Dangerous Dukes 01 - Zachary Black - Duke of Debauchery

by Carole Mortimer

  His eyes widened in surprise as she put her hands on his shoulders and pushed him down on to his back on the chaise before sitting beside him; obviously Hawksmere was not a man used to a woman taking charge in the bedchamber. Or in this case, the blue salon of his London home.

  Georgianna was not a woman used to taking charge in lovemaking, either, but in this case it seemed completely desirable.

  Besides, she had not spent all of her time in the kitchen, or the storeroom, at Helene Rousseau’s tavern. She had occasionally ventured out to help serve behind the bar if they were especially busy; some of the surprising acts she had witnessed between the male and female customers when she did so had made her blush to the roots of her hair. There had been one act in particular that the gentlemen had seemed to enjoy very much.

  If Georgianna only had the courage to now put into practise all that she had witnessed.

  ‘I believe I should like to kiss you as you once kissed me.’ She licked her lips in anticipation.

  ‘Georgianna?’

  She glanced up enquiringly from where she had already unfastened the buttons on Zachary’s pantaloons and was now in the process of untying his drawers. The bulge beneath the linen, stretching and tightening that material, was making that task more difficult than it ought to be and was certainly causing a lack of sexual prowess on her part.

  ‘What are you doing?’ He looked pained as she at last managed to unfasten his drawers and reached inside to withdraw the pulsing and throbbing hard length beneath.

  Georgianna’s fingers stilled as she looked down at him uncertainly. ‘You do not like it?’

  ‘Oh, I most assuredly do like it, Georgianna!’ he breathed shakily. ‘I am just— Are you sure you wish— Do you know what you are doing?’

  Colour burned her cheeks. ‘I am sure I shall not be as experienced as some of your other ladies, but…’

  ‘That is not at all what I meant,’ he grated from between gritted teeth, his fingers having curled about the slenderness of her wrists to halt her movements. ‘And I have said there will be no talk between the two of us of any others. I merely wanted to know if you are sure this is what you want. What you would enjoy.’

  She glanced down at the thick length of his arousal as she slowly curled her fingers about it, the skin feeling surprisingly soft as velvet.

  Georgianna swiped her tongue over her lips. ‘It most certainly appears to be what a certain part of you wants,’ she murmured with satisfaction at Zachary’s obvious response to her touch.

  Zachary could not deny that. Had no desire to deny it. Indeed, just seconds ago he had feared he might spill at the first touch of the softness of Georgianna’s fingers closing about him.

  He had managed to hold, thank goodness, but he could not deny that his instinct was still to thrust into those encircling fingers, to bid her grip him tighter, stroke him faster, harder, as they worked together towards his release.

  ‘I merely want you to be sure—’ Zachary broke off with a strangled groan of pleasure as Georgianna lowered her head, her long hair falling in a soft caress against his thighs as she licked the silken tip. A long and rasping lick that caused him to arch up off the chaise.

  ‘You like that.’ She repeated that slow and agonisingly pleasurable rasp.

  Liked it? Zachary had thought of this woman constantly this past two weeks, had imagined time and time again making love to her again, pleasuring her again. And in none of those imaginings had he thought of Georgianna pleasuring him, as she was now doing with each slow and delicious swipe of her tongue, the pleasure so intense he could already feel the start of his climax in the tightening, drawing up of his balls.

  His gaze dropped to her bared breasts visible through the silky curtain of her hair as they jutted free of her unfastened gown as she bent over him. He wanted to hold them. To caress and squeeze them.

  As he came and came!

  ‘Come up here, Georgia,’ he groaned urgently even as he lifted her up and over him so that she now had a leg either side of his thighs on the chaise. He pushed her dress up to her hips before lowering her down on top of him, not penetrating her, but arching into her in a slow rhythm as her moist and heated folds rubbed caressingly along the sensitised length of his erection.

  ‘Zachary.’

  ‘Do not worry I shall put you at risk, Georgianna,’ he assured gruffly, eyes feeling hot and fevered. ‘I merely wish to feel your heat upon me. Oh, that feels so damned good!’ The hardness of his length moved easily against the slickness of her juices. ‘So, so good!’ He reached up to cup and squeeze her breasts, to caress and flick his fingernails against those jutting and sensitive nipples.

  Georgianna clutched on to Zachary’s chest for support, her head feeling dizzy with her own pleasure as Zachary continued to arch and thrust beneath her, even as he caressed and pinched her engorged and sensitive nipples to the exact same rhythm as the hard length of his erection rubbed against her folds and that sensitive nubbin above.

  ‘Harder, Georgia. Faster. Harder again,’ he urged, his eyes glittering, a flush to the hardness of his cheeks. ‘Come with me, Georgia. Now!’ he urged fiercely, sculptured lips parted as his hips surged up in the most powerful thrust of all.

  Georgianna had no time to think about what he meant by that as her own pleasure ripped through and over her as the heated jets of Zachary’s release pounded against her own sensitive nubbin, prolonging that pleasure until she screamed his name as he now hoarsely shouted hers.

  Chapter Twelve

  ‘Georgia?’ she questioned Zachary as she lay on the chaise in his arms in the aftermath of their lovemaking. She felt physically sated and still inwardly moved at the way in which Zachary had kissed that unsightly scar upon her chest.

  ‘You do not like it?’ He played absently with the long strands of her loosened ebony hair as he turned to look at her.

  No one had ever shortened her name in quite that way before now. Jeffrey often called her Georgie when they were alone together, in remembrance of their time together in the nursery. Her father, when he was alive, had occasionally addressed her affectionately as Anna, which had been her mother’s name. But she could not recall her name ever being shortened to Georgia before now, no.

  Before Zachary.

  And she did like it. Coming from this man, she found she liked that familiarity. A lot. That she liked, even loved, Zachary a lot, too.

  She had no idea when the liking, the admiration, for the strong and determined man that he was, had happened, let alone whether or not she loved all of him. Or how it could possibly have happened, if that was the case.

  Zachary had more or less kidnapped her, then kept her a prisoner in his home.

  He had ridiculed and insulted her.

  And then he had made love to her.

  Which was when the liking had begun, Georgianna now realised.

  Because when Zachary made love to her he forgot to insult and ridicule her. To dislike her. Most of all, he was a generous and fulfilling lover. Oh, that first time might have begun as a punishment for her, for daring to elope with another man when she was betrothed to him. But Zachary’s generosity of nature, his own physical enjoyment of her, had quickly overcome that emotion.

  And today, despite knowing of that disfiguring scar, he truly had made love to her, had kissed and caressed that scar as if it were something to admire rather than be disgusted by.

  As Georgianna had made love to him?

  She shied away from so much as thinking of that emotion in connection to Zachary Black, the Duke of Hawksmere—the very same man whom she had once shied away from marrying—knowing that to love him would lead to even more heartbreak than had her ill-fated and humiliating elopement with André Rousseau.

  ‘I do not dislike it,’ she answered Zachary noncommittally, only to look up at him quizzically as he began to chuckle softly. ‘What is it?’

  ‘I laugh because, as usual, your thoughts and emotions remain a mystery to me, Georgia.’ He gazed down at
her indulgently.

  She frowned her puzzlement. ‘I do not mean them to be.’

  ‘Any more than I believe just now to have been my finest hour.’ He had sobered slightly, a teasing smile now curving those sculptured lips.

  ‘I do not understand?’ Everything had seemed more than satisfactory to Georgianna. Very much so. ‘Did I do something wrong?’ she prompted anxiously.

  ‘Lord, no.’ He groaned his reassurance. ‘If you had done anything more right, then I believe I might now be lying here dead from a heart attack.’

  She blushed at his effusive praise for her lovemaking. ‘Then I still do not understand.’

  Zachary could see that she really had no idea what he was talking about. Had Rousseau been such a uninterested and unsatisfactory lover that even Zachary’s hasty lovemaking just now was preferable? Hasty, because his thoughts of Georgianna these past two weeks had caused him to hope, to anticipate, the worshipping of every inch of her delectable and responsive body. To kiss and caress her. To give her pleasure again and again.

  Instead Georgianna had taken control of the situation, of him, and made love to him in a way that had surpassed all and any of his fantasies of being with her again.

  He grimaced. ‘We might have expected our lovemaking to last for longer than a few minutes,’ he explained gruffly. ‘I had expected my own control to last for longer than a few minutes,’ he added ruefully. ‘I wanted it to be enjoyable for you, too.’

  ‘How could you ever imagine it was not enjoyable for me, too, when I cried out my pleasure?’ Her cheeks blushed a becoming rose.

  ‘Because I know it could have been better.’ He caressed that blush upon her cheeks. ‘I could have been better. Instead, I was as out of control as a callow youth being touched by a woman for the first time.’ Indeed, he had been lost the moment he had felt the soft fullness of Georgianna’s lips upon him, and the soft rasp of her tongue as she licked and tasted him; at that moment he’d had no more control than the night he had lost his virginity fifteen years ago.

  ‘What was your finest hour?’ Georgianna now prompted almost warily.

  Zachary knew she was questioning him about his previous physical experiences. Unnecessarily, as it happened, because enjoyable as those past encounters might have been, none of them had affected him in the way that making love to and with Georgianna did. And that was without his having as yet fully made love to her, because he had yet to bury himself in the heat and lushness of her.

  Even this, their closeness now as they cuddled in each other’s arms in the aftermath of that lovemaking, was an unusual occurrence for Zachary. Usually he could not vacate a woman’s bed quickly enough once the deed was done.

  This closeness with Georgianna was one he cherished rather than wished to avoid.

  At the same time he knew that he must now put an end to that closeness. That he had yet to tell Georgianna of his encounter with Rousseau in Paris.

  And he had no idea how she would react, what she would say, once she knew her previous lover was now dead.

  Admittedly, Rousseau had treated her abominably, had seduced her, deceived her, betrayed her, before believing he had killed her.

  But love, the emotions of a woman’s heart, were not things Zachary was familiar with, either. Despite all that Rousseau had done to her, Georgianna might still feel some vestige of that emotion for the other man. Knowing that Zachary had been instrumental in his demise might shatter this unique, and highly enjoyable, time between the two of them.

  Did he want to risk that, put an end to this time of harmony between the two of them, for the sake of honesty?

  No.

  But if he chose not to, then how could he ever reassure Georgianna that she no longer had anything to fear from Rousseau? Or expect Georgianna’s forgiveness, when she eventually learnt, as she surely must, that he had kept this information from her and for such selfish reasons?

  No, he could not keep Rousseau’s death to himself. He knew he must share that news with Georgianna.

  Even at the risk of bringing an end to the fragile intimacy that now existed between the two of them.

  Reluctantly he pulled his arms from around her, removing his handkerchief from his pocket and gently mopping up the worst of the evidence of their lovemaking, before standing up to turn away and refasten his clothing. He ran agitated hands through the tousled length of his hair as he contemplated how to begin this next conversation.

  ‘Zachary?’ Georgianna eyed him uncertainly as she slowly sat up, continuing to look at him even as she absently refastened the buttons on the front of her gown. Her hair was beyond repair at this moment, the pins scattered about the floor from when Zachary had released it earlier.

  The lover of just moments ago was gone. Zachary’s expression was guarded when he turned back to face her and flatly announced. ‘Georgianna, there is no other way for me to tell you this. My dear, Rousseau is dead.’

  She felt the colour leach from her cheeks even as she swayed slightly where she sat, unable to believe, to process the enormity of what Zachary was saying to her.

  André was dead?

  How was such a thing even possible?

  André was still a young man, aged only seven and twenty, and in the best of health when she had last seen him just weeks ago, so his death could not possibly have been through natural causes.

  Her gaze sharpened on Zachary, his own eyes, as he met her horrified gaze, a pale and glittering silver in his harshly forbidding face. ‘You killed him.’ It was not a question, but a statement.

  Zachary’s expression was grim. ‘Unfortunately I did not have that particular honour.’

  ‘But you were responsible for ordering his death?’ She could see the answer to that accusation in the tightening of Zachary’s jaw and the arrogant challenge now in those eyes, as he looked down at her through narrowed lids.

  Zachary had instructed André should be killed.

  The question was, why had he done so?

  Because the other man had been shown to be Napoleon’s spy and in part responsible for the Corsican’s escape from Elba?

  Or because of a reason more personal to Zachary, in that the other man had taken something of his, had taken Georgianna, when he eloped with her?

  She somehow doubted very much it had anything to do with the other man hurting and having attempted to kill Georgianna after they had arrived in France.

  The first of those reasons, at least, would be honourable. To have someone killed out of a sense of personal vengeance would not.

  She looked up at Zachary searchingly, but could read nothing from the harshness of his expression, could only see the challenge in the set of his shoulders beneath his superfine and his stance: legs slightly parted as he stood on booted feet, his hands clasped together behind the broadness of his back.

  Leaving Georgianna in absolutely no doubt that whatever his reason for having André dispatched, Zachary did not feel a moment’s remorse over it.

  And nor should Georgianna.

  But, no matter how cruel and deceitful as André had been, murderously so, and despite the freedom from future fear his death now gave her, Georgianna still could not find cause for celebration. Not for André’s demise, nor the fact that Zachary was tacitly admitting to being the one responsible for ordering that death, if not the reason for it.

  His mouth twisted derisively now. ‘I had expected a happier response from you upon hearing this news?’ he drawled mockingly.

  Georgianna drew in a ragged breath before speaking. ‘Why did you wait until now to tell me?’

  ‘Sorry?’ Zachary frowned darkly at the question.

  Georgianna lifted her shoulders. ‘Why did you wait, until after we had made love, to tell me?’

  ‘It was not a conscious decision.’

  ‘Are you sure of that?’ she scorned. ‘Could it be that the delay was because you knew I would not wish, or have the inclination, to make love with you once I knew?’ she guessed shrewdly.

 
He gave a shake of his head. ‘Georgianna—’

  ‘Why did you do it, Zachary?’ Georgianna pushed determinedly, deciding she could not think of Zachary’s duplicity now. That she would think of it later. Much later.

  ‘I do not recall admitting that I am the one responsible for Rousseau’s death.’ He arched arrogant dark brows over those now arctic-grey eyes.

  No, he had not. And yet, still, Georgianna knew instinctively that he was. That the Zachary standing before her now, every inch one of the cold and remote Dangerous Dukes, was more than capable of killing if called upon to do so. That he had no doubt killed many men during his years as an agent for the Crown. And lived with the consequences of those deaths without regret or remorse.

  But having André Rousseau killed was different to those other deaths. For one thing, they were not yet again at war with Napoleon. And no matter how much Zachary might have assured himself it was necessary to have André killed, it could not change the fact that he had also despised the other man on a very personal level. To the point of seeking out the other man and personally seeing to his demise?

  Whatever Zachary’s reasons for having dispatched André, Georgianna found she was not as capable as he of placing the events of her life into neatly labelled boxes. She needed time, and solitude, in which to come to terms with what she knew was Zachary’s involvement in André’s death. ‘Were you there when he died?’ She looked at Zachary searchingly.

  His jaw was tightly clenched. ‘Yes. Damn it, Georgianna, the man was a spy against England.’

  ‘And I remind you we are no longer at war with France!’

  ‘We very soon will be again.’ A nerve pulsed in that tightly clenched jaw. ‘Have you forgotten that just last night you asked that I do all that I can to prevent Jeffrey from becoming embroiled in that war?’

  ‘Do not turn this conversation around on me in that way, Zachary,’ she warned through clenched jaw as she stood up abruptly before collecting up her bonnet and gloves. Zachary’s words confirmed that at least part of his reasoning for having André killed was because the other man had spied upon England.