Darling Duke

by Scarlett Scott

  They rocked together, a blend of breath and lips and tongue, his cock buried inside her to the hilt, her luscious body riding his, taking and withdrawing, taking and withdrawing again. His other hand found her waist, gripping, guiding, urging her to find her own pace. To fuck him as hard and as fast as she liked.

  It didn’t take much urging for her to settle into her rhythm. Watching her ride him was so arousing that he was about to come inside her, without preamble.

  This would not do.

  He pulled out and held her above him, his hand gripping her waist. “Touch yourself.”

  Her eyes were smoky with desire, lips swollen and red and glistening from their frantic kisses. Without a word, she slipped her hand between her thighs, and though her abundant skirts pooling around them obscured the erotic sight of her pleasuring herself, the knowledge was enough. A soft moan fell from her opened mouth, her head tipping back so that he could admire her throat’s creamy elegance. He longed to feast on her there, but he would not lose control. Not now, with her hand moving quicker, her breath expelling in short bursts.

  Dew dripped from her, bathing his waiting cock. She was a bloody goddess. His goddess. His forever, and he could never get enough of her. He watched, waiting until she was on the brink of ecstasy before he guided her back down. Her slit, slick and hot, beckoned, and he notched his cock to her entrance. In one swift thrust, he was seated deep at home.

  “Oh, Spencer.” She tightened around him, clutching his engorged rod like a fist.

  “Don’t stop,” he ordered tightly, barely holding himself in check. “Don’t ever stop.”

  On another moan, she worked her clitoris, hand moving faster beneath her skirts. And then, her pussy clenched and trembled. She rode him to oblivion, taking her pleasure, slamming up and down, up and down.

  Gritting his teeth, he allowed her the full rapture of her spend. When the last tremor worked through her, he withdrew, fisting his cock, coming all over her inner thigh. Boadicea collapsed against him, panting, and his breaths were every bit as ragged as he held her to him, embracing her, burying his face in her hair.

  He wished he had come inside her.

  The fervent thought, arriving out of nowhere, took him by utter surprise and frightened the hell out of him. He could never be so reckless, could never take such a foolish chance. He would have to steel himself, learn to control these wayward impulses coursing through him. Or he would have to keep his distance from her. It was as simple as that.

  Why then, did the realization leave him feeling empty and cold, even with her wrapped in his arms and the sun blazing high above? Why did it make his heart feel as if it had seized in his chest? Why did it make his head a confused jumble of past fears and present worries?

  “Unless I am mistaken,” his wife murmured into his neck then, “that is what the book referred to as riding a St. George.”

  She was right, though it was a phrase he had heard well before ever coming upon it in her bawdy book. A startled laugh tore from him, and just like that, the anxiety clouding his judgment dispelled, and it was once again the two of them, Spencer and Boadicea, holding each other in the glorious late-summer sun. The ghosts of the past—for the moment—were buried firmly where they belonged once more.

  He kissed the place where her jaw began, just below her ear, smiling against her skin. “Good God, I think your wickedness is rubbing off on me.”

  “I certainly hope it is,” came her throaty response, “for there is nothing I would like more than to ride a St. George with you again.”

  o’s heart fluttered at the soft knock at the door adjoining her chamber to Spencer’s. After riding back to Ridgely Castle, they had shared a bath in the massive tub, alternating between washing each other and kissing until she had once again ridden him with the warm, fragrant water lapping at their skins. From the bath, they had gone straight to Spencer’s bed, where their intention to nap had proven impossible once Spencer’s wicked mouth had begun an inquisition into her body that ended between her thighs. He had feasted on her like she was the finest sweet, and when she had climaxed, he’d turned her over and taken her from behind while his fingers played over her pussy.

  Dinner had been a proper affair, quite interminable, with Bo counting the minutes until she could once again be alone with her husband. As he walked through the door now, his sculpted lips quirking into an intimate smile that was just for her, a fresh tingling began in her core, her nipples going hard. She pressed her thighs together in an attempt to stave off the ridiculous need that overcame her whenever she was in his presence, but it only made the ache worse.

  While he had been all refined elegance at dinner, this was how she preferred him, nude beneath his black dressing gown, his bare feet and strong calves visible to her admiring gaze. The ache turned into a steady pulse as she met him halfway across the chamber. Already, she was slick and ready for him, and he had not even touched her yet.

  He took her in his arms, his seductive pine scent settling over her senses. “You are so bloody lovely.”

  Her heart thudded in her chest as she looked up at him, flattening her palms on his chest. How I love this man, she thought, before chasing the sentiment away. It was too much for him, she knew, and far too soon. Besides, she was not ready to make herself so vulnerable, to allow him the chance to break her heart. The darkness remained within him, simmering beneath the surface, his past a mystery she had yet to unravel.

  Slowly, she reminded herself. Proceed slowly and with caution.

  “I could say the same to you,” she said, taking in the perfect masculine symmetry of his face. He was all hard angles, from his high cheekbones to the sharp swath of his nose and the wide plane of his jaw. Only his lips were full and supple. He was so beautiful, so beloved. She never could have imagined, upon their initial introduction, just what he would come to mean to her.

  That he would be hers.

  That she would be so irrevocably his.

  He flashed a wry grin. “I am not lovely, princess.”

  “You are to me, Duke.” She rose on her toes and pressed a kiss to his lips, taking his grin and molding it to her mouth.

  He groaned, his arms tightening around her, before lifting his head. His emerald eyes sparked with that fierce brand of intensity she had come to expect from him. “Ridiculous woman,” he said without heat. “As much as I would like nothing better than to take you straight to bed and make love to you all night long, there is something we must do first.”

  “Oh?” Her heart still beat a rapid pizzicato within her breast. Ever since that morning, she had been awash in exquisite sensation. Everything felt more vivid, seemed more vital, more meaningful than it had before. How was it possible that one man could completely alter her world?

  “Do not look so disappointed, minx,” he teased, and he was grinning anew.

  He seemed lighter, younger, his relaxed expression lending him an air of boyish charm that she had never seen him exude. Just a month ago, she would not have recognized the man gazing down at her with what her foolish heart construed as adoration.

  Adoration. She wished.

  Calm down, heart, lest ye be smashed to bits.

  “What must we do?” she asked before her madly whirling mind could think up any more nonsense.

  “You must open the rest of your gift.” He took her mouth in another kiss, this one longer and more thorough than the first they had shared, before abruptly breaking away and setting her from him when the kiss threatened to burn into a roaring inferno. “Damn it, I cannot resist your sweet lips.”

  She gave him a smile of her own. At least they were of the same mind on that account, for she could not resist his either. “I am glad for it, husband.”

  Husband.

  Yes, he was that, and she could not suppress the gratification the knowledge filled her with. It still felt so new and strange to her, and yet, contentment was a river that had flooded its banks, running straight through her, washing away all that had come before.
She had not wanted to marry, had not wanted to tie herself to him forever, but now it seemed impossible for her to imagine any other outcome. She did not want one.

  He was all she wanted.

  But the trouble was that perhaps she was not all he wanted.

  As she turned to retrieve the gift, she gave herself a stern warning that she needed to guard her heart. He remained closed off from her, his past a barrier that may well prove insurmountable. It was possible that he would never return her feelings, that he was too damaged by what had come before her.

  The prospect sent a pang through her heart even as she took up the prettily wrapped bundle. She forced herself to forget about the heaviness invading her and spun back to face him, the gift held aloft like an offering on an altar. It felt like a book.

  “Allow me to guess,” she said, strolling back toward him with care, enjoying the way his eyes fastened to her hips. If she swayed them a bit more than natural as a result of his perusal, it couldn’t be helped. “You bought me The Lady’s Guide to Comportment.”

  He shook his head. “No.”

  She pretended to think. “The Hoyden’s Manual to Reform?”

  His lips twisted. “No again, princess.”

  Bo stopped before him, holding the gift between them, and fell into his emerald eyes. “How to Please One’s Husband, and Other Gems of Knowledge?”

  “You are incorrect.” He raised a dark, imperious brow. “However, I’m beginning to think I should have purchased How to Gracefully Accept a Gift, by a Husband Whose Wife Drives Him to Distraction.”

  She laughed, and something in her heart shifted into place. She felt, in that moment, that she was where she was meant to be, that he was meant for her, and she for him. That somehow, fate had thrown them together when they had least wanted or expected it, but the universe held a larger plan for them both. A path they were meant to travel as one. And she knew an intense burst of gratitude.

  Who would have thought that the Duke of Disdain knew how to make a joke?

  “Very well, I shall take pity on you.” She tossed a grin up at him as she untied the ribbon and opened the paper to reveal the book within. It was handsome, red Morocco leather, a gilt title stamped to the face that read The Jewel. Her mind spun as she took it in, certain she knew what awaited her within the pages and yet certain it could not be so.

  “It is a new journal with a small run,” he said, his low voice crushed velvet to her senses, smooth and seductive. “It features hand-colored woodcut illustrations that I thought you may find…illuminating. Your other book had no such embellishment.”

  She stared at the book in her hands, then her husband. He watched her with an expectant expression, and an unmistakable trace of scarlet coloring his high cheekbones. He looked, in fact, equal parts eager and ashamed, as though he could not believe he had purchased such a gift and yet he could not wait for her to crack its spine.

  “You bought me a bawdy book,” she said, awed.

  His color deepened. “Smut, yes. I do not know what I was thinking. I ought to burn the thing in the grate along with its predecessor.”

  She clutched the book to her bosom like the treasure it was—for not only did it contain the forbidden, but he had bought it for her. Spencer Marlow, the icy Duke of Bainbridge, who had once looked down his nose at her, decrying such literature as filth. It was rarer than all the diamonds and gold in the world. And also, it touched a new place in her heart, unlocked another door she had not known existed to be opened.

  “Oh, Spencer.” She could not keep the tenderness from her voice. She knew what this had cost him, knew how he clung to his frigid control. And she dared to hope it was proof, leather-bound and gilt-edged on her palm, that he cared. Or that he might, one day.

  “You had best forfeit it now.” He extended a hand. “I will do away with it. The gift was improper and not the sort of thing one ought to buy one’s wife. The illustration of the lord gamahuching the governess is positively filth.”

  Oh. None of the other books she’d read had illustrations. Now she was desperate to know what The Jewel contained. And had he just so blithely spoken such a wicked word aloud? It defied logic. Ordinarily, he only uttered obscenities when he was overcome by passion and let down his guard. Who was this man, and what had he done with the Duke of Disdain?

  She held his stare, unflinching. “What page is it on?”

  “Bloody hell,” he growled.

  “Well, you cannot say such a thing and then expect me not to look.” She would not apologize for her nature. She was who she was. “Surely you must know that by now.”

  “Forty-three,” he clipped.

  Bo could not contain her smile. “You had it memorized, you scoundrel.”

  “I may have gazed upon it a time or two in the achingly long month between when I made love to you and our wedding day,” he admitted, and he looked even more discomfited by the revelation.

  Adorably so. How she loved him, for all his hard angles and his ice and the way he could inexplicably melt and surprise her. For buying her this book. For marrying her. For making love to her in the outdoors with the sun shining around them. For saying “gamahuching.” For flipping through the bawdy book on his own and surrendering to his curiosity. For relinquishing his tight grip on control long enough to allow her to see a different, heretofore unimagined, side of him.

  For all those reasons and so many more, more than she could even name or count. Her love became a waterfall, bursting and rushing inside her. Unstoppable.

  She opened the book, flipped to page forty-three, and stared at the depiction of a nude man atop an equally naked female. But it was not the scene she had expected from his description. Oh no indeed. In the woodcut, the woman lay supine upon a bed, with the man prone atop her, but facing opposite ends. The woman had the tip of his large cock tucked in her mouth, while the man’s bent head feasted upon her pussy. It seemed at once impossible and shockingly perfect.

  “Oh my.” She swallowed as she stared at the picture, desire sliding through her and landing between her legs as a slow, insistent pulse. “Why is she still wearing stockings?”

  “Some men find such a thing arousing,” he said thickly.

  Did they? She had not known it.

  Bo glanced up, fixing him with her gaze. “Do you?”

  He swallowed, his eyes on her mouth, then traveling lower, to her breasts, and lower still, encompassing her entire body with one long, devouring stare. She felt it as if it were a stroke of his hand or a lick of his tongue.

  “Yes.”

  Dear heavens. She snapped the book closed. “Spencer?”

  His breathing was becoming more labored now, an indication of how aroused he was, and they were not even touching. “Yes, sweetheart?”

  She placed the book atop a nearby table. “Tonight, I want to do what is in the picture, and tomorrow, I will leave my stockings on for you.”

  “Holy God.” He continued consuming her with his glittering gaze. “How did I ever get so bloody fortunate?”

  “You stole my book,” she reminded him. “And then I kissed you.”

  “Tell me about your Lady’s Suffrage Society.”

  Spencer’s question startled Bo out of her reveries concerning the sheen of water clinging to his delectable chest. They were once again sharing the impossibly large bathtub, facing each other, and despite the fact that she had seen him shirtless too many times to count already in their short marriage, she could not stop admiring him. He was so masculine and strong, and the light dusting of dark hair on his pectorals fascinated her.

  Oh dear. This was a slippery vein of thought to be entertaining. She was meant to be paying attention to what he had said.

  She blinked. Ah, yes. The Lady’s Suffrage Society. “It is a group for like-minded ladies who are concerned by our lack of representation and wish to affect change.”

  Beneath the water, his hand traced her ankle, sparking hunger within her that had nothing to do with her desire to reform England
and everything to do with the man touching her.

  “How many members have you?” he asked intently.

  A queer flutter took up residence within her then, and it wasn’t mere arousal but something else. Spencer’s interest in the Lady’s Suffrage Society was genuine. Most gentlemen in her acquaintance were condescending whenever she spoke about her beliefs. They smiled indulgently as one would upon a younger sister who had asked for sweets.

  “We haven’t many yet. My friend Clara, the Countess of Ravenscroft, arrived at the notion, but she recently married and is only just due to return from her honeymoon in America. At the moment, our number is about two dozen or so, including my sisters. We will need to begin with funding first, so that we can print pamphlets and attract more members.” She paused, realizing as she spoke just how much had altered in the time since she and Clara had first conceived of their plan. “I hope you will not object to my continued involvement.”

  She held her breath as she awaited his response, for she was prepared to wage a bloody battle against him if she must. But Bo hoped that would not be the case, and that her husband would have an enlightened enough mind to appreciate that a woman should have the opportunity to be a man’s equal in every sense of word, law, and deed.

  His leisurely caress continued, sliding over her calf. “Naturally, I will not stand in your way. God help the man who would try to thwart you from your course. But more than that, I think it a worthy cause. This will not be a war easily won, mind you, but there is no logical reason why a woman should be denied the right to have her voice heard. Lord knows most females are far more intelligent than their male counterparts anyway.”

  Relief swept through her, and she smiled as his fingers trailed to her kneecap, running slow circles over it. “Thank you, Spencer. The Lady’s Suffrage Society means a great deal to me.”