“It seems very unfair to leave you…” She motioned at his erection. “Thusly. Does the wolf not want something in return?”
“Seeing you come was an excellent reward, Your Grace,” he said, but he pushed the papers away and the corner of his lip turned up in a half-smile. “I can take care of my needs once we reach a very comfortable bed at the inn.”
“In how long?” she asked, shocked by how forward she was being with him. How easy this charged conversation was, despite her innocence. Something in this man brought it out. Woke it up in her. “Five hours, six, seven?”
He shrugged. “Probably seven. We’ll get there just at supper.”
She shook her head. “Well, that seems an unfair amount of time for you to wait.”
“You are kind to think of me, and I promise you that one day I will claim your body fully in that very carriage seat while you scream out my name and rake patterns on my back with your nails.”
Her mouth dropped open at the description and the heated desire that flowed right to her sex when he said those words. “But not today?”
“You must still be sore from last night,” he said, his tone gentling.
She shrugged. “Only a little.”
“A little is enough to make me wait so that you can be most comfortable,” he said. “Didn’t you enjoy what we did?”
She nodded. “I think you know I did. I made it clear enough, I’m sure.”
“I was fairly certain,” he teased. “Pleasure shouldn’t be tit for tat, Amelia. I can enjoy giving you release and not find my own, at least not right away.”
She wrinkled her brow. Somehow she doubted most men would feel the same. She’d heard too many stories from friends and from whispers of women who merely endured their husband’s affection. The very opposite from her experience, at least so far.
“Isn’t there something I can do for you?” she asked. “You, er…licked me.” Heat flooded her cheeks. “Can a woman do the same for a man?”
His eyes grew very wide. Very, very wide, indeed. She had shocked him. Apparently that was not something one did.
“I’m sorry,” she said, ducking her head. “I don’t know what is considered right or wrong.”
He reached out to tuck a finger beneath her chin so she couldn’t look away. “What is right is what feels good to you. Nothing else. Yes, a woman can take a man in her mouth. But many ladies do not like to do it.”
She glanced down his body at that thick line of his cock. She had certainly liked the feel of it inside of her. The concept of licking him, sucking him…that did not sound unpleasant. Not in the least. Especially if she could steal even an ounce of his restraint.
She slid forward on the seat and reached out, resting her hands on his thick, muscular thighs. When she touched him, he let out a ragged, needy sigh, and she smiled. Oh yes, she very much wanted to do this and take all that control.
“Please,” she whispered.
Hugh’s head was spinning. There was a war going on inside of him and he had no idea how to win it. What winning would even looked like.
Part of him, the gentlemanly part, said that Amelia was still so innocent. That it wasn’t fair to her. That ladies didn’t like such things. Did they?
And the other part, the animal part, looked at her full lips and wanted nothing more than to watch them close over his cock and suck him until he exploded. He wanted that more than anything.
But it seemed he didn’t get to decide which would happen. Amelia reached out and caught up his papers, tossing them on the bench next to her. She slid onto his seat, her fingers massaging his inner thigh. He was hard as stone and his mind was addled by desire, both caused by the way she was tracing his leg with her fingernails, and also by watching her come a few moments before.
He wanted her so very badly, and she leaned up to kiss him as she slowly unfastened the buttons on his fall front. Her hand brushed him as she folded it away and broke the kiss. Together they looked at his hard cock, thrusting straight up in full attention.
She smiled as she reached out and dragged one finger along his length. She gasped and glanced at him. “The skin is so soft,” she whispered. “What do I do?”
Jesus, but she tested him. He could barely breathe, but somehow he choked out, “Last night, when I took you…that is what you should do with your hand or your mouth. That’s what feels…good.”
Her face was serious, like she was studying French literature or mathematics and was trying to pass some kind of test. “I see. Let me try and you tell me if I’m doing it right, yes?”
He nodded, silent because his voice was gone. He watched, shaking, as she caught him in her palm. She stroked him from tip to base, and he couldn’t help but lift up into her.
“Tighter,” he gasped out. “A little faster.”
She adjusted, and when she stroked a second time, everything was perfect. Her soft hand held him exactly right, she glided down his length and he couldn’t hold back a long, low moan of pleasure.
Her face lit up, and for a little while she simply stroked, working his shaft as she looked into his eyes, her lips slightly parted and her own breath short. He realized that touching him was exciting her, that whatever need he had slaked by licking her was returning.
And her responsiveness excited him even more. Whatever else was between them, whatever she thought of him or accused him of in her mind, the physical connection was stronger than any he’d ever had before. And he wanted more and more and more of it. He wanted to teach her wicked things. He wanted to do things to her that most men wouldn’t even consider sharing with a blushing bride.
He wanted to ruin her in the best possible ways, because he sensed that she would respond to it. Like it.
“I want to taste you,” she whispered.
Her dark head lowered and he rested a hand gently on the back of her chignon as he watched her pink tongue dart out. She was hesitant as she licked the head of him. Slowly at first, unartfully due to her lack of experience. She glanced up, and the sight of her watching him as her tongue swirled around him almost unmanned him right there.
“Take it into your mouth,” he grunted.
She drew in a long breath and then did so. She sucked gently, then withdrew. Her eyes widened, and it was clear she now understood what he wanted. She shifted, balancing herself differently so she could grip the base. She worked him with her hand as she began to slowly thrust her mouth over him. Her tongue stroked the underside of his cock.
It was…spectacular. No, she wasn’t practiced in the art, but she was a quick study, a natural at pleasure. He dipped his head back against the carriage seat and drowned in the sensations that shot from her mouth through his cock, through his entire body. Waves of pleasure, hitting hard against the shores as he surrendered himself to her entirely.
His balls tightened and he knew the end was near. He looked down, picturing the day when she would drain him entirely. But not today. That would be too much.
As his seed began to move, he caught her arms, dragging her up his body to kiss her. Her hand continued to pump over him and he spent, grunting her name against her lips as he did so.
Their breathing matched, hard panting, as the pleasure slowly subsided and he dared to open his eyes again. He was ready for her to look shocked or unhappy, but instead she had a sleepy, proud smile on her face. She tucked herself against his shoulder, resting her head there as he pulled the handkerchief from his pocket and tidied himself.
“Was that right?” she asked at last.
He laughed and tilted her face to look at him. “If it wasn’t clear, I will certainly show you how right it was later.”
“Why later?” she asked, eyes wide and just a tiny bit wicked.
He shook his head. “Because even a man who wants you as much as I do needs a break after something like that. But it was most definitely right. And now my mind is as clear as I hope yours is.”
She smiled before she pressed a
quick kiss to his cheek and moved back to her own seat. After he fixed himself, she handed over his papers and pulled a book from her reticule. Before she began to read, she said, “If that is the way you want to clear our minds, I will never object to chaos again.”
He smiled at the light she naturally brought to everything. He had felt so dark for so long that it was almost blinding. But he couldn’t be blinded. In the end, there was still much between them. Including the fact that she believed herself to be in love with his worst enemy. Including the fact that Hugh had lied to get her into this marriage. Into his bed.
And right now that felt worse than ever.
Chapter Twelve
Hours later, Hugh glanced up from the supper that had been laid out for them at the inn and looked across the table toward Amelia. She was staring intently at her plate, moving the food around with her fork. Passion had bonded them in the carriage, but in the hours since that encounter, he had felt her begin to slip away. The walls between them couldn’t be surmounted through orgasms alone.
And he had no idea how to connect with her otherwise. Or even if he should. After all, he had not married her because he wanted her. Loved her. Even knew her.
It had been to save her. To thwart Walters.
She sighed, as if the silence between them made her just as uncomfortable as it did him, and glanced up from her venison. “Do you only have one sibling?” she asked.
He blinked at the sudden question. The one about Lizzie. The one that made him tense and want to throw up even more walls to protect himself and to protect his sister.
“Yes,” he said, and gave no more information.
Amelia pursed her lips. “She is much younger than you are, isn’t she?”
“Seventeen this year,” he grunted, and took a long, bracing sip of red wine.
Amelia let out her breath. “Will you tell me nothing else about her?”
“Why do you want to know?” he asked, still tense, still guarded, though he had to admit it was likely unfair.
Her brow knitted, and she set her fork down against the side of the plate and folded her arms. “Great God, Hugh, you are difficult. I have no idea what you want from me.”
He arched a brow. Deflection. He needed deflection. “Don’t you?” he drawled, taking a page from Robert’s book. The Duke of Roseford used passion as a weapon, and it seemed to work for him. “Even after last night and today, you don’t know?”
He got the response he desired. For a moment Amelia’s gaze widened and her cheeks grew pink. She shifted in her chair and glanced around, as if to be sure that the other patrons in the room hadn’t heard his wicked words. He thought perhaps he had succeeded in distracting her, but then her gaze narrowed. Refocused.
He saw the steel in her return, the strength that she somehow had running through her veins. He admired it, in truth. Admired her singular dedication, her loyalty, the way her jaw set and she kept going forward even when she was deterred.
“That part of what we share is…wonderful. I couldn’t have expected I would—” She cut herself off and took a few breaths to regain her composure. Her bright gaze lifted to his again, and she said, “But it is only one part of what one would call a marriage. You put up walls between us and you will not take them down.”
He tilted his head. “I disagree.”
“You disagree—does that end the subject?” she asked.
Hugh wanted to snap out the affirmative and close the topic at that. He did not share with people, not unless he knew and trusted them completely. Hell, he hardly shared with those he did know and trust to that level. And this woman, she wanted more.
His wife wanted more. He scowled.
“I am simply stating my opinion,” he grumbled.
“This isn’t a matter of opinion, but fact,” she insisted. “Today in the carriage, for example. We spent an hour connecting on a purely physical level, yes. But the moment that was over, you focused on your paperwork the rest of the ride. I read my book. We might as well have been strangers in a post coach. So what in the world do you want from me, Hugh?”
He pressed his lips together. “I want you. Isn’t that enough?”
He could see the frustration on her face. “Not for a lifetime, I don’t think. Are you saying you want a purely physical connection until you are bored with it?”
“Bored with it,” he repeated, wrinkling his brow at the thought. Right now he could not picture becoming bored with exploring her body and all the ways to make her shudder and moan and scream.
She shook her head. “Of course you will become bored with it. All men do, eventually. I’m a novelty to you at present, nothing more. And when that happens, then what? Nothing at all? Do you expect we will lead separate lives where I raise your heirs and spares and we pass each other in the hallways like ghosts?”
He frowned at the description. That was not what he wanted, no. His friends had so much more, and he’d seen the value of it. But how could he get there from the beginning they’d made?
Overcoming the walls he built, the very ones he was trying to deny to her, was not easy.
“Please, I just want to know a little about your life,” she pressed, and her hand trembled as she reached out. She hesitated, her fingers hovering over his. Then she covered his hand for a brief moment before she snatched hers away. “I am not asking for the secrets of the kingdom.”
He took in a long breath. She was asking for just that in a way. The topic of Lizzie was one fraught with secrets and lies that affected Amelia and could bring down the already tenuous connection they’d begun to build.
And yet he couldn’t deny her. Not when she was looking at him with those wide, impossibly gray-blue eyes that spoke of peace and light. Things he’d almost forgotten in the cloud of the last decade.
Things that made him feel so very vulnerable as he said, “I love my sister very much. I raised Lizzie. She was only eight when our parents died.”
Amelia’s expression softened with both relief and empathy. “Yes, Diana said something about that.”
He tensed, longing to slam the door he had opened a fraction. “You spoke to her about me?”
She flinched at his snappish tone. “I-I needed to know a little, at least,” she whispered. “You would hardly speak to me at all at that point.”
That was fair. The first few days they’d been acquainted, he hadn’t spoken much. The situation was so complicated and dire that he hadn’t been able to find the right words. He could imagine how frustrating that must have been to her. How frightening to think of a life with a stranger who stole her future and offered her no glimpse of himself.
He’d played the whole situation very wrong, he could see that now that he knew her better. Only he still hardly knew her at all.
“What about you?” he asked. “I know just as little about you, perhaps even less since at least you spoke to our friends about me.”
She worried her lip between her teeth gently and then nodded. “I suppose that is a fair statement. The circumstances you and my father created for our engagement didn’t exactly offer us time to get to know each other.”
“Tell me about your childhood,” he offered. “As much or as little as you would like.”
He tensed as her breath exited her lungs in a shaky sigh. The topic he’d chosen was not a happy one. But she spoke regardless of whatever pain he had unearthed. In that way, it seemed, she was far braver than he was.
“When I speak to you about a marriage between ghosts, it is because I witnessed one,” she said. “My mother and father did not love each other. Theirs was a union of coldness and distance. She married for his title, he for her money. They each held it over the other’s head for years.”
“In front of you?”
She nodded. “Indeed, often. I was a byproduct, a tool, a weapon to use against each other. My father was kinder to me than my mother.”
“Your mother was not kind?” Hugh pressed, horrified by
that idea.
She set her jaw. “She was not present. She did not care a whit about my life. And then she died. Truth be told, my world hardly changed at all. At least my father actually seemed to have plans for my future. I think—I hope—he loves me in his own way.”
Hugh turned his head slightly as he thought of the viscount’s cruel assessment of Amelia’s engagement to Walters. This man she so desperately wanted to love her had been willing to trade her to a bastard just to get what he wanted. And it was Quinton’s bargaining and lies that had placed her where she was.
If that was love, Hugh wanted no part of it. Amelia deserved more.
“And you are close to him,” he encouraged her.
She bent her head, and a sad, knowing smile crossed her face. “Close is a relative term, isn’t it? Closer to him than to the woman who birthed me and hardly looked at me again. But that might not be called close. I would want to protect him, obviously.”
Her gaze dashed away from Hugh’s face, and shame filled him. He could judge Quinton all he wanted, but he had been part of her father’s manipulation. Trading on Amelia’s love for her father in order to get what Hugh wanted.
“Obviously,” he repeated.
“It isn’t that I don’t recognize the shortcomings of our relationship. He wanted a son and he got me,” she said. “I don’t think he’s happy about it, but he used me when he needed me. I was his tool.” She shrugged like that meant nothing when it so obviously meant everything. “That is the world of women in our day and age. He used me. You used me. I know that.”
Hugh shut his eyes. She lumped him in with a man like her father, and he deserved that. He deserved her censure, her hate, her fear…and yet she gave him something more than that.
“I don’t want you to be miserable, Amelia,” he said.
She lifted her gaze to his. “I know. And I’m…not. I thought I would be. I was taken away from the future I wanted and yet…I’m not miserable.”
“How?” he asked, genuinely curious. He had always had a hard time adjusting when things went wrong. The planning nature in him chafed at the unexpected twists and turns in his life.
The Duke Who Lied Page 12