The Duke Who Lied

by Michaels, Jess

  “I’m not leaving,” he panted, his voice unsteady. “I just want to be rid of these.”

  He tugged his shirt over his head. She sat up with a gasp and stared at the half-naked man before her. He was…beautiful. There was no other way to describe him. His chest was thick with muscle, peppered with curly chest hair that made a trail into the waist of his trousers. The trousers he was currently unfastening. She swallowed hard as he stripped the pants away too.

  Diana had described what he would look like, but Amelia had been unable to picture it. The thrust of his sex looked hard as steel and curled against his lower stomach like a divining rod or a sword ready for battle. She could surely not take that thing inside of her. Not take it and feel pleasure, no matter how much she was promised that her body would stretch to accommodate him.

  “You’ll be ready,” he whispered, as if he read her mind.

  She shook away her thoughts and stared at him. “How?”

  He smiled and dropped back on the bed beside her. He caught her hand, lifting it to his lips where he brushed a kiss against her flesh. Then he pressed her hand to the breast he had just been lavishing with attention.

  “When I touch you here,” he whispered as he stroked her fingers over her own body. He glided her hand lower, down her stomach. “When I give you that pleasure that makes you lift against me and want something you may not even understand, that readies you.”

  She stared at his face as he pressed her hand between her legs. She was wet, hot, she felt the slickness against her fingertips.

  “What you feel is your body’s invitation to be taken,” he said, leaning in to nuzzle her neck as he flexed her fingers against her sex.

  She shivered at the sensations that jolted from the point of contact. She had never touched herself. She’d wanted to sometimes, but a lady wasn’t meant to do such things…was she? It was hard to remember when she was grinding her body against her own fingers and feeling a building pressure unlike any she’d ever known.

  His gaze locked with hers and she could not look away. She was his captive, and escape felt impossible, undesirable. He pushed her fingers harder and she lifted against them. Harder, faster, until her breath left her lungs and sudden sensation flooded her body. Waves of pleasure rolled through her as she bucked against her hand, his hand.

  “Oh,” she sighed as the pleasure slowly faded, leaving a warm satisfaction in its wake. “Oh.”

  He smiled down at her. “That is what will happen when we do this. That pleasure that is just for you, it belongs to no one else. You can take it whenever you like.”

  She swallowed. Here she had been distancing herself from him, bound to believe that he would take and take and take. But he kept giving now that they were alone.

  It was very confusing.

  He leaned in and swept her thoughts away with another deep kiss. She wrapped her arms around his neck, relaxing into the pillows as he kissed her slowly, languidly, like they had all night. And she supposed they did. They were bound now, after all. Which meant they could do this any time they liked without censure or shock.

  She shivered at the thought and at the way he slowly pushed her legs apart with his knees. He lowered at her night-rail, smoothing it past her stomach, her hips, and finally lifted up just enough to remove it. Now she was naked. Naked, pinned beneath him, her legs splayed and the hardness of his cock—Diana had called it a cock—positioned just at the entry to her body.

  She should have been afraid, and there was a small fissure of fear that shot through her. But there was more than that. There was anticipation. Readiness. Need and want and desire. All those things came together, pulsed between her legs as he brushed the head of him against her.

  She lifted at the touch, digging her fingers into his bare shoulders at the shock. He pulled his head back. “Slow,” he promised. Or perhaps it was a reminder to himself. Either way, the one word calmed her a fraction and she stopped bracing so hard against him, relaxing as he gently pressed into her body.

  She shut her eyes, focusing her attention between her legs. As he moved slowly inside of her, there was pain, yes. A twinge of sensation as he breached her. But it wasn’t unbearable, perhaps because it was joined by another sensation: pleasure. Oh yes, there was that. A delicious and wicked pleasure that came from the slick heat of their bodies coming together. That came from the realization that he was taking her, claiming her, marking her in a way that she could never undo.

  And she didn’t want to. Not when he filled her completely and then leaned in to rest his forehead against hers with a ragged sigh.

  “How do you feel?” he asked, voice strained.

  “Full,” she moaned. “How does it feel to you?”

  He leaned away, and he seemed surprised by the question. He swallowed hard before he answered, “Tight,” he whispered. “Like a glove meant to fit me perfectly. Warm and wet and very, very, tight. It makes me want to…”

  He ground against her, and she gasped as his hips found that same place where he’d put her fingers. The center of her pleasure. It returned now, a blast of tingling sensation that caused her pelvis to meet his again.

  He cursed beneath his breath and then began to move. He withdrew and thrust, setting a slow, steady rhythm. She lifted to meet it, reaching for the release she had found when she touched herself. Reaching for more, because this joining made the feelings more intense. More powerful. More desperate.

  His mouth covered hers and she held tight to him as they moved together like one body, one person. Wanting the same thing, needing it more than breath. And then it was there, and she cried out against his lips as he dragged her through release a second time. His thrusts grew faster, harder, and she felt him shake as he took her, his fingers bruising her skin with the intensity of his passion, sucking her tongue before he cried out a primal sound and she felt his heat pump into her.

  He collapsed down over her, gathering her closer in the dark, and for that moment, nothing else mattered.

  Although Hugh had never been a libertine like Robert or even Simon before his marriage to Meg, he had certainly had his share of lovers. Sex was a natural desire—he felt no shame in it and had always tended to the needs of the women he bedded. But he’d maintained control.

  Tonight was different. As he looked down at the woman in his arms, the one who had a look of sleepy contentment on her beautiful face, he felt no control whatsoever. In fact, he felt quite the opposite. Tonight he was an animal, a slave to his baser desires. He’d come less than fifteen minutes before and he was already raring to take her again. And again. And again.

  She shifted and her hand lifted to his chest. She smoothed the skin there just over his heart, and there was an ache that followed the motion. One he didn’t want to name, one he didn’t want to feel. Especially not with Amelia, who loved someone else. Who hated him, even if she felt desire when he touched her.

  He shifted and slid from beneath her, getting up to find his trousers on the floor. When he turned, she was watching him in confusion and perhaps a little hurt.

  “Did I…do something wrong?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “Not at all. I just thought you might want to sleep alone in your own bed tonight. You must be exhausted after all the excitement of the past few days.”

  She worried her lip and he wanted to do the same, nip her skin with his teeth, soothe it with his tongue, explore every inch of her. He felt his cock rising and turned away.

  “I suppose,” she said softly.

  He swallowed and picked up his shirt. As he put it on, he said, “It might be the last night you spend alone for a few, in truth. I was thinking we might leave London tomorrow and go to my estate in the country.”

  She sat up, and he couldn’t help but stare as she covered herself with the sheets. “I see. So soon?”

  He pondered the question a moment. He could be cagey, but there had already been so many lies. Telling one more felt so heavy.

 
; “I’m sure my sister will be upset by missing the wedding and want to meet you.”

  Amelia seemed to ponder that, and then she nodded. “I suppose there would be no harm in getting out of London and letting the talk settle down around our marriage, as you said before.”

  “Talk?”

  “Of course you know there is talk,” she said. “I was far beneath you and we rushed to the altar. Half the city believes I am already with your child, the other that I’m a social climber who trapped you some other way.”

  She frowned as she said those words, and he sighed. He hated how this entire fiasco had played out. Hated it with every fiber of his being. Just like when he’d made love to her, their wedding had felt out of control.

  He needed to get that back, and quickly.

  “Soon enough another scandal will push ours away,” he reassured her. “But for now I leave you to your sleep. Tomorrow we can leave in the morning and we’ll be to Brighthollow in just two days’ time.”

  She nodded as he moved to the door of his adjoining room. There, he turned. She was staring at him, silent, beautiful. Tempting.

  But he walked away regardless, because she wasn’t really his. And he certainly wasn’t hers.

  Chapter Eleven

  Amelia looked out the window of the carriage, watching as the hustle and noise of the city transformed into the green of the pastoral countryside. The effect might have been calming under normal circumstances, but these were anything but. Her morning had begun early and in a rush, with servants loading carriages, and Theresa both trying to ready her and oversee the packing of her gowns and other things.

  It left her feeling out of sorts. As did the man she rode with in the carriage. Hugh sat across from her, reviewing some paperwork. Like he hadn’t touched her last night. Like nothing had changed, when everything had in that instant he fit his body into hers and turned her world on its head.

  Even now, she wanted that again as she stared at him with that serious frown and his hair pulled back in a queue that tamed its curly wildness.

  “Do you have something to say?” he asked, lifting his eyes. The tone was teasing, and she blushed at being caught staring at him.

  “No,” she said. He chuckled and lowered his eyes back to his papers. She was left unsatisfied, and so she folded her arms as a shield across her chest and said, “Well, yes.”

  Those dark eyes lifted again, and he slowly set his papers aside and nodded. “Do say it. You have my full attention.”

  She swallowed hard. Having this man’s full attention was a rather terrifying idea. Whenever he looked at her, it was like he could see far under the surface. With full attention, it wouldn’t take him long to understand every tiny thing about her while she knew nothing in return.

  “Amelia?”

  She blinked, realizing she’d been sitting in silence for a far too long. “I’m sorry. I was just wondering if this is how it will always be for me. For us?”

  “This?” he repeated. “Riding in a carriage?”

  “No.” She glared at him a little. “I mean, this morning was nothing but commotion. Everything was rushed. And it’s been that way from the first moment you declared you would marry me to absolve my father of his debts. There has been upheaval and upset and…and…”

  “Chaos,” he finished softly, all the teasing now gone from his face. “Yes, I understand. It must make you wonder about the whims of the man you married, and if I am the kind of person who makes these sorts of quick decisions that throw all into disarray. That would certainly affect you.”

  She nodded and tried not to think of her own past, of pains that she had long ago put away, accepted. “Yes.”

  He shook his head. “I have always been a measured person. I am careful in what I do and say. The last ten days of my life have been out of character in that way. And perhaps we could have made our trip to Brighthollow tomorrow or the next day to avoid some of the chaos, but in truth I am seeking the same normalcy as you are. The place where I feel most calm, most like myself, is at my home. With my sister. Perhaps I traded chaos for normalcy and it wasn’t fair to you.”

  She caught her breath at that…well, it was almost an apology. It was also wrapped in a good deal of candor. If she was learning anything, it was that this man was incredibly honest and forthright. Which was a good quality. The best of qualities.

  “Do you think our lives will settle down once we reach your estate?” she asked.

  He smiled. “Indeed, I do. They will settle down once we reach our stop at the inn tonight, that is why I sent the servants ahead, including your Theresa, to ready the place for us. So that we can relax and cut through some of the tension that has been a daily part of both our lives lately.”

  She gave a small laugh. “I’m not sure I remember what it is like not to feel some anxiety hanging over my head.”

  “No?” His tone was soft, but there was a different timber to it now. She lifted her gaze and found his expression had changed. She recognized the desire that had flowed between them last night, and she shivered at that recognition.

  “You look like a wolf ready to eat me,” she said, locking gazes with him.

  “A very good suggestion on how to make some of that anxiety go away,” he murmured, and dropped to his knees in the space between their carriage seats.

  She gasped in surprise, but said nothing, for he caught the back of her head and guided her lips to his. The moment they touched, it was electric. Sensation flowed through her, settling in all the places where he had touched her, but most especially between her legs. That place where she still ached, and yet longed to repeat all the pleasures they had begun the previous night.

  What a wanton she’d turned out to be. But Hugh didn’t seem to mind. In fact, if the way he drove his tongue into her mouth was any indication, he approved with all his heart. She wrapped her arms around his neck and sank into the kiss, forgetting everything except for the desire he woke in her.

  He made some rough, animal sound deep in his chest, and then he drew his mouth away and stared at her, panting, pupils dilated and expression hard and hungry.

  He held that gaze as he slid his hands down the length of her body, touching her breasts, her stomach, her thighs, her calves through her silky gown. Finally he reached the hemline, and she gasped as he began to slide it up. Up and up her body, baring her stocking-clad legs right there in what felt like an almost public space.

  He pushed higher, leaving the bulk of the fabric against her stomach. He held her gaze as he pressed a hand on either of her knees and pushed her legs apart. She let him, for she was so heated and needy that she could not have denied him anything. She wore drawers, and he tugged the opening in them wide so that her sex was revealed.

  She turned her face, breaking their gaze at last, and shivered. When she peeked back, she found him looking at her body intently. He licked his lips, and she felt a tug of heat at the apex of her thighs. He leaned in, and she realized what he would do just a moment before his tongue swept over her sex.

  She arched as he gripped her hips and slid her farther down the carriage seat, opening her even wider with his shoulders before he swept over her with his tongue again. The sensation was like nothing she’d felt before. Not when he touched her, not when he took her. This was…magic. His tongue was magic, and he licked her over and over again, tasting every inch of her flesh and smiling against her when she began to lift her hips in time to his ministrations.

  Like the night before, she felt the pleasure and the pressure building, a dam that would strain and then break. As her mewls and gasps grew louder, he began to focus his tongue on the little bundle of nerves just at the top of her slit. He increased the pressure of his tongue bit by bit, and then he began to suck.

  She twisted in the carriage seat, fisting her hands against the leather, jamming them into his hair to keep him close, to push him away as the sensation grew sharp as a knife.

  Then she was jolted by re
lease. But it wasn’t like the previous night. These were shallow waves of pleasure, but infinitely intense and seemingly never-ending. She jerked against his mouth, her breath gone, her mind gone, everything gone but the wonderful pleasure that filled every part of her until there was nothing left but him and this.

  Finally, he released her from the prison of pleasure, pressing one last kiss to her sensitive body, and then lifted his head to look at her. She knew what he saw. A wanton, sprawled across his carriage seat, her legs open, her dress cockeyed, her face flushed, panting like a dog in heat. She should have felt embarrassed by that, but she wasn’t. And he didn’t look shocked and horrified by it either. His smile was wicked as he smoothed her dress down gently, then leaned up and kissed her.

  She pulled him in, tasting her pleasure on his tongue, sweet and earthy. He made a dark rumble in the deepest part of his chest as he braced one hand on either side of her head and pushed his tongue deeper into her mouth.

  It was obvious what he wanted. She felt it in the hunger of his touch. When he pulled away, it was even more obvious in the outline of his thick erection against his trouser front. But he settled into his seat and smiled at her, making no effort to take or claim.

  “Better?” he asked, all the wickedness in the world in that one word.

  She blinked, trying to regain some purchase on her tingling, throbbing, dizzy body and mind. “Y-yes,” she whispered. “If that is the way a wolf hunts, I do not mind being the rabbit.”

  He chuckled and moved to pick up his papers again. She stared in shock. Could he really go back to whatever he was working on as if that hadn’t just happened? As if he wasn’t still hard beneath his trousers?

  “And what can the rabbit do in return, Mr. Wolf?” she asked.

  He had been about to turn one of the pages in his hand over, and he froze mid-act and lifted his gaze back to her. “I beg your pardon?”