “What choices do I have now, then?” she asked. “At this moment?”

  He sensed something else under her questions, but he wasn’t sure what it was. Unhappiness, probably, and she had every right to be unhappy. To her, he must represent the marital captivity that awaited her if she was bought back to Far Hope—and he still hadn’t reassured her that he wasn’t going to bring her back.

  He corrected that now. “Firstly, I want you to know that I won’t ask you to change your mind about marrying my nephew.”

  Relief filtered through her face before she schooled her expression again. “Thank you. I’m grateful for that.”

  He cut her a look. “That doesn’t mean I’m happy about how you decided to break off the betrothal, Eleanor. You could have died tonight.”

  Her chin lifted ever so slightly. “But I didn’t.”

  “Because I found you. If I hadn’t . . . ”

  Her mouth tightened, the only betrayal of her placidity. “I’m grateful that you found me as well and brought me someplace safe. Thank you.”

  Very aware of her nakedness—of her tightly beaded nipples and gold-dusted cunt—Jarrell finally handed her the blanket and then sat back. He was still so hard that half the blood in his body had to be filling his cock right now, but he did his best to ignore it.

  “Are you truly? Grateful, I mean?” he asked. “Your unhappiness was not a secret to me, and I let myself pretend that your forbearance was consent when I should know better. If I had handled this matter well, you wouldn’t have needed to run away at all.”

  Eleanor seemed to consider his words, tilting her head. “I appreciate the admission. I suppose whether or not I’m truly grateful depends on what happens next.”

  Yes. That would inform things, wouldn’t it, whether or not he was about to drag her back into the pits of Gilbert-infused hell. He took a deep breath. “The way I see it, you have two paths available to you now. Either I escort you back to Far Hope, and I help you formally break off the betrothal. Or I help you get safely to your final destination and then I return and formally break off the betrothal on your behalf. In either instance, you have my full and free assistance in ending the engagement.”

  Or there’s option three, where I drag you to the church myself.

  He scraped a hand over his face, as if he could rub away the thought itself. R
ub away the keen bolt of longing that struck him in the chest—and elsewhere—whenever he thought of making Eleanor his bride.

  She looked away, tucking the blanket more securely around her. “I see,” she said quietly. “So in both of these futures, I am unencumbered by any husband.”

  “In both, you will be free to choose whatever you like, because you will not be burdened by Far Hope.”

  She kept her face angled away from his. He didn’t like it.

  “Eleanor, look at me.”

  She did, after a long moment, reluctance stamped all over those pert features.

  “Are you unhappy with these options?” he asked. “Do you want more from me? More help? I owe it to you. I arranged this disastrous betrothal and I should be the one to fix it. I was being selfish, thinking only of myself, but I can find another way to—”

  He stopped. He hadn’t meant to say that last part, hadn’t meant to expose that Gilbert’s marriage served a purpose for him.

  But he should have known she would catch his mistake. Her brow arched subtly. “Another way to what, Your Grace? Marry off your unmarriable nephew?”

  He debated lying, then decided against it. It was beneath them both. “Yes, but that wasn’t necessarily its own end. Once Gilbert was married, I’d planned to abdicate my title and move away. He would become the Duke of Jarrell, and I would be free.”

  Her mouth parted; he’d genuinely shocked her. There was no serenity in those features now, no level neutrality. She could not have looked more stunned than if he’d stood up in front of her and started doing backflips.

  “Abdicate?” she asked, then blinked. “Move away? You can’t do that! And who wishes to be free of a dukedom in any event?”

  “Me,” he replied simply. “And yes, it was very difficult to arrange, but my need to leave outweighed every other consideration, and so I persevered.”

  She blinked again. “I don’t understand.”

  He got to his feet, leaving her there on the floor in her blanket. He wandered over to the window where a steady rain fell outside. Heavy, but no longer desolate and howling. Lightning still flashed occasionally, illuminating the grasping branches of the trees and the glinting wind of the river.

  He desperately wanted a drink before he filled this airy, modern room with the sad tales of his past, but he didn’t move to the desk where he kept his whiskey. He could still taste Eleanor on his lips, and it would be the only time he could savor it. He wouldn’t wash it away. Not for any price in the world.

  “Far Hope is an old place,” he started. An instinctive resistance nearly stilled his tongue—secrecy was one of the highest laws at Far Hope, and only the initiated were permitted to know its mysteries—but it was strangely thrilling to speak of it too. To finally confess. To unburden himself of the things that he’d run away from in his grief. Things he currently craved with a deep and animal hunger.

  “The manor house was built sometime in the thirteenth century,” he continued, “but there was certainly a structure there at the time of the Domesday Book, and there are recordings of a Saxon abbey there even before that. And like all old places, Far Hope has its secrets—very old ones. Some of the oldest in England.”

  “But what do those secrets have to do with you? If they are so old, surely they cannot hurt you now, in this day and age?”

  He rested his head against the glass, not looking at her. “They only hurt as they serve to remind me.”

  He couldn’t see Far Hope from here. It was much too far away, but it didn’t matter. It was vivid in his mind’s eye as always. He could see Helena’s pale gray eyes reflecting the stars in the star-ceilinged chamber back to him; he could hear her laugh as she danced at their wedding. He could feel the cool, dry weight of her fingers in his as she drew in her last, shaky breaths.

  Eleanor shifted behind him in a rustle of blankets and skin. “They remind you of your—your wife?”

  Thunder hummed against the glass, and he finally turned around to face the girl he’d rescued from the moors. “Yes. My wife.”

  Eleanor was perched up on her knees, the blanket wrapped securely around her, although it didn’t cover those creamy shoulders or disguise the pert curves he’d just been licking and sucking. Her eyes were wide and clear, and her lips parted.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  “It’s coming in the story, I promise. And Eleanor, I must ask that you do not repeat anything you learn tonight. While my friends haven’t gathered at Far Hope for many years, they still meet, and they still risk exposure. Many of them are powerful, but many are not. Even the powerful ones might not escape punishment, if it came down to that.”

  “Punishment?” Eleanor repeated.

  He nodded once. It was a grave reality. The Second Kingdom—so called because it existed like a shadow realm inside the actual monarchy—conferred some safety and liberty for its people to love and fuck whoever and however they wished, and to live how they needed to. But that safety was sorely limited outside the confines of the Kingdom, and the danger of being discovered was all too real.

  “Do I have your word that you will keep the things you learn tonight confidential? At least where the revelation would risk someone other than myself?”

  “You have my word, Your Grace,” she said solemnly, and it was surprising how much he already missed her calling him by his Christian name.

  “Thank you,” he said, and then continued. “As far back as anyone knows, Far Hope was a place for, well, baser needs, one might say. Some think it began at the Abbey, which was a place of pilgrimage for women wishing to conceive. Some think it started before that, with the Romans, or maybe even the Druids. But what is known for certain is that my valley became a place where people could indulge themselves. Carnally.” He studied her then, before he continued. She didn’t look frightened or disgusted. She wasn’t scrambling away from him, begging to leave.

  When will you stop underestimating her?

  He continued. “It’s an entire world—servants and peers alike—and membership is handed down both by birthright and by sponsorship. I learned of the Kingdom on my eighteenth birthday and was allowed to join on my twenty-first. I was elated.”

  Every family had different customs around how to handle their adult children joining. But like many other parents, Dartham parents retired from public Kingdom events—at least the more salacious ones—once their children were inducted, although they continued their private affairs as they had before. Which meant that Jarrell’s initiation had also been a coronation of sorts, since he’d been assuming his father’s former role as the Kingdom’s figurehead.

  Jarrell had been so thoroughly coronated that he’d barely been able to walk the next day.

  “The Kingdom has very few rules,” he continued, “and it follows no law but pleasure. Other than a partner’s acquiescence and a dedication to secrecy, there is very little members do not permit themselves. As the master of Far Hope, there was very, very little I did not permit myself.”

  She tilted her head. “Even after your marriage?”

  “Helena…she wanted to. There are many married couples who indulge in our world either in tandem or separately. But she took ill with her cough in the days right after our wedding, and I devoted myself completely to caring for her. There were no more Kingdom events at Far Hope after that.”

  “You said Helena wanted to. Did you want to as well?”

  “Pardon?”

  “I mean, would you have acquiesced because you also wanted the Kingdom’s offerings or only because you loved her?”

  “Both, I suppose. Perhaps I fell in love with Helena because she wanted the same things I did.”

  “Did? Past tense?” She looked down at the blanket pooled around her knees. “Do you no longer want those indulgences?”

  “You don’t even know what those indulgences entailed, Eleanor.”

  She raised her eyes to his. “Then tell me.”

  He’d already learned not to underestimate her, an
d so he paid attention to his own lesson.

  With a deep, trepidatious breath, he told her

  Chapter Nine

  In her wildest thoughts, in her most secret dreams, Eleanor might have conjured up the world of silk and sex, of velvet and vice, that Jarrell described to her…but learning it was real, that what she’d seen at the Foscourts’ was not an outlier at all but part of a glimmering, wonderful whole…it was intoxicating.

  There were parties—often at Far Hope, but also in London and in other sumptuous locations across the island—and there were pageants and performances, banquets and balls and masques and carnivals. Feasts of the flesh and glittering gatherings that lasted for days and weeks. There were orgiastic rites as elaborate as they were impure and bewitching.

  It was a world in which the body was as holy as the spirit. A world in which everyone, not just men, could be physically satisfied without censure. A world in which anyone a person desired—anyone—could be loved and embraced without sanction, scourge, or peril. In which someone could live authentically, not only in who they desired, but in whom they desired themselves to be.

  There was no division between proper and improper, no demarcation of what was divine and what was damned. As Jarrell had said, there was no law but pleasure. No limit but acquiescence.

  No rule but secrecy.

  This—though she hadn’t had the words for it, the framework for it—this is what she’d been craving ever since the Foscourts’ party. A life in which serenity could be exchanged for sensation, a world where she could have complete autonomy over her choices.

  If she were part of this family, this clan Jarrell referred to as the Second Kingdom, then her only duty would be to herself and her own fulfillment. Her faithfulness would be given to whom she chose—not whom her father chose.

  She glanced up at Jarrell, who looked more like a villain than ever in his shirtsleeves and breeches, with his silver-threaded hair glinting in the dim glow of the fire. Even in this mint-painted, delicately trimmed room—the exact opposite of the gothic wood and stone of Far Hope—he imbued the air with a raw, ungodly thrill.