Duke I’d Like to F…

by Sierra Simone

  She placed one hand on his chest, her other still gripped tightly around him. He felt her knees spread as far as they would go in the chair, and then—Jesus—God—more, she was taking more. He looked down and nearly perished; the plump head of his cock was nearly inside, and the clutch of her, the unforgiving clasp…like he was being wedged into heaven itself.

  He wanted to punch his hips up into her. He wanted to thrust, to take, to have that fist-like silk all over him from base to crown. He wanted to find the end of her sheath; he wanted her so filled with him that she milked him as she came. He wanted her swollen bud rubbing against him as she rode him, taking him deep, so fucking deep . . .

  “You’re trembling,” she observed, looking up at him. She was so beautiful like this, with her cheeks pink and her eyes bright. With her pretty mouth not in a frown of forbearance but a pout of pure, untrammeled need.

  “You’re trembling too,” he said. He could feel her quivering, see her stomach contracting as she adjusted to the stretch of his member. “Does it hurt?”

  He did not want to hurt her. Well, not this way at least—he couldn’t deny that he wanted to discipline her sweet little bottom and redden the curves of her breasts with his stubble. But this was a different kind of pain. Jarrell well remembered the first time he’d been fucked by another man; he’d ejaculated hard in the end, jetting his spend all over his chest while a decadent Michaelmas ball whirled around him, but it had taken time for him to relax around the intrusion, to feel the discomfort melt into a sharp, raw pleasure.

  He would go carefully.

  His hands were now fisted on the arms of the chair because he didn’t trust himself to touch her, to circle her waist or grip her hips, lest he bruise her in his lust. He was close to the brink, skating along the edge of brutal animality, and the only thing keeping him tethered to stillness was the knowledge that this was Eleanor, his vernal Eleanor. Stronger than anyone else he’d ever known, even though she shouldn’t have had to be. He did not want her to hurt for this night. He wanted this to be worth every single ounce of the risk she was taking.

  With a low whimper and the flutter of her eyelids, she worked her way down another inch as she murmured, “It doesn’t hurt, I don’t think. It’s close to hurt, but it’s not—oh—”

  Another inch. Her head fell back, and the golden hair around her breasts slid and shifted, revealing the bunched points of her nipples. He surveyed the flushed heave of her plump breasts as she panted, examined the subtle quiver of her stomach. He greedily traced the arch of her throat and the bevel of her collarbone with his eyes, committing every last bit of it to memory. He could never forget this, how she looked, how she felt. How huskily she moaned and whispered, the way she murmured his name over and over again like a prayer as she took another inch, and then another, and another, and then a couple. With a final whimper, she impaled herself fully, and then shuddered, falling against him and tucking herself into his chest.

  Her trust gutted him. The sweet clasp of her crucified him. He could no more stop himself from wrapping his arms around her once more than he could stop himself from breathing. He slid his hands up and down her bare back, gentling her, soothing her, reassuring her every time she moved and then gasped.

  “It hurts a little now,” she whispered against his skin, and then nuzzled into him. “I feel it everywhere, in my chest and in my bones, and I never want to stop feeling it. It’s like…a song. Or like a strong wine. Every time I think I’m not sure, it lures me back in again.”

  He kissed her head, her silky hair so impossibly soft against his lips. She smelled so wonderful, like rain and fire and flowers. “Take your time,” he said, his voice coming out both reverent and rough. “Take anything you need.”

  They stayed like this for a few minutes, her speared with his prick and curled trustingly against him, Jarrell stone-still except for his gentling hands on her back and the shaking of his muscles, which he could not control.

  The restraint it took not to move or to come . . .

  Sweat began to slick his stomach and his chest, but he would not yield to his need. He would give her this, he would give her anything, he would give her everything, because he loved—

  No.

  Fear, cold and ugly, roiled inside him at the word. He did not love her, he could not. It was impossible, because if he did love her—

  I don’t, he thought, and with a short thrust of his hips, he tried to prove it to himself. It’s only the fucking. I should know better, because, of course, it’s only the fucking.

  But whatever he was trying to prove was beside the point, because as soon as he moved into her, she made a noise that changed everything—a noise of curious delight. Of exquisite surprise.

  And then, of course, he made a noise, too, because it was the first full stroke into her, the first real thrust, and it felt better than heaven. It felt like dying terribly only to be brought back to life, and he had to do it again, he had to, and so he did.

  “Oh God,” she breathed, lifting her head. Goose bumps covered her everywhere. “Ajax.”

  He tried to remember himself, to remember that this was Eleanor’s first time. “Yes, little blossom?”

  A pretty smile curved her mouth. “Do it again.”

  He did it again, a smile pulling on his own lips as he watched her eyes flutter in rapture. “Does it still hurt?”

  “No,” she said dreamily. “And yes. I can’t describe it. But I want more of it.”

  “You can have as much as you want,” he said, taking her hips in his hands and showing her how to move over him—not up and down, but back and forth, as if she were riding a horse. “Feel how I’m moving you now. Let me lead you—yes, you like that? You like feeling me? Keep going, just like that. Christ, you feel good.”

  The first rock forward had her shuddering; the second one had her gasping. After that, she didn’t need his hands to guide her, to show her the way, because she found it all on her own, following her pleasure as she circled over him, chasing the friction as she ground against him.

  And once she found that perfect angle, that perfect rolling of her hips that allowed her to be serviced both inside and outside?

  She was lost to him then, lost beyond all reach. He held her, he stroked her, he grunted low, filthy words of encouragement to her, but the pleasure was taking her for its own, stealing her away bit by deliciously flushed bit. Her hands wandered over his muscled arms and firm chest; her fingers toyed with the dark hair there and skated over his nipples. She scratched her nails gently over his stubble and bent low to lick his lips.

  She was fucking him, using him, pleasuring herself with him, and he never wanted her to stop.

  “That’s right,” he said. “That’s it.”

  She dropped her head back as she moved faster and faster over him, her breasts moving with each snap of her hips and each desperate breath she dragged in. He could so easily see the sweet anatomy of her like this—the pink berry rubbing against him, the stretch of her wet glove around his erection. Her arched throat and her pouting nipples.

  But it was her face he watched the most, the expressions that chased themselves over her upturned features. Astonishment, ecstasy. Hunger. He could watch her like this for hours. For days.

  For the rest of his life.

  If she were his little wife…

  If she were his, then he could. He could have her always, have her in his lap like this whenever she wanted—which, judging by her eagerness now, would be quite often indeed. He’d have his hands full keeping a young bride sated, but it would be the world’s sweetest labor, a duty he’d gladly deliver up anything and everything he owned in order to perform.

  What if it’s not just the fucking?

  What if I love her?

  What did that mean about him? That he could love again? Did it mean he’d loved Helena any less? Mourned his losses imperfectly? He used to think so, and yet…

  “Ajax,” Eleanor moaned, her head falling forward and her hands se
izing on his shoulders, as if trying to anchor herself against a buffeting storm. As if trying to hold on.

  “How is this pretty cunt?” he whispered. “How does it feel?”

  “I—good—but—”

  The but was written all over her face. It was something like panic, something like fear, like the feeling was too big, too overwhelming. He knew that feeling all too well, though he hadn’t felt it for sixteen years. It was the feeling of a looming climax that didn’t feel like a climax at all but a ruin, an annihilation, something that would rip you in half and leave you dying after. The kind of orgasm you didn’t know whether to reach for or run away from.

  He held her tight against his chest as the first wave took her, as she cried out his name. “I’ve got you,” he murmured into her hair, once again fighting his own body as it keened to fuck up into her sweetness. “I’ve got you.”

  She trembled into his chest as the cataclysm took her, and he treasured—treasured—each and every whimper she made, each and every caught breath that blew over his skin. Each and every seize of her quim around his member. “You are beautiful,” he said as she quaked in his arms. “You are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. The most wonderful thing I’ve ever felt.”

  My life will be empty without you.

  It took longer than a minute, maybe it took two, but after several long, shivering clenches, her climax abated and left her limp and sated against his chest. He continued to be still, save for his arms around her and his hands playing in her hair, because if he moved even a little, if he shoved up just the tiniest bit . . .

  “Your Grace,” Eleanor said, tilting her head to look up at him. “You have deceived me.”

  “Is that so, little blossom?”

  She liked when he called her that, he could tell, even when she ducked her head to hide her smile. “Yes, it’s very much so, Ajax. All that talk about the wickedness and carnality of the Second Kingdom…and yet I’d hardly call you wicked or carnal at all. You were very polite and gentle, maybe like a vicar would be?”

  Her teasing was as obvious as it was effective. Patience spent, gentleness spent, they were up and out of the chair in an instant, him sweeping her off to the bed and her laughing the whole way—laughs that melted into moans as he threw her on the bed and climbed between her thighs. He wasted no time in piercing her once again, sliding his organ back into her intimate flesh with a rough shove of his hips. Ah, that felt exquisite, delectable, divine. To rut and fuck, to watch her breasts move with each thrust. To see those dilated eyes, those flushed cheeks, and feel her greedy fingers squeezing his arms, his hips, scratching along his back.

  That it was Eleanor, this deviant little blossom who’d awakened him…obsessed him…

  “Does it hurt still?” he breathed.

  “Yes,” she said. “But I like it.”

  Abruptly, he needed all of him and all of her to be one. With a growl, he withdrew and rolled her to her stomach.

  “Ajax,” she murmured, sending a look over her shoulder. “What are you—oh. Oh. Fuuuck.”

  The curse on the lips of his English rose was both crudely arousing and adorable as hell. He would have smiled at it if he weren’t already mounting her from behind, if he weren’t already watching his thick inches disappear into her rosy cunt. He went slowly, for himself, for all the long, lonely nights of the rest of his life when he’d have only his hand to oblige him. He wanted to remember this sight, with her spread out like this. The delicate camber of her back, the generous curves of her bottom, the tousle of her golden hair.

  He never wanted to forget the subtle flex of her upper arms as she braced herself to look over her shoulder at him, nor the swoop of her pert little nose silhouetted against his counterpane. The perfect, sinful feel of her private place gripping his cock, welcoming him in. Tempting him to fill her full of himself.

  “I didn’t realize,” she said faintly, moving underneath him. Seeking friction. “I didn’t realize it would feel like this. When I saw it in books—at the Foscourts’—I had no idea…”

  She sounded both full of puzzled wonder and already kindled for her next orgasm, and oh, the things he could show her, the things he could teach her, the revelations he could give her.

  The sins they could invent together.

  The way her eyes had gleamed when he’d described the Kingdom to her, shining with fascination and desire . . .

  He couldn’t let himself have more than this. But as he moved over her, laying his body over hers and sliding an arm under her chest as he lovingly held her throat with one hand, he decided he could pretend. Just for a few minutes, while they were joined, mating, skin to skin and heat to heat. Just while he felt her swallow and gasp against his palm as another climax took her, and while he released into her with something like a roar, pumping and spilling and filling…

  Only then would he pretend he could love her and she could love him.

  Only then would he allow it.

  And then, no more.

  Chapter Eleven

  She slept.

  Caged happily in his arms and trapped against his hair-dusted shield of a chest, she dozed off and on, waking to his kisses in her hair or his fingers running along her spine. Twice, they woke together, and twice more she reached those glorious peaks. And afterwards, each time, he’d tucked the blankets around her as tenderly as he had been rough moments earlier, pulled her against him, and caressed her until she’d fallen back into a deep, contented sleep.

  It wasn’t until she opened her eyes and realized she was alone in the bed that the harsh enormity of last night came crashing in. The failed escape, the brush with a cold and lonely death. The revelation of the Second Kingdom, and her decision.

  The wonderful brutality of Jarrell last night.

  No, not Jarrell. Ajax.

  Named for the warrior who fell on his own sword rather than live in dishonor, which possibly explained why she was curled up in bed alone, with her arms flung around a cool pillow instead of a grumpy, midnight-eyed duke.

  When she sat up, she saw him sitting in a chair by the fire, the cloudy morning light catching the silver threads in his hair. “I’ve sent for a carriage and a change of clothes, and notified your parents of your improved health,” he said without looking away from the fitful, popping embers in his fireplace. “They anticipate your return to Far Hope. However, the carriage’s destination is in your hands, Lady Eleanor. I can take you to Far Hope, where I will arrange for the wedding to be called off, or I can escort you to some other destination, where you may do anything else you please.”

  Her two options, according to him. Both leaving her husbandless.

  Ajax-less.

  What else did you expect?

  Still, the disappointment dug into her heart like tiny, awful splinters. Thousands of them, delving into her ventricles and veins. She knew what he was going to say before he said it, and even though she’d expected it—even though she’d formed plans and decisions around it last night—it didn’t make it hurt any less.

  She wanted to ask him again, plead with him, to reconsider these certainties he’d made for himself, to reconsider the life of abnegation and suffering he thought he deserved after the people he’d loved had died.

  But she would not beg. Not because she was too proud—was anyone too proud to ask for what they wanted when it sat not ten feet away, brooding at a fire?—but because she knew it would be futile.

  If last night, with its surging pleasure and bliss, had not been enough to convince him, then nothing would. Especially not her words spoken awkwardly into the weak morning light. No, her mother’s vague ailments and the Pennard Hall renovations had taught Eleanor all about futility and lost causes, and she was not the type of woman to ignore a lesson.

  Now you know the future can be whatever you want it to be. She knew what she wanted—even if it couldn’t be with Ajax, she still wanted it—and she knew what price she’d pay to have it. Even if it meant some tense arguments with a certain Da
rtham heir.

  But if she’d renovated an entire estate on her own, there wasn’t any reason she couldn’t persuade Gilbert to see things her way if she tried hard enough. Right?

  “I’ll return to Far Hope, Your Grace,” Eleanor said, her voice quiet but also very steady. “As soon as the carriage can take me.”

  It was nearly embarrassing to see what a short way she’d come in the night; the road that had seemed leagues long in the rainy darkness turned out only to have been four short miles, and all of them were passed easily—if jouncingly—enough in the carriage. She made the mistake of saying this to Jarrell, who sat scowling out the carriage window, and his scowl deepened.

  “There’s no such thing as a short mile in the moors,” he said.

  “I didn’t mean to make you angry.”

  He wouldn’t look at her. “The memory of you nearly dying will always evoke powerful emotion in me. I apologize.”

  Defensiveness spiked through her. “I ran because I didn’t think I had a choice, Your Grace.”

  He didn’t like it when she called him that, she could tell by the dark look he shot her. “You always have choices.”

  “Says a peer who’s never had them taken away.”

  “You have a choice now,” he said, ignoring her dig. “Do you not?”

  “I allow that I do.” However excruciating that choice might be.

  “I wish you safe, Eleanor,” he said. “That’s all. Safe and happy.”

  She couldn’t resist, even though she wanted to. “I’ve already told you how I could be happy.”

  His eyes were troubled, his sensual mouth pressed into the very shape of unhappiness.

  “I know,” he said after a moment. “I know you did.”

  And that was all. If she’d hoped the carriage ride would change his mind, if she’d hoped that at the eleventh hour he would realize he could set aside his grief and that they belonged together after all…