Darling Duke

by Scarlett Scott

  Even if he was.

  A foolish part of Spencer wished he had more to offer her. She was not the self-centered flirt he had once imagined her to be, and he knew that now. It was not lost upon him how astute she had been during his conflict with Harry earlier when he had been yearning to plant a fist in his brother’s jaw to stem the flow of unwanted revelations. He well understood why Harry would be jealous that he had Boadicea all to himself, but his bitter words had been almost unforgivable. Yet, through it all, his fierce wife had held fast, her palm pressed to his back to give him strength, never wavering from her championing of him.

  He was humbled.

  Gratified.

  Hell, he didn’t know what he was. What he did know was that he had finished two fingers of whisky, he had just married the most beautiful, desirable, vexing, stubborn minx in England, and she was even now only separated from him by wood and precious little distance.

  Here, at least, was something he could freely give her: his body.

  He could not wait another moment more. Need, primitive and all-consuming, pulsed through him. More than anything, he wanted to burst through her door, take her up in his arms, and carry her to the bed where he would lick her everywhere and then plant himself so deeply inside her that she would feel his possession forever.

  And she was his now. His wife. He had married Boadicea Harrington, impetuous, reckless, stubborn, outspoken, ridiculously maddening Boadicea Harrington.

  He stalked toward the door.

  It swung open.

  Wide, blue eyes met his. There she stood, glorious and wild, her auburn hair unbound and falling in a curtain to her waist. She wore a white silken dressing gown, her bare feet peeping from beneath the hem. She was bloody beautiful, even more than she had been earlier in her ivory gown with its elaborate skirts and cluster of satin roses.

  He had never seen a fucking lovelier sight. He couldn’t speak. Couldn’t breathe. Everything else—the tension between them, the trials of the day, his interfering mother and angry brother, his past and all his fears—fell away. There was only her, and a fresh wave of need slid through him.

  “I could not wait,” she said, her voice husky, a hesitant smile on her lush lips.

  Thank Christ. She had come to him. Of course she had. He should have expected nothing different from the bold, fearless woman he had married. She was the same woman who had stood before him nude without a crumb of shame, who had kissed him that day in his library. He found himself, as he savored the sight of her now, in awe of her tenacity.

  He realized belatedly that he was gawping at her like a callow youth, as though she was the first beautiful woman he had ever seen. Whether it was the tender expression on her face or the hesitant way she lingered at the threshold—the only sign that her bravado had a hairline crack—he was pleased that she was his. Pleased that she had come to him. That she had wanted to. They had both been a ragged bundle of nerves for most of the day, and he had not been sure what to expect from her this evening.

  “I am glad you did not,” he admitted finally, his tone rough and raw with need and pent-up desire. It had been a month since he had last touched her with anything other than polite courtesy. A month since she had been naked beneath him, and he had relived the delirious joy of that day each night since, alone in his bed with only his bloody hand for solace.

  At long last, his wait was over.

  “You were dawdling.” Her daring was firmly back in place as she walked toward him, and he could not be certain if it was her intention or if it was the natural way she glided across the floor, but the sway of her hips was going to be the death of him.

  “I was being a gentleman.” Drawn to her, he moved, helping to close the unwanted distance between them. Three strides was all it took. He inhaled deeply. Jasmine. His cock went painfully stiff. “I wished to give you ample time to ready yourself.”

  “I am ready,” she said, a becoming flush tingeing her cheekbones.

  He wondered if she would be wet if he pulled aside her dressing gown and pressed his fingers into the warm folds of her cunny. Would she be dripping? Lord God, he had to stop or he would not last the next ten minutes, let alone the night.

  Instead of touching her there, he traced the backs of his fingers over her jaw, and her skin was every bit as soft and perfect as he remembered, like fresh whipped cream that he longed to devour.

  “I have a gift for you. Two gifts, actually,” he elaborated, wanting to give them to her before he lost his mind and himself inside her.

  Her smile deepened, and his heart almost stopped. He swore she grew more beautiful by the minute. “I have a gift for you as well. I nearly forgot. Wait here whilst I fetch it.”

  Before he could protest, she spun away from him, hurrying back across the thick Axminster and disappearing into the duchess’s chamber. Although he knew it was a temporary loss, that she would return momentarily, he felt it like a physical ache. She had filled the room, and both the space and he were emptier for her absence.

  Bloody hell. What ailed him? Perhaps it was that he was sorely in need of relief. All the blood in his body had been diverted to his straining, erect cock. Yes, he decided. That was precisely what was making him as witless as a March hare.

  He forced himself to retrieve the box containing her wrapped gifts, wondering at the wisdom of his second gift, which he had purchased on a whim and against his every sense of reason and fine judgment. But before he could think better of it, she had returned, clutching a small parcel, hips sashaying, mouth smiling, eyes gleaming.

  Damn, she was lovely. He cleared his throat, feeling unaccountably nervous and more than just a bit silly, and thrusted the box toward her. “Here you are.”

  She accepted it with one hand and gave him the package she had retrieved. “And here you are, husband. Open yours first, if you please. I went to great lengths to find it, so I do hope you will not be disappointed.”

  He almost told her that he could never be disappointed by anything she saw fit to give him—particularly if it was herself—but he held his tongue and opened the box instead. His heart thumped in his chest as he spotted a gleam of silver in the glow of the lamps.

  With a shaking hand, he picked the object from its nest of paper inside the box, holding it aloft for his inspection. A pocket watch, and not just any watch but a finely crafted one of silver, etched with a rearing stallion. An engraving on the reverse read from your favorite horse thief. His mouth went dry, and everything he could have said fled his mind in that instant.

  “Presumptuous of me to assume I would be your favorite horse thief, I know.” Her smile widened, and he became briefly mesmerized by the beauty mark alongside her mouth. “But I reasoned you likely do not know many, and the competition would not be fierce.”

  He stared at her, swallowing past the lump that had risen in his throat. Bloody hell. No one had ever given him a gift before, and as the silver watch in his palm warmed to his flesh, it seemed to burn straight into him. Something happened. Some sensation, foreign, unwanted, whipped through him. Something shifted inside him, and he felt it like a skeleton key fitting into a lock.

  Click. Open.

  The ability to experience happiness that he’d thought he had lost forever the day that Millicent had killed herself before him seemed within his reach. Perhaps it had never been gone, only hidden away, waiting for someone to look close enough to rescue it. To make him realize he still possessed the ability to feel.

  “Why do you look upon me so strangely?” Boadicea’s smile faltered, a bit of the riveting gleam fading from her gaze. “You do not like it, do you? Oh, bother, and here I had been thinking myself massively clever.”

  “Like it,” he repeated, his lips moving slowly, as though he were relearning to speak. And in some ways, perhaps he was. He was relearning himself in the process. Relearning everything he had once believed. She was changing him. Melting him. No. I will not let her. I cannot let her. He cleared his throat, chasing away any maudlin sentime
nt before adding, “I love it.”

  And he did, in spite of himself.

  “You do?” Her hopeful expression was adorable. He wanted to kiss her and gather her up in his arms and throw her on his bed all at the same time.

  “I do.” He allowed his eyes to roam appreciatively over her. “Thank you, Boadicea. It is an exceptionally fine piece, and I will think of you when I need the time.”

  And every second in between, but there was no need to say that bit aloud. He would not have his wife thinking he was obsessed with her. Or worse, in love with her. He most assuredly was not in love with her.

  Was he?

  Good Christ, no.

  There was no bloody way. Love was an illusion. A chimera. It didn’t exist.

  Her expressive face lit up, having no inkling of his inner battle. “Oh, Spencer. That was a lovely thing to say. I hope you meant that you will think of me happily and not with vexation. Imagine if whenever you checked the time you thought of me stealing your horse or infiltrating your library. Poor, innocent watch, to suffer your ire so.”

  He grinned, thoroughly enjoying the much-needed levity between them. Enjoying himself for the first time that day, in fact, as they were finally allowed to be each other. Alone. “You are the most peculiar female I have ever met.”

  She arched a brow, her expression turning wry. “Why, husband, you do know how to charm a lady.”

  He winced. “I meant it as a compliment, though perhaps my gifts to you will help to ease the sting of my blunder. Will you open them now?”

  “Of course.” She turned her attention to the box, unwrapping and opening it, withdrawing a small box first and glancing up at him with question.

  “Allow me.” He took the larger parcel from her. “I shall hold this one until you open the first.”

  When she removed the lid of the box, a gasp tore from her. He knew what she looked upon—the Marlow sapphires set in an ornate collar he had chosen himself, along with a glittering assortment of diamonds. The price of the necklace had been astoundingly dear, but there was nowhere else the Bainbridge sapphires belonged other than Boadicea’s throat, and he would pay the same sum thrice over if it meant she would wear them and stand at his side for the rest of their lives.

  “Spencer,” she said, her voice hushed with reverence. “This is a small fortune. You should never have—”

  “It is the Marlow sapphires,” he interrupted gently. “They belong to the Duchess of Bainbridge.”

  “Oh.” She lowered her head, studying the glinting stones.

  He understood her well enough to know that his explanation had not reassured her, and he also wished her to know that he wanted her to have them. That they belonged at her throat, that they were hers and she was his. That he had never given them to his first wife, for it had never seemed right, even before she had descended into madness. “You are the only duchess I have given them to, Boadicea. I had them placed in a new setting expressly for you. Do you like it?”

  She looked back up at him, her expression unreadable. “You had this done for me?”

  He couldn’t resist trailing a finger over the curve of her cheek, running it down the bridge of her nose, across the captivating expanse of her smattering of freckles. “Of course, and rest assured that acquiring your second gift caused me a great deal more difficulty than this necklace did.”

  That had her curious, just as he had expected. “Do tell. What can it be?”

  Since the gift in question was shaped like a book and her intelligence rivalled her looks, he was fairly certain she had an idea already. “Patience, princess. First, try on the necklace.”

  He guided her to the looking glass and placed everything upon the top of the mahogany chest of drawers upon which it sat before taking up the necklace. He stood behind her, both of them facing their reflections, and it was oddly disconcerting and arousing all at the same time. Their gazes met, an arrow of heat zinging straight to his loins. Unable to help himself, he stepped closer to her, until they were leg to leg, back to front, his cock nestling into the sweet curve of her bum.

  “Lift your hair,” he commanded, his voice hoarse. He had never wanted anyone or anything more than he wanted to be inside his wife at that moment. His wife. For the first time in years, that phrase no longer filled him with icy dread, but instead with fierce, profound longing.

  Silently, she did as he asked, her gaze still fastened to his in the looking glass. Her scent filled him, making him ache. She made him more inebriated than the whisky he had consumed. She made him burn hotter and hungrier than an inferno.

  Somehow, seeing the two of them together in the glass was arousing as hell. He watched as her breasts rose with her movement, her nipples pebbled and hungry, poking the delicate fabric of her dressing gown.

  Swallowing, he reached around her to lay the necklace upon her throat. It glittered and gleamed, the sapphires a complement to her lustrous eyes. His fumbling fingers tried to fasten it at her nape and only succeeded on the seventh or eighth attempt. And there she stood, the reflection of his untamed duchess, her riotous auburn curls framing her lovely face and falling down her back, her lips parted as if in anticipation, her eyes burning into his, her breasts straining against her dressing gown, and a small fortune in sapphires and diamonds winking from her elegant throat. He wanted to fuck her while she wore nothing but the necklace.

  Hell, he wanted to fuck her like this, standing up, watching their reflections, thrusting into her from behind, sinking his cock so deep and hard inside her that neither of them would ever be the same afterwards.

  “Beautiful,” he whispered, leaning into her, drawn like a child to the promise of sweets. He wanted to indulge. He wanted. Needed. Had to have. Her. “You are so bloody perfect. Those sapphires cannot compare to your eyes.”

  “The necklace is lovely,” she murmured. “Thank you, Spencer.”

  He could not control his hands. They smoothed over her shoulders, following the gentle curvature that led from her neck and sloped down toward her arms. His fingers found her muscles, worked into the tense cords, and before he knew what he was about, he was massaging, using his thumbs and fingers to loosen her knots. So much stress trapped in her fine-boned shoulders. Was it all because of him? He hated to think it.

  “Do not thank me for what is yours, princess,” he said, pressing a kiss to her ear. My God, he could lose himself in her so effortlessly. For days. Months. The rest of his bloody life. She was intoxicating, and he knew exactly why his brother had been so furious that she had slipped from his grasp. Boadicea was a woman worth fighting for.

  She smelled so good, and he was lost, grinding himself into the tempting swell of her bottom, touching her everywhere. His hands went lower. He watched, fascinated, aroused out of his mind, as they parted her dressing gown. Slowly. Reverently. Giving her the opportunity to arrest his movement, to stop him. But she did not, and the robe opened with ease.

  He pushed it aside, down her arms, and it fell to the belt at her waist. His chest pressed into the smooth, delicious curve of her back and the soft web of her hair as he stared at the reflection of her full, peach-tipped breasts and her hard nipples and her open mouth. Her glazed eyes glittered in competition with the necklace, shimmering against her pale skin. She was bold and gorgeous and unafraid.

  Dear God, he had to be inside her.

  Spencer dipped his head, fastened his mouth on her throat, inhaled deeply of her scent. He kissed and nipped, raising his gaze to watch in the looking glass all the while. Saw his hands cupping her breasts. Felt the tight buds of her nipples in his fingers, watched himself roll them between his thumb and forefinger, saw her arch her back, felt her arse pressing into his cock. He canted his hips, thrusting against her cleft, witnessed the way her mouth fell open, how her pink tongue licked her sensual lower lip, watched her pupils grow large and round with need. Heard the moan escape her at the same time as he saw it fall from her beautiful lips.

  His name was all she said.

&nb
sp; “Spencer.”

  But it was the tone, the need, the combination of all his senses devoted to her, to the erotic picture of her porcelain and pink curves on display, his hands claiming her. He licked and bit his way to her shoulder. Here, he sank his teeth into her sloped flesh, not hard enough to cause her pain, but enough to let her know his intentions. The beast within him could not be controlled this night.

  She did not seem to mind. Instead, he watched her fingers move nimbly over the belt at her waist, making short work of the knot. Her robe pooled around her feet on the floor, and the mirror was just long enough that he could see the fullness of her hips and the sweet beckoning flesh at their apex. Exhaling on a fresh wave of raw need, he dragged his lips back over her shoulder, up her throat, to her ear where he pressed a hot, open-mouthed kiss to the shell.

  “I have wanted to fuck you all day,” he whispered, because he knew what it would do to her. He knew her love of wicked words and deeds. Knew that while they might be mismatched in other senses, here, in the bedchamber, they were a perfect fit. Here, he could be as depraved as he wished, and she would beg him for more.

  She reached behind her with her left arm, hand cupping his head, and turned to meet him, face to face, nose to nose. The startling blue of her eyes gave him a jolt as he was removed from the fantasy of the looking glass. He could see the exact shape of each of the freckles on her pert little nose, and he was entranced. He had never supposed that freckles could make his cock hard, but he stiffened even more, his hips twitching, his need to be inside her becoming more frantic by the moment.