Duke I’d Like to F…

by Sierra Simone

  She could only stare, riveted by the sight of him. God only knew what expression she wore, but he looked fevered, almost wild.

  “I need more lessons,” he said gruffly.

  She took a step closer. Her hand rose of its own volition, heeding the unrelenting call of her body to touch him.

  He reached for her, and his fingers wrapped around her wrist. This small touch sent pure heat pouring through her.

  Her gaze fell on the door to a diminutive closet, then back to him. “In there.”

  In an instant, he’d opened the closet door and stepped inside, tugging her in after him. He had the presence of mind to shut the door softly behind them.

  The closet’s darkness enfolded her, turning her sightless, but she barely noticed as Owen pulled her against him. Their lips found each other, desperate with desire. She moaned into his mouth as his hands roamed over her body, cupping her arse, molding to her breasts, devouring her by touch. She caressed him, skimming her palms across his wide shoulders and down the sinewy length of his arms. The heat of him scorched her and she let herself be burned after an interminable week without him.

  A low cabinet bumped against her back, and suddenly he lifted her, sitting her atop it.

  He stood between her open legs as they kissed and stroked each other. When he rocked his hips into hers, despite the barrier of his breeches and her skirts, she felt the ridge of his arousal sliding snugly against her quim.

  He gathered her skirts, gliding up her legs, past her knees and thighs. She bit down a cry when he glossed through her outer lips before swirling deeper, where she was wet and aching, and when he plunged two fingers into her, she clamped her jaws shut to keep from wailing with pleasure. His thumb moved back and forth over her clitoris as he pumped into her. His jacket’s woolen cuff brushed against her thighs, and the feel of the fabric only heightened urgency.

  Her climax struck hard and fast, and she bowed up with the force of it. Her throat was aflame from stifling her sounds of release.

  He moved her, pulling her to her feet but turning her so that her hands braced against the top of the cabinet.

  “Yes?” he growled as he bared her.

  “Yes,” she answered.

  And then he said nothing, only made a feral noise as she heard the sounds of him unfastening his breeches. His fingers caressed over her arse, dipping lower to her trembling pussy. She widened her legs and held her breath as he fit the crown of his cock to her opening.

  One hand on her hip, he thrust into her, thick and full. She couldn’t keep from crying out in bliss, then his other hand came up to cover her mouth.

  “Shh,” he breathed against her neck.

  Breath sawed in and out of Cecilia’s nose as he continued to fuck her. She jolted with the force of each superbly rough stroke, writhing with ecstasy as she fought to keep from making any sound to alert passersby in the corridor. His own breath came in short, hard pants that gusted across her nape.

  Owen’s hand moved down from Cecilia’s hip to her clitoris, rubbing it as he thrust into her.

  Cecilia came so powerfully she saw bright constellations behind her closed eyes. It was a mercy Owen’s hand covered her mouth, else she would have screamed so loud as to bring the whole house running.

  A moment later, he pulled from her, and his hot seed spattered across the dip just above her arse.

  Owen slid his hand away from her mouth, and she sagged forward as their gasps mingled in the tight confines of the narrow closet. Sex and lavender scented the air.

  Soft cloth stroked over her behind as he cleaned her.

  She turned, and he was there, pulling her to him as they kissed deeply. Every swipe of his tongue against hers made her hum with pleasure.

  “I wonder if there’s anything left to teach you.” She shivered in the afterglow of how he’d been so commanding, so driven with need that he’d forgotten all his reticence. “You won’t need me anymore.”

  “Never say that,” he said insistently. “There’s so much I have to know—and you’re the one to guide me.”

  Only when his fingertip brushed against her cheek and spread wetness across her skin did she realize she wept.

  “Vita mia,” he murmured, “why are you crying?”

  She hadn’t cried in years. “I…missed you.”

  His lips found hers. “Every moment we were apart was torture. Here, with you, is where I belong, and to hell with the consequences.”

  “Parliament?”

  “I voted as I was supposed to. Now that’s done and I’m here again.”

  She wrapped her arms around him tightly, loving the feel of him.

  “Amore mio,” he said hoarsely, “I don’t want to stop what we have. I think of what it would mean to never kiss you again, never touch you again, and it shatters me. But I’ll do what you want, only tell me.” His voice rasped. “I need to hear it from you—do you want me to stay?”

  A shudder ran through her as she pressed her heated face against his shoulder. “I know this cannot last. I know this and yet…and yet…” She swallowed in an attempt to collect herself, but her efforts were futile, and her voice shook. “I will take what I can get.”

  He sucked in a breath, then rubbed his lips against the crown of her head. “Tonight. We’ll meet again at the cottage.”

  “Midnight, at the cottage.”

  He was hers and she was his—for now. She could not ask for more than that, even as she ached with wanting more, with wanting him to be hers forever.

  Chapter Eight

  Diving beneath the surface of the pond was like diving into midnight itself. Water black as the sky surrounded Owen, and with a few strokes of his arms, he drove himself through it as though swimming through his own dreams.

  He surfaced, taking in air, and sleek, wet arms immediately encircled him.

  Pulling Cecilia closer, his lips found hers. Her slick body pressed close to him. Wrapping his arms around her waist, he held her close as he used his legs to propel them through the water. They were one creature, buoyant as they glided together.

  He rolled onto his back, his hold on her secure so that she lay partially atop him. Lazily, he kicked his feet, keeping Cecilia and himself at the pond’s surface. He loved the feel of her with him in the water, where peace came so readily. Though he swam and sculled at Oxford, it was never as wonderful as it was here, in Tarrington House’s pond, with Cecilia in his arms.

  “There’s almost nowhere to swim in London,” he murmured.

  Moonlight traced the curve of her cheek and down the length of her wet hair. “The Thames is hardly fitting for a bathe.”

  “The best I was able to find were the Highgate Ponds at Hampstead Heath, but the demands on my time ensured I was only able to go once in the whole week.”

  “How fortunate you’ve returned to all the pleasures of Tarrington House.” She rubbed her breasts against his chest. In response, he cupped one of his hands around the curve of her arse. A startled but pleased laugh escaped her. “Such boldness you’ve cultivated in your time away.”

  He could do that now, touch her without the hesitation and second guessing that had so hindered him.

  “If I’ve become bold,” he said, moving his legs to push them toward the shore, “it’s because I have received excellent instruction.”

  “No teacher could ask for a more receptive student.”

  They reached the banks of the pond, and he lifted her up so she could stand. Joining hands, they strode through the silt and reeds until they reached the grass. They stretched out side by side on the blanket she’d taken from the cottage. The air was thick and sultry, barely stirred by a breeze, ensuring that neither he nor Cecilia would be chilled as they lay together in the depths of a warm night.

  He stroked his hand lazily up and down her back, and they were quiet together. As they’d arranged earlier—after they’d furiously, clandestinely fucked in the closet—they had met in the cottage. There, he’d showed her exactly how much her lessons ha
d taught him. Her teeth left marks on his shoulder from where she’d bitten him during her climaxes. Thank God he preferred to dress himself rather than rely on his valet, even though Owen was reasonably certain that Chalmers wouldn’t go tattling to other servants. Still, if he could keep the gossip mill quiet about the new duke’s amorous life, all the better.

  “You’ve talked little of London,” she murmured.

  He shrugged. “Buried in meetings and engagements. There was hardly time to enjoy it.” There had been a sophisticated, pretty widow he had met at a dinner party—they hadn’t sat beside each other, but the lady had made eyes at him throughout the meal. When they had gathered afterward in the drawing room, she’d offered him nights in her bed for the duration of his stay in the city. He had politely declined.

  “Though,” he said, “I met with MacCulloch, the president of the Geological Society of London, in the relatively new headquarters on Bedford Street. We discussed new classification systems. He’s some theories on mineralogy that—” He stopped at her laugh.

  “This the first I’ve heard you speak of London with any enthusiasm.” She propped her chin on her fist. “And it’s absolutely perfect that it relates not to the theater or an assembly, but rocks and minerals.”

  “Can’t find good examples of chalcocite next to the punch bowl.”

  “And cucumber sandwiches aren’t copper ores,” she added.

  His brows climbed, and he was momentarily stunned into silence.

  She laughed again. “It was worth it to research the minerology of Britain, if only to see the look on your face.”

  “You researched…? Why?”

  “It’s important to you.” Her gaze dropped, and he didn’t know what surprised him more, the fact that she had taken the time to learn about geology because it mattered to him, or her sudden shyness. She was never shy, yet here she was, bashful as a girl fresh from the schoolroom.

  Leaning close, he kissed her.

  When they pulled back many moments later, they both breathed heavily. He said in a gravelly voice, “I wish I’d brought you something from London—jade hair combs, or ruby ear bobs.”

  “Such things are pretty, but I’ve no need of them. How’s a governess to explain why she has jewels hanging from her ears and costly ornaments in her hair?”

  “A fair point. Dispiriting, but fair. But,” he added, brightening, “I do have books for you. They’re arriving tomorrow with my luggage. Travel accounts of far-flung places, and the latest by the Lady of Dubious Quality.”

  She stroked her fingers down his arm. “How well you know me.”

  “I wish to know you as deeply as anyone can know another.”

  “Why?” she asked with genuine curiosity.

  “You have seen and done so much,” he answered. “Survived so much. There are worlds and worlds inside you.”

  “I’m a resource to be exploited?” She lifted an eyebrow.

  “You are a person to be known and cherished. For as long as I can have you in my life, that’s what I desire.”

  It gnawed at him, that goddamn farthing, always reminding him of his duty and the pressures of his position.

  Now and again, he wished to throw that fucking coin into the ocean. Guilt washed over him—he couldn’t push away the lesson his father had been so careful to impart. But hell if it wasn’t a burden that he sometimes wanted to flee.

  Stories of kings and princes disguising themselves to live amongst the normal people sounded damned appealing.

  “Keep speaking such things,” she said softly, resting her head on his shoulder, “and I’ll open for you like a vault.”

  Where to start? “What do you like best about being a governess?”

  She was quiet briefly. “There’s a moment, a beautiful moment, when I give one of my pupils some knowledge. The fact that Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia received a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Padua in 1678, making her the first woman to receive that degree—in the West, at any rate. Or that the oldest library in the world was founded by Fatima El-Firhi, at the university she also created. These jewels are placed in my students’ crowns, making every one of them into empresses.”

  Her eyes glowed as she spoke, and her smile was as radiant as any queen’s diadem.

  “You give them the power to believe in themselves,” he murmured.

  “It’s a beautiful power. One I wish every girl in every land could possess. That is my ambition, you know.”

  “As a governess?”

  “Not forever. I hope to save enough that I might start a school for girls and give them the gift of learning.”

  “What a wonder you are,” he said softly.

  She chuckled. “A conduit for learning, nothing more.”

  “Everything more.” He turned onto his side to face her. “There’s an art to teaching, and while there are many poor practitioners of that art, there are those with prodigious gifts. Not just of knowledge, but of this.” He rested his palm between her breasts, and her heart beat steadily beneath his touch.

  She kissed him, then leaned back, her expression melancholy. “Being the headmistress of a school carries with it its own responsibilities and considerations. Including the fact that whomever is in charge of a school must possess what society considers faultless moral character.”

  He exhaled, understanding like a vise squeezing the air from him. “Romantic affairs are not part of that faultless moral character.”

  “When I eventually leave Tarrington House,” she said, her voice low, “we can have no more contact with each other.”

  His lips pressed into a tight seam. Because he had been on the verge of asking her to be his mistress, for as long as she was willing. To the best of his knowledge, his father had not kept a paramour. Owen had planned to remain faithful to his future wife—yet the thought of parting from Cecilia had been a spear through his heart. Keeping her as a mistress wasn’t an ideal solution, but it had been the best he’d been able to grasp.

  Even that could not be.

  “I’d never stand between you and your dreams,” he said at last.

  She stroked a hand down his face, and her silence confirmed what he suspected. Theirs was an affair that could not last.

  “Ellie’s only eleven,” he added. “So we have considerable time ahead of us before we need to contemplate any of this.”

  “Many years,” Cecilia said with a gentle smile.

  The night’s sounds surrounded them, crickets and frogs singing in the darkness, forming a protective barrier between them and the world.

  “Was it very terrifying,” she asked, “casting your first vote in Parliament?”

  The change of subject was a momentary relief from pondering saying goodbye to her. He admitted, “I had expected to be shaken to my marrow. Easily, I was the youngest man there, green as a summer hayfield. And yet…When it came my turn to speak, the most curious thing happened.” He rubbed his thumb across her bottom lip. “You were in my head.”

  “Me?”

  “What you taught me.”

  She made a small, alarmed noise. “On the floor of Parliament, you demonstrated how to lick a woman’s quim.”

  He laughed. “You also taught me how to own my authority. It was there, the strength you showed me how to responsibly wield. I looked into all those men’s faces, some of them friendly, many of them hostile. The young man fresh from Oxford would have been afraid to make his opinion known—might have even caved to the pressure to vote against his conscience. But I wasn’t that inexperienced lad anymore. I felt confident in my strength, because of you.”

  “Because of you,” she said, tucking a lock of his hair behind his ear. “You were already heading toward your destination, I merely guided you to the road that would get you there a little more directly.”

  Threading his fingers with hers, he lay on his back and looked at the night sky spread above them. He hadn’t been able to see the stars in London, yet it made sense that if he could see them, it was
with her beside him.

  “It was a difficult thing to give a boy,” he said softly, “that farthing.”

  “A considerable responsibility to lay on a child’s shoulders,” she murmured.

  “Not every boy would be weighted down with it.”

  “You aren’t every boy,” she pointed out. “You’re you—someone who feels deeply, and that is a wonderful quality.”

  He snorted. “Not to Englishmen, it isn’t.” He’d held himself apart from the other aristocratic boys at Eton and Oxford, the ones who had felt entitled to their privilege, which meant that his circle of friends had been small. Small, but valuable.

  “What Englishmen value is not precisely the apotheosis of significance,” she said drily. “I do hate to disabuse them of the notion that their opinion is not all that matters.”

  A laugh burst from him. “I don’t think you hate disabusing them of that. You enjoy it.”

  “Perhaps I do.” She wore an adorably smug smile, but it faded. “Are you angry with him for giving you that farthing?”

  He turned the thought over again, considering it from all angles as though it were a piece of obsidian—one that was darkly beautiful, but could also cut deeply.

  “Sometimes,” he admitted. “He had his plans for me, and the kind of duke I would become one day. Truth is, I can’t be him. I want to, but I can’t.”

  “I want you to be yourself,” she said firmly. “No one else. You’re simply, brilliantly Owen. Beneath all your ducal splendor, that’s who you are.”

  Reaching up, he cupped her jaw, soaking in the feel of her skin against his. “With you, I am more myself than I am with anyone. And I thank you for giving me the gift of you. I wish—”

  A corner of her mouth lifted sadly. “As do I. But they’re only wishes, which have a terrible reputation for not coming true.”

  Chapter Nine

  The next day, Owen examined another document related to a tin mining operation that required additional capital. He was careful to give it his full attention. People’s livelihoods were at stake, and regardless of how little sleep he’d had last night, the mining scheme deserved thorough concentration and consideration.