James bowed again, but before he could turn to leave, Clara grasped the man’s arm and stopped him.
“What on earth are you on about? Everyone cannot have just left. What about Vicky?”
There she went again with this Vicky person.
“Her ladyship is very well I’m sure. No, let me rephrase that, I am sure she has led a long and healthy life.”
Clara looked all ready to hit him, and the fine hair on his neck rose, as a suspicion dawned on him. Surely not, but then again, he was here, and Kit’s wife was…
“What the hell does that mean? Where is Vicky?”
James shot Daniel a look, and extricated himself out of Clara’s clutches.
“Perhaps you would like to check the gallery.”
He had barely finished that sentence before Clara shot out of the open door. Rumbles of thunder rolled through the air again, only serving to increase the itch between his shoulder blades. Her screech made his mind up for him, and when he rounded the corner, it was to see her standing in front of the portrait of Kit and his wife.
She traced the contours of Victoria, Duchess of Aulban’s face, while whispering the same word over and over.
“Vicky.”
*****
Through tears blurring her vision, Clara traced the contours of Vicky’s face, and this Regency Duchess definitely was her Vicky. She would recognize the twinkle in the lady’s eyes everywhere. Vicky and she might only have known each other a short time, but she’d truly felt as though she’d found the sister she never had. And it suddenly dawned on her she would never see her friend again.
The woodsy scent of the Duke of Hockwell’s cologne—oh god he really is the freaking duke— alerted her to his presence seconds before a set of strong male arms wrapped around her waist, and pulled her back against his hard frame. His hot breath ghosted across her neck, as he nuzzled into her neck.
“Please don’t cry, dearest.” The unexpected endearment brought more tears to her eyes. God, why did he have to be sweet and concerned now? It made it almost impossible to resist him, and when he gently turned her, and lifted her chin up to study her face, Clara swallowed hard at the stormy emotions which crossed his features. One single muscle spasmed in his clenched jaw, and she couldn’t tear her gaze away from that tic. It made her want to lean in and lick that part of his face, which was a completely inappropriate thought under the circumstances. As though he read her thoughts, and no doubt they were written all over her face, he ran his hand slowly down her back, until he could grasp one of her bare ass cheeks, and yanked her closer. His cock twitched between them and even through the fabric covering his shaft she could feel it branding her belly. A gasp escaped her lips, and a grim smile kicked up Daniel’s lips, before he looked up at the painting of the wall, and his lips firmed into a thin line.
“Kit’s wife is your Vicky, isn’t she?”
“Yes.” Clara somehow managed to get that one word out, and fought more of the blasted tears determined to fall down her face. A shiver went through her when he leant down and kissed the moisture left from her earlier outburst away. Her eyes fluttered closed of their own accord, and she pressed closer into him.
“I’m never going to see her again, am I?”
Their breaths mingled and she willed him to kiss her, to take away the emotions churning up her insides and to replace them with sensation. She needed to feel alive, to confirm that she wasn’t dreaming, and that this strange warped reality was really her life from now on in.
Instead of claiming her lips, however, she felt him withdraw with sigh of regret.
“I think we really need to open that letter Aulban left for me.”
Clara wrenched her eyes open to find him look at that letter as though he was expecting it to turn into poisonous snake.
“We do?” Her voice came out as a wobbly squeak.
Much to her surprise his harsh features broke into an affectionate smile. Oh, god, that smile. It made her nipples tingle, her breast heavy, and it meant she clamped her thighs together to stop the rush of hot need from trickling down the inside of her legs. Really, though, that smile ought to be registered as a deadly weapon of female pussy destruction. The dratted man clearly knew the effect he had on women too, because his piercing blue eyes crinkled up that the corners, and his eyebrow quirked in a decidedly naughty wink, before he sobered.
“Yes, my dear, I want you to read this with me, because this affects both of us. Besides, as my future wife and duchess you will need to know all the family secrets.” He laughed at her outraged gasp, and without waiting for her reaction strode off back toward the bedchamber.
Clara followed at a more sedate pace, to stop herself from exploding at the return of the highhanded duke. His future duchess indeed. Over her dead body.
Some of her ire deflated, seeing him sat on the bed, turning the letter over and over in his large hands. Right now he didn’t look very haughty, more like a little boy lost, and Clara’s heart missed a few beats. He looked up when she approached, flung the letter on top of the bed, and twisted the signet ring on his pinkie.
“I can’t. You open it and read it to me.”
When she shook her head in surprise, he rubbed a hand over his face, and Clara could have sworn he was blinking away tears.
“Please, read it me.”
It was the please that did her in. Not even bothering to make sure she didn’t flash her bits and bobs at him in the process, she climbed up onto the high bed next to him, and after a glance at his tight set features, broke the seal.
A secret thrill went through her at the thought she held a piece of actual history in her fingers. While she was no stranger to holding artefacts from the past, it was always in controlled conditions with her hands covered in fine gloves to make sure she didn’t damage the piece she was examining.
There was no finesse now, as she opened the heavy paper to reveal the elegant handwriting. Daniel inhaled sharply next to her, and rested his head on her shoulder, as she began to read.
July 1818 Aulban House, Derbyshire
Dear cousin,
I must admit I am feeling somewhat of a fool writing this letter and entrusting that it will reach you in the unspecified future, but I have great tidings. My dearest wife Victoria was safely delivered of twins this morning.
“Well, I’ll be damned.” Daniel’s shout of surprise echoed her own squeak of wonder. He nudged her shoulder and his grin as she looked at him was infectious. “Two at once. What a good idea, shall we follow suit?” It made his azure eyes sparkle with mischief, and Clara’s own lips twitched. He was much too … too everything for his own good.
“In your dreams mate, not mine.”
“If you say so,” he replied equably. “Go on, read on.” Clara rolled her eyes and continued.
Barnaby and Sophia have a good pair of lungs, and I can already tell that Sophia will be a heart breaker. Victoria urges me to reassure you and Clara that she is well and happy. She seems to think that you will have been leg shackled by the voluptuous brunette I saw you with last. Personally I find this hard to believe.
Clara stopped reading and glared at the letter.
“Why would that be hard to believe? Am I not good enough for a duke, is that it? Insufferable man, how does Vicky put up with that?” Heat stained her cheeks when Daniel laughed, and she glanced up at him. The most curious expression flashed over his face, before he smirked.
“And I’m not freaking marrying you, no way, siree. I don’t bloody know you.”
That sculpted eyebrow of his rose again, and damn her traitorous hormones ‘cause that move was sexy as hell.
“The correct address is still my lord, chit. And you will marry me, of that there can be no doubt, because if I am going to be stuck in this…” He glanced around the room, and grimaced toward the wet room. “This strange century and its new fandangled inventions, then I’m going to damn well hold onto the one person who makes me feel sane.”
He grinned when her mouth fe
ll open in surprise, and before she could guess at his intentions he swooped in and kissed her. All thoughts fled her brain as he traced the contours of her mouth with the tip of his tongue, silently urging her to submit to him. The letter fell out of her hands, and she grasped his shoulders for support, as he deepened the kiss, while tipping her backward onto the soft covers. Clara returned his kiss, hesitantly at first and then with bolder strokes of her tongue, until they were dueling with each other. By the time he wrenched his lips off of her his groan matched her sigh of surrender. His cock was a hard ridge against her thigh, and the bed dipped as he pulled away from her. Giving the letter no more than a cursory glance he strode off and using the boot jack at the far corner of the room, used it to yank off his Hessians. His breeches and stockings followed, until he stood there in his magnificent naked state. One large hand wrapped around his engorged cock, he fisted his shaft slowly, and Clara’s mouth went dry when she saw the drop of pre-cum glisten at the tip of his shaft.
She opened her mouth to say something, anything, but no sound came out, just her harsh breathing. Clara couldn’t tear her gaze from his cock. The man looked huge, heavily veined, thick and long, and she clenched her thighs to relieve the instant ache in her pussy.
While Clara had never actually had sex, she was no stranger to self-pleasure, and had used a variety of vibrators on herself. None of them had been as big as Daniel’s cock, however, and shiver of apprehension marched up her spine.
“You have no idea how hard it makes me to see you looking at me like that, chit.”
Clara wrenched her gaze slowly up his body, over the dips and valleys of abdominal muscles that would have put any twenty first century cover model to shame, the well-defined pectorals, broad shoulders, and strong neck, until finally she took in his clenched jaw and the burning need in his blue eyes.
It reflected the building heat in her lower belly so perfectly, she had to remind herself to keep on breathing, as her earlier arousal spiked once more.
“Daniel, I…” She couldn’t continue, not when he advanced on her with the long limbed gait of a predator seemingly intent on devouring her. Lord help her, she was ready to be ravished any which way he wanted. The barely functioning rational side of her brain urged her to protest, while the submissive side demanded she melt. However, she managed a feeble objection as he climbed on the top, and slowly slid his big body over hers.
“What about the letter. Shouldn’t we finish reading it, to find out what—”
The rest of whatever she was going to say was lost in the kiss he gave her. This wasn’t a gentle kiss, far from it. This was a claim, a brand of her body and soul, as he took charge, reducing her to nothing more than a quivering mass of needing to be fucked now woman.
Sod the consequences. This heat building between them, the growing ache between her thighs was all that mattered, and when he finally broke the kiss and sitting up straddled her legs, and smiled at her, Clara was lost.
“If you don’t want this, tell me now. Once I worked this darn shirt, which is spoiling my view of your luscious body off of you, I’m going to fuck you and make you mine.”
****
The force of his feelings surprised Daniel. Even to his own ears his voice sounded hoarse, strained with need, and his cock would explode soon, he was sure. He hissed through his teeth when Clara ran her fingernails slowly down his body and then wrapped both her hands around his aching prick.
“I’m still not marrying you, My Lord.”
The intonation she put on his title made him shake his head, but as she chose that moment to pull back his foreskin and swipe her finger through the tiny slit of his cock head, he lost the ability to utter anything more intelligible than a grunt.
An impish smile kicked up her lips at his response and she lost her rhythm when he took the hem of his shirt and slowly lifting it, exposed her body to his view.
He dropped a kiss on each one of her nipples, breathing in her scent. When he flicked his tongue over one engorged bud, her moan in answer was music to his ears. Her fingers tightened on his prick, eliciting a grunt from him, and she hastily removed them.
“Sorry, did I hurt you?”
His Clara looked so worried, his chest tightened with emotion. He might only just have met her, but already she meant far too much to him, and regardless of her protestations to the contrary he would marry her.
“Yes, but you will soon ease that hurt. I want you, dear Clara.”
Her eyes widened and the most delightful blush spread across her impressive bosom. Tugging at the shirt, he pulled it over her head. She arched her back to enable him to do so. The action meant her breasts touched his chest, and Daniel grasped the perfect globes and pushed them together, flicking his tongue over both her nipples at the same time.
Clara’s breathing sped up and she pushed herself further into his mouth as he started to suck strongly.
“Oh god, that feels so good. Please…”
Daniel released the nipple between his teeth, scraping along the engorged bud, and grinned at the goose flesh that peppered his girl’s skin. Her thighs bunched underneath him, and lifting off her, he nudged her legs apart with his thigh. The fact that she opened up willingly meant a great deal right now. It placed the head of his cock dangerously close to her wet cunt and they both groaned when he ran the tip of his prick through her cunt lips.
The urge to push into the sweet haven to be found between her legs rode him hard, but mindful of her innocence he teased them both by grasping the root of his shaft, and running it through her wet slit. More of her juices gushed out of her as she writhed underneath him, coating them both, as he bumped into her hidden pearl just visible at the top of her hood.
“Please, I’m so close, please, oh God, yes.”
Her hips jerked upward and her little hole clenched, her inner lips darkening in color as the whole area swelled with the influx of blood as her arousal built.
Daniel allowed himself one last slow drag through her cunt, before he withdrew.
“How close are you, sweet girl?” he asked, and Clara groaned. Eyes closed with her glorious hair spread across his bed like a dark halo she looked a woman on the edge, caught up in her pleasure, and his prick twitched.
It would be so easy to sink his cock into her, but he needed to hear her say it. To know that she was his, and would not regret giving him her virginity in the morning.
“So, close, please, just do something.”
Daniel grinned and scooting down the bed grasped her arse cheeks and lifted her cunt up to his face. He blew across the pink flesh in front of him, and Clare grasped the bed covers in a white knuckled grip. A keening cry escaped her as he licked along her slit, and he groaned his approval when her sweet nectar exploded on his taste buds. Was anything more delicious?
“Delicious, sweet, girl, and so very wet for me. Tell me this bounty is all mine to do with as I please. Tell me you’re mine and want me to fuck you.”
Clara clamped her thighs around his head, and her hips jumped under his hands, as she ground her cunt against his face.
“Yes, god, please…I’m so close…yes, yes…” The rest of her shout of completion came out as unintelligible jumble as sweet Clara came apart under his tongue. Daniel lapped up her juices, and kept up the gentle suckling on her hard nubbin until he’d wrung the last aftershock out of his girl, and her thighs grew slack. Only then did he lift his head and look up at her to see her watching him.
With her eyes at half-mast and her breasts still shaking with the force of her harsh breathing she looked sated and so beautiful it took his breath away.
“Hello there, my lady.”
A giggle escaped her and her eyes grew wide when he slowly crawled up her body, delivering little kisses along her perspiration soaked skin as he went along. By the time he reached her face and claimed her kiss-swollen lips, she was squirming again underneath him.
“I enjoyed seeing you fall apart, my love,” he said.
Clara gasped a
nd began a tentative exploration of his torso until she reached the root of his cock. That organ jumped and a hiss escaped his lips, when she wrapped her little fist around it again.
“What about you, My Lord? Do you want me to—?”
“No.”
Clara jumped at the terse command that came out much harsher than he’d meant it to, but he was hanging on by a thin thread here.
To make up for his brutishness he kissed her nose and smiled at her.
“While the thought of you taking my cock in your mouth is very appealing and we will definitely be doing this later on, I want to feel your internal walls quiver around my prick, while you take my seed, and lord help me, I want to spill inside your body.”
Clara drew in a sharp breath and he hurried on to explain before she could voice an objection.
“However, I shall, of course withdraw and spill outside of your body, until we are married. It wouldn’t do to—”
Her slap against his chest packed as surprising punch and he blanched as she let go of his cock and squeezed his ballocks in a grip so tight it brought tears to his eyes.
“I’m not going to marry you. I already said that, you fool of a duke. When I marry it will be because I’m madly in love with my groom, not because this sex on legs gorgeous time traveller took my virginity, and thus feels he has to marry me.”
She mock glared at him, and dropped a kiss on his lips.
“Shush, you, let me speak,” she continued in a tone that could strip paint. “This is the twenty first century, and we don’t have to get married at all, unless we both want to. Regardless of what any old will might say. What we do need to do, however, is fuck. So will you please do that?” She paused and he wondered at her blush.
“There is no need for you to pull out. I’ve been on the pill since I was fourteen to regulate my cycle, so I can’t get pregnant, and I suppose we ought to use condoms, but I dare say you have no idea what those are.”
“You are talking in riddles, woman. Why can you not have children? And what in the deuce are condoms?”
Clara giggled, and he had to smile along with her. It was such a lighthearted sound it chased away the last of his misgivings, and she shrieked when he pushed her back on the bed and settled himself between her legs. A moan escaped her, when he teased her entrance with the head of his cock, and gritting his teeth, he pushed in just enough to feel her clamping down on his prick.
The Dukes' Christmas Abductions Page 7