Nobody's Duke (League of Dukes Book 1)

by Scarlett Scott

  Clay made a low sound in his throat. “Damn it, Ara, it kills me that you had to endure that rot. I never should have left. I should have bloody well known better. I should have known you better than to think you capable of such duplicity.”

  “You had been attacked, and you were hurting and confused.” She raised a hand to his cheek, loving the bristle of his whiskers against her open palm. “I cannot fault you for reacting as you did. I am sharing this with you to explain, Clay, not to bring judgment. Freddie and I enjoyed a friendship rather than a true marriage. He confided in me that he was in love with Sir Percy Dorwood. Freddie was a politician, and he was just rising to prominence. He could not afford for anyone to discover the true nature of his friendship with Sir Percy, or he faced not only social and political ruin but the potential for so much more ill to befall him. So, you see, he needed me as much as I needed him.”

  “Your marriage—it is between you and Burghly,” Clay rasped, his jaw tensing. “You do not need to explain a bloody thing to me, Ara. I failed you. You needed me, and I believed the worst of you.”

  “You did not fail me, Clay.” Her thumb traced the proud, high slash of his cheekbone. Her gaze locked on his. “We were both the victims of circumstance, misled by others and left broken and wounded. I am telling you this because I want there to be no secrets between us. I loved Freddie as a friend, as a man who was always respectful and caring and considerate, who gave me and my son everything he could. But he was not you. There is only one man for me. There has only ever been one man for me, and that man is Clayton Ludlow. And he’s standing before me now, though I still feel as if I am dreaming him and he may not be real.”

  He pressed a worshipful kiss to her palm. “He is real, and he is all too fallible, and he is so damn sorry for the last eight years.”

  She kept her gaze intent upon his. “Those years made us who we are now. I regret nothing if it means having you here with me. If it means I can love you for the rest of my life. I would bear every moment we spent apart all over just to have you here in my arms now.”

  “My God, Ara. I do not want to spend another breath without you as my wife.” He paused. “I will for your sake, of course, but if I had my way, I would marry you today. Here and now. As it is, I would never wish to be the cause of scandal. In two months, you will have been in mourning for long enough. It is still a shortened period, but do you think you might—”

  “Yes!” She launched herself back into his arms, locking her arms around his neck.

  “You do not even know what you are agreeing to, Duchess.”

  For the first time, her title felt wrong. “Do not call me that, for it is not who I am. I am Ara, your Ara, just as I have always been, and I cannot imagine an honor any greater than becoming your wife. If that is what you were asking, of course. I will marry you tomorrow. Two days from now. Whenever you can acquire a license. I am yours, Clay. I do not want to wait any longer than absolutely necessary. Freddie would understand, and I do not owe anything to anyone other than you and our son.”

  “Ah, Ara mine.” Closing his eyes for a moment, he dipped his head and pressed his forehead to hers. “All I have wanted, for as long as I can recall, is to have you by my side, in my bed, to touch you and kiss you, to hold you and keep you safe, to be yours in every way. Of course that is what I was asking, in my brash and unsophisticated way. I fear I will never be a duke. I will never be noble. That is not who I am, but I am the man who loves you. I am the man who would die for you.”

  She caressed his scarred cheek, love for him blossoming so big and beautiful and true it left her transformed. “You have just described the noblest man I know. And I would be honored to be your wife. To be Mrs. Clayton Ludlow. There is nothing I want more.”

  His lips found hers. He kissed her with such slow, gentle tenderness she ached. A sound of need emerged from her throat. Her senses were awash with him, her heart filled with love. He told her without words how much he loved her. How much he needed her.

  She opened for him, their tongues invading each other’s mouths, and their kisses turned deeper. More demanding. Her hands were in his hair, traveling the broad, sculpted planes of his shoulders, claiming him everywhere she could. Desperation gradually superseded their leisurely explorations. Kissing became insufficient.

  Wet heat pooled between her thighs where she throbbed for him. Every part of him was hers, and she wanted it all, and she wanted it now. His scar. His mouth. His beautiful body. His dark hair. The blade of his nose. The abrasion of his whiskers. His tongue.

  The hard, long length of his cock jutting against her belly.

  She couldn’t resist stroking him as they kissed, fingers curling about his thick erection. An answering pang settled deep in her core. He growled into her mouth, and she tightened her grip, the soft silk of his dressing gown aiding her movements as she worked him the way she knew he liked. She had not forgotten.

  But like their frantic kisses, caressing him with a barrier of fabric keeping her from his smooth, hot skin left her aching for more. She wanted to worship him as he had her, to give him mindless pleasure. To show him with her body just how completely she loved him.

  Feeling bold, she released his shaft, gripping the knot of the belt on his dressing gown instead. She tipped her head back to look up at him. His eyes were dark, pupils obsidian, his expression more relaxed than she had seen it in as long as she could recall. His breathing was ragged.

  Good.

  “Come,” she said simply, taking a step backward, in the direction of her bed. The word was not a question or an invitation so much as it was an order. She tugged him along with her, and he followed.

  How she reveled in the power she had, capable of making this hulking, fierce warrior, this mountain of a man, do what she wished. His gaze never left hers as she pulled him to where she wanted him.

  “Get on the bed,” she said softly. Having him at her mercy gave her a new, intense sense of pleasure, heightening every tiny pulse of desire inside her into a wild flame.

  “Ara,” he protested, and she could not be certain if it was because he was so accustomed to being the one in command or if it was because he suspected her intentions.

  She changed her mind. “Take off your robe first. I want to see you.”

  And she did. His body was glorious, huge, and masculine. She had seen it many times, but she could never admire him enough. He was beautiful, and she was feeling brazen. She had never felt more powerful, more desired, or more alive.

  She wanted more.

  She wanted Clay naked on her bed. She wanted to kiss and lick him everywhere, to taste him, to pleasure him with her mouth the same way he had done to her. She wanted everything, to make him lose himself.

  “Ara.” Once more, he attempted to take control of the moment.

  But she was relishing her power far too much. She was so wet, so hungry for him, that if he stroked her pearl but once, she would spend. She wanted to prolong the intensity and the desire.

  “Off,” she insisted, pulling on the end of his belt. “Do it, Clay.”

  His eyes burning into hers, he did as she bid, pulling the belt open and shrugging his dressing gown from his wide shoulders. It fell to the carpet almost soundlessly. Her eyes drank in the sight of him, every part of him. Well-muscled shoulders, broad chest, strong arms. Even his abdomen was hewn perfection. His cock rose thick and long and hard. The despicable thing inside her returned tenfold.

  Good, sweet heavens.

  “Get on the bed,” she demanded.

  He reached for her but she stepped away, enjoying this far too much. “On the bed, Clay.”

  “I want to touch you, love.”

  The smile she gave him was wicked and she knew it. “You will. Just do as I ask, please.”

  His smoldering gaze never leaving hers, he lowered his large frame onto the center of her bed. With a deep breath, she untied the knot on her dressing gown as well. It fell from her in a silken whisper. And then she joined him on the
bed, making a place for herself between his legs.

  Her gaze fell upon his cock. Dipping her head, she kissed the broad tip once. Twice. Flicked her tongue over the slit, hungry to taste him. His groan rewarded her along with the taste of him on her tongue.

  “Bloody hell, Ara. There is no need…you do not have to…”

  His words trailed off as she grew more adventurous and sucked him the way he had done to her pearl. Just once, testing, to see if the effect was the same for him. His hips jerked, driving his cock deeper into her mouth.

  She released him and looked up the expanse of his exquisite body—all hers. “Tell me what pleases you. I want to bring you pleasure.”

  “Holy God, woman, if you bring me any more pleasure, I will spend like a callow youth down your throat,” he rasped.

  Oh.

  That meant she was doing something right. She took him in her mouth once more, alternating between sucking and licking. Listening to the cues of his body—when his hips pumped against her, when his breathing became harsher, when growls of pleasure emerged from him, she knew she had found her stride.

  “Ara.” Her name was a moan on his lips.

  Her mouth was filled with him, and she could not speak. Wetness kissed her tongue, and it was not just her saliva, she realized, but a part of him as well. He was coming undone. Losing his control. Humming her satisfaction, she touched the heavy sacs beneath his cock, gently testing their weight.

  “Ara, I’m going to come in your mouth if you do not stop,” he said.

  She did not stop. She wanted his seed in her mouth. Wanted to taste him, to swallow him. She wanted every last drop, as much as she could get. The flesh between her thighs swollen and needy, and he had yet to even touch her there. She moaned and instinctively took him deeper, bringing him into her throat. His fingers sank into her hair, tightening.

  “Damn it, Ara,” he gritted through clenched teeth as he seemed to give in.

  He guided her, showing her how to set the rhythm he wanted. She savored him, reveled in her ability to make this big man give in to her. He had stripped away his dressing gown for her. Had lain on the bed for her. He allowed her to have her way with him.

  And she loved it. Loved him in her mouth, hard and tart and thick. Loved the sounds he made, the restless pumping of his hips. Loved his fingers tugging at her hair. Loved it when he surrendered completely.

  “Ah, fuck.” He pumped harder, his cock surging so deep her throat constricted around him. “I’m going to…”

  His warning was cut short by a flood. Wet heat spilled inside her, tangy and earthy and heady. She swallowed it, took all of him he could give until the last spasm rocked through him and he caught her upper arms in a gentle yet firm grip, hauling her atop him.

  His breaths were harsh and ragged, his heart pounding with a fury she could feel against her breast as she draped herself over him, relishing the way their skin came into contact, so that there was not an inch of her that didn’t touch him. This was what she had been made for, loving this man.

  “You did not have to do that,” he said softly.

  She cupped his scarred cheek in her hand. “I wanted to. I love you, Clay Ludlow, so much it hurts.”

  “I love you too, Ara mine.” A gleam entered his eyes. “Where does it hurt?”

  His fingers traced her seam, parting her folds to tease her pearl. Her breath left her. He rolled them suddenly as one, until she was on her back on the bed, him settled atop her. He intensified the pressure and pace ever so slightly. “Does it hurt here, love?”

  “It aches,” she whispered.

  “Perhaps I can ease the pain,” he murmured, kissing her throat and then making his way down her body to the curve of her breast. First one nipple, then the other, his tongue flicking out to swirl around the sensitive buds before sucking. Lower still, over the curve of her belly to where she yearned the most.

  She was so starved for him that when his mouth met her slick flesh, a small tremor coursed through her. She was on the precipice, ready to spiral into the abyss. A finger entered her, gliding with ease. She tipped her hips, bringing him deeper as he suckled her, and then added a second finger, working them in and out her slick passage as he worshipped her.

  She came undone in a flash, the pleasure so violent and intense that as it rollicked through her, tiny pinpricks of light burst in her vision. He made a low sound of approval, not stopping his sinful torture until he had wrung the last ripple of pleasure from her body.

  He fell to the bed alongside her, drew her into his arms, and they lay together, sated and happy. She wrapped her arms around him, vowing inwardly that she would never let him go. No one and nothing would ever tear them apart again.

  “Ara,” he said tenderly. “My Ara. Just as you always were. Just as you were always meant to be.”

  She kissed his chest. “At last.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Finally.

  One fortnight later—and eight bloody years later than he had originally intended—Clay was Ara’s husband.

  He could scarcely believe it was true. That the goddess seated at his side was now his wife seemed an implausible dream. An impossibility he could have never hoped to attain. And yet, she sent him a beaming smile, radiant in her happiness and in her unfettered love for him both. A river of gratitude washed through him, leaving him momentarily breathless. It was a hell of a thing.

  “Felicitations on your nuptials and to the future Lord and Lady Stanwyck,” Leo said with as much warmth as Leo was capable of mustering.

  A hearty chorus of affirmatives sounded all around the table.

  When his brother had arrived at Harlton Hall for the intimate wedding celebration, he had come bearing startling news. The Crown had deigned to bestow a viscountcy upon Clay in recognition of his service. He was to become Lord Stanwyck, and Ara would be his viscountess rather than mere Mrs. Clayton Ludlow after all. It seemed surreal.

  Not so much the title, though he would accept it graciously as he must.

  But that Ara—the only woman he had ever loved—was well and truly his.

  That he was seated at his wedding breakfast, surrounded by his family and a miniscule gathering of his friends—the Duke and Duchess of Leeds only—filled him with an immense sense of awe. Fear for Ara and Edward’s safety remained a knife lodged in his chest. But the presence of Leo and Leeds at the wedding breakfast, along with a cadre of armed men scattered throughout Harlton Hall’s demesne, left him feeling as secure as he possibly could.

  Tomorrow, they would face the reality of the Fenian menace once more. Today, he was a man in love, his bride at his side, and nothing had ever felt more right. Today, he would not allow those fiendish villains to infringe upon what he shared with Ara.

  “You are frowning,” Ara observed softly, so that only he could hear. “Are you not happy?”

  “On the contrary,” he reassured her, reaching discreetly beneath the table to tangle their fingers together and give hers a squeeze. “I have never been happier, my love.”

  His only cause for worriment was the wellbeing of her and their son.

  “You are worrying about them,” she guessed.

  Bloody hell, of course he was. His wife and his son were in danger. He would not rest until this madness was done and he could go about the business of being Ara’s husband and Edward’s father rather than their bodyguard.

  “Perhaps you need not look so grim-faced, brother,” Leo said then, raising his glass in a salute. “I received word not long ago of arrests having been made in Dublin.”

  The words had scarcely permeated Clay’s brain when the sound of a glass upending ruptured the silence. His eyes swung to the source—the new governess, her countenance pale, had dropped her wine goblet. A dark red stain spread over the white table linen.

  “I do beg your pardon,” she muttered softly, her expression stricken, as she attempted to use her napkin to dab at the offending spill. “I am not ordinarily so clumsy.”

 
It was unusual for a governess to attend a wedding breakfast, so perhaps, unaccustomed to such a circumstance, her nerves had caused her to grow clumsy. Clay could not blame the girl, for he felt ill at ease himself in this august assemblage. She was surrounded by no less than two dukes, two duchesses (one former, one current), and a presumed viscount.

  “You must not concern yourself with such trifles, Miss Palliser,” Ara was quick to reassure the embarrassed governess. “Today is a day of joy, and not even a thousand spilled glasses could spoil it.”

  Clay’s eyes returned to his brother, seeking an explanation, only to find Leo’s hard stare focused upon Miss Palliser. For a moment, he swore he detected something in his brother’s harsh countenance—a glimmer of interest, a spark of something—but it was quickly banished when Leo wrenched his gaze away from the governess at last.

  “The men responsible for the outrage against the Duke of Burghly have been captured,” Leo elaborated succinctly. “Just yesterday. A treasure trove of information has been discovered along with them, and my Dublin sources assure me that more arrests will inevitably follow. This nightmare is at its end. I was saving the good news for after the nuptials.”

  Holy God.

  Clay stared at his brother, unseeing. It was as if his mind and his body had become separated. The one could hear and comprehend and understand. The other had fled him entirely. He could not move. Could not speak.

  He felt…numb.

  And then he felt a rush of relief so intense it rattled through him like a locomotive, leaving him trembling in its aftermath. He was still gripping Ara’s hand beneath the cover of the table, and he was not certain which of them was crushing the other more.

  He turned to her.

  She had raised a free hand to her mouth, stifling a sob—half joy, he suspected, half weariness. “Oh, Clay. Does this mean we are free at last?”

  “It is my greatest hope.” He could not resist tugging her to him, pressing a tender kiss to her forehead, even before their guests. How he wished he could ravage her mouth as he wished, haul her up in his arms and carry her to his chamber. He wanted her all to himself, and he did not want an audience.