My Darling Duke

by Stacy Reid

  “Hmm, as I indulge you shamelessly?”

  “I declare it to be so,” she said softly, not understanding why her heart pounded in this manner. This feeling brewing between them, this feeling of comfort, of…friendship. Was it one-sided? How she wished to ask.

  “You miss your father.”

  An ache built in her chest. “I do.”

  “How long has he been gone?”

  She hesitated slightly. “Almost five years.”

  The bed dipped as he shifted on his side to face her, his hands still propped behind his head. “You are smiling, Miss Danvers.”

  “I was thinking how wonderfully odd this all is. We are sharing stories…as if we are…”

  “Friends?” he asked archly.

  Kitty silently admitted she’d never experienced anything so wicked and improper, and having such an attachment with the duke promised pleasure, darkly and sweetly. “It is strange. I’ve only ever spoken this way to my other sinful wallflowers.”

  “Oh? I sense a fascinating story.”

  “One you’ve not earned yet,” she teased, almost hating the ease at which they bantered. She liked and admired the duke so, yet she was a mere plaything that he would eventually tire of and discard. Worse, she wanted to kiss him. It was a desire she had been denying since their carriage ride from London.

  “So you are no longer worried being alone with me, hmm?”

  She scowled. The wretched tease. “Your reputation had given me pause, but I can see it does not precede you.”

  He lifted an arrogant brow. “And which reputation do you throw at me, Miss Danvers?”

  She hesitated, not sure why she wanted to tease him so in return. “The one that called you mad, bad, and dangerous.”

  Amusement lit in his eyes, and her heart shivered to see it.

  “You’ve also forgotten the fiendishly sinful bit,” he drawled, eyes alight with provoking humor and something so warm, her mouth dried.

  “I was about to come to it,” she said with a smile. “Mad, bad, dangerous, and fiendish. A truly appalling combination.” Her heart whispered “ruthless” and “indomitable,” qualities she should not admire so.

  He touched her face fleetingly, his finger leaving a trail of warmth across her cheek. She felt the pull of his stroke in her belly. It was a rather disconcerting sensation.

  “And do you believe everything you read, Miss Danvers?”

  His question was a wicked purr of warning, one she had no intention of heeding. Later she would blame it on being locked in a small cottage, with the rain hammering against the slatted roof and windowpane. The fire in the hearth danced merrily, yet the room was cast in intimate shadows. The silence that stretched between them was filled with something dangerous and exciting.

  A reckless and wholly improper feeling stirred inside her. I want to kiss him, and I am a silly wretch to think it!

  “Your scowls are frightening me, Miss Danvers. Pray tell what murder and mayhem do you currently contemplate?”

  Each time he teased her, Kitty hungered to clasp his jaw and kiss him with all the brewing passion in her heart. She felt she would slowly expire from the torture of always wanting, not knowing, endlessly desiring him. That frustration and hunger snapped, uncoiling within her. She shifted closer, ignoring his start of surprise, stretched up against him, and pressed her lips quickly to his, entirely without grace.

  Kitty fastened her mouth to his—it was awkward yet so wonderfully tender. She paused, holding her breath, waiting for his response…which never came.

  Mortification pinched her and she pulled away, a trembling sigh falling from her lips.

  The duke was remarkably still, his eyes hooded and unfathomable. A battle flashed across his shadowed features—stark hunger, uncertainty, before aloofness painted a curiously indifferent mask. “What did I do to deserve such attentions?” he drawled.

  “I just wanted to get that dreadful anticipation out of the way,” she said with a nervous laugh.

  “Do explain.”

  “I knew I would go mad confined with you for two whole days or more in this small cottage.” She held up two fingers for emphasis. Her throat worked on a swallow. “I would go mad from wondering what it would be like. Can you imagine the awful anxiety of wondering and not knowing? But now I know.”

  He stared at her as if he did not know what to make of her, and a flush worked itself through her.

  “What do you now know, then?”

  “Why…what it felt like to kiss you properly, of course.” Yes! She sounded perfectly nonchalant and worldly. But how her belly flipped as a million butterflies—or more like eagles—took flight inside.

  “What an injustice,” he murmured. “It almost borders on criminality.”

  She frowned. “What is?”

  “That you truly believed that bit of slobbering was a kiss.”

  Kitty gasped her outrage. “Slobbering?”

  “Hmm. My dogs greet me in the same manner.”

  The low growl from her throat shocked her with its ferocity. “How do you dare!”

  Amusement fired in his eyes. “Forgive me for teasing. I suspect I’ve injured your pride.”

  She sniffed derisively, but mortification burned the tips of her ears. “I suppose you believe you could do better? Do not answer that! For I recall our meeting in its entirety, and that nip was hardly worth mentioning.”

  “Ah…an invitation? I accept, Miss Danvers. I accept.” Chuckling, he drew her near and kissed her.

  She bit his lip, hard, and with a muttered curse, he released her.

  “Impudent hellion!”

  She pushed aside the blanket and scrambled from the bed. With an indignant scoff, she flounced toward the armchair. Slobbering. If she possessed any wisp of rationality, she would ignore him and try to get some sleep. The man had said he would never marry, and she did not desire ruination, but he’d lit a fire inside her. Or perhaps she relied on that excuse too quickly. But Kitty spun around to see that he, too, had left the bed and was standing.

  She marched over to him, grabbed his shoulders, tipped on her toes, and mashed her lips to his. There. She would show him. Slobbering? Odious man!

  A muffled sound of surprise came from him, and then they were tumbling onto the bed. She landed on him with an oomph. Their foreheads bumped, and with a cry she reared up, rubbing the bruised spot.

  “Your tough head has fairly cracked my skull,” he muttered darkly.

  “Why, you—”

  He caught her lips with his. The second their mouths met, it was as though the hunger, which had been carefully contained, escaped with an intense rush. This time their kiss was slow…indulgent, and oh so wickedly thorough.

  “Part these pretty lips for me,” he murmured against her mouth.

  Kitty gasped, parting her lips and giving him the entry he sought.

  Fire blazed through her body, glorious, wanton heat at the first touch of his tongue against hers. A soft bite at her lower lip. A nibble. Then another deep kiss, their tongues mating with carnal enticement.

  His moan resonated with longing. Her heart jerked with joy.

  Their lips parted, and he spun with her so she was beneath him. Kitty felt faint at this new, provocative, and intimidating position. She knew it would likely break her heart, but she couldn’t steel herself against this unknown passion he roused.

  I’m being foolish. His reputation and title had been a means to an end, nothing more. And for him she was a dalliance…a mystery that needed to be dissected and then forgotten. Then why…oh why do I feel so? Kitty hated that she was falling headlong into something elusive, and she could not stop it.

  This man…this duke, who was so far removed from her in everything, would break her. She saw the knowledge in the gaze that peered at her. Yet…she was helpless against his pull. She almo
st hated him in this instance.

  “You will break me,” she murmured, holding his gaze, wanting him to scoff and deny. Or fall back on the humor that seemed to have saved him when his world had turned to ashes.

  A dark knowledge lingered within his brilliant stare. A finger trailed along her cheek, sorrow…and something unfathomable whispering through his stark gaze. “You will recover,” he said softly, his tone ruthless and implacable.

  Kitty flinched.

  No promises lingered, nor were any implied. And the first crack in her silly, reckless heart appeared.

  They stared at each other; the darkened chamber clasped them in an intimacy that made her believe all their secrets would be kept safe. All their kisses, improper glances, wicked touches would be only a memory between them and this small cottage. Society need not know, and ruination would be averted.

  I’ll know, her aching soul cried as she allowed the heart that had dreamed once but had been buried under duty to flicker to life.

  As if he sensed the hunger jerking inside her, his head dipped, their noses rubbed briefly, then his sensual mouth claimed hers in a kiss of violent tenderness. She floundered in a blinding sea of sensation, desperate to sink deeper. Her fingers dug into his hair, holding him steady, pushing him away, urging him on all at once.

  …

  Hunger flamed through Alexander’s soul, a wicked craving that crawled to burrow deep under his skin. The wonder of Katherine’s lips against his felt like his first brush with intimacy. He almost went to his knees, so urgent and desperate was the need to be touched by her and to feel the burn of pleasure. Even when he’d teased her of slobbering earlier to save himself…to save her from this fiery madness, her taste had enslaved him.

  Touch me, please, he silently, desperately implored.

  The sweet taste of her spilled into his mouth; her soft sighs of pleasure vibrated through his body, burrowing their way down to his heart. It beat. For the first time in years, he felt the shudder of his soul and heard the echo of his heartbeat. It transmuted a halting stutter to a thundering roar within seconds. How long had it been since he had tasted such sweetness? Felt such pleasure? Ten years? A lifetime.

  He could feel the dull ache of awakening desire in his cock, and he trembled in reaction, shock tearing through him. He was impotent. For ten years, doctors had probed and prodded; the Marquess of Argyle had sent Alexander some of the most exotic and wicked Parisian courtesans, and all had failed to rouse his ardor.

  While his cock wasn’t rushing to attention, he felt something…and that was everything.

  Miss Danvers’s mouth was a sweet silken flame under his as she responded with artless wonder to his ravishing kisses. She made an achingly hungry, demanding, yet soft sound against his mouth. Every muscle in his body tightened, every echoing emptiness in his soul expanded to be filled with a strange sensation akin to wonder. He cupped the back of her head with one hand, cradled her cheek reverently with the other, and slanted his mouth over hers more forcefully, a desperate need burgeoning inside to feel the press of desire.

  Alexander sensed the heated quickening inside, and though he felt a throb along his shaft, the phantom pulse of remembered pleasure, his length did not harden. She whimpered into his kiss, and he felt her pulse fluttering wildly against his palm like the wings of a captured bird. He shifted, and pain flashed up his thighs and into his hips.

  With a muffled moan, she pushed against his chest. He released her immediately and shifted so that she rolled away from him, taking great gulps of air through her swollen lips. Her body was flushed, the creamy mounds of her breasts quivering through the gaping nightgown. She touched her full lower lip with a fingertip, and her eyes were wounded shadows in the paleness of her face.

  He took a deep, deep breath. “I’ve frightened you,” he murmured.

  “No…I’ve frightened myself.”

  And he understood.

  “Come here, Katherine.”

  Her eyes shot with a defiant spark, and her tongue darted and wetted her bottom lip, a nervous gesture. “Are you making an offer, Your Grace?”

  A pounding ache went through his heart. “No.”

  Indignation brought a flush to her cheeks. “Then you will refrain from taking liberties,” she whispered, her voice achingly soft. “Though I was foolish to kiss you just now, I do not wish to be reckless and impetuous with my virtue. I… If I should succumb to your ravishment, I would expect and demand a marriage. Our situation is very…unorthodox, and we must not give in to any temptation our forced intimacy imposes. I must not give in and you must not be the devil’s advocate. I’ve no brother or father to protect my honor, so I must use my good senses.”

  She looked pale and stricken and heartbreakingly beautiful, yet so very fierce and determined.

  His fingers lightly caressed her arm, and he bent his head closer to hers. “Then use your good senses wisely, Miss Danvers.”

  She was so endearing, so indomitable, so damn sweet. She had a stubborn strength that did not lessen her beguiling femininity. And Alexander wished and hoped for things he hadn’t longed for in years. The ability to give…pleasure and joy and his name and protection. It was foolish, it bordered on rank absurdity, but suddenly he wanted Kitty Danvers with all her bold impudence, reckless heart, and vivacious personality…to belong to him.

  If only…

  He rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling, hating the empty, hollow feeling once more rising inside. He’d conquered these emotions years ago when he’d wanted to rail at life and become a monster in his grief and despair. He’d accepted the certainty this would never be his, so why was he tempting himself again with things that could not be?

  You will break me.

  He hadn’t forgotten that shocking statement. Her voice had been so quiet, the hint of vulnerability and apprehension in it digging sharp claws of discomfort into his conscience.

  You’ll recover.

  How cold and unfeeling he’d sounded when everything inside him had been burning with hunger to taste, to smell, to simply touch her. Alexander was damned if he knew how to handle what she made him feel. He had nothing to offer as a broken man. He knew this… It had been imprinted on his soul. He’d accepted years ago that normalcy in a relationship would not be for him, so it would be a waste of his energy and time to pursue anything in that direction. And he was not the kind of man to invest where there would be no gain.

  What is it that I hope for?

  Instead of launching from the bed as he’d anticipated, she shifted closer to him, her shoulder bumped fleetingly against his shoulder.

  “I never knew a kiss could taste like sunshine,” she said softly.

  “And also of the storm,” he murmured.

  Alexander swore he felt the smile blooming on her face.

  If he didn’t breathe, maybe she would touch him.

  And she did. A fleeting caress against his knuckles. Ah yes…Christ.

  “I truly believe, Miss Danvers, there are infinite possibilities for us as kissing friends.”

  “You mustn’t give me encouragement of this sort; I can be frightfully wicked,” she teased.

  He arched a brow but did not look at her. If he did, he would ruin his honor and trust by hauling her into his arms. “Oh?”

  “Yes,” she said, at once prim and mischievous. How did she do it?

  They stared at each other at the same time, and he smiled at the fancy of it.

  “You want to kiss me again,” she said with a sigh, her expression hidden in the flickering shadows.

  “I do, Miss Danvers.”

  “I thought we’d agreed on informality.”

  “When I want to save myself from acting the fool…I must say Miss Danvers.”

  Her eyes widened. “I quite like your name on my lips, Alexander.”

  “And I treasure the soun
d of it.”

  She turned more toward him, and it was the daring tigress who peered up at him. Then, as if the most natural thing in the world, his wicked hellion kissed him. Her fingers threaded through his hair. Her lips, her mouth, moved over his with scorching carnality. She made the softest, sweetest sounds of pleasure against his lips, and Alexander hoarded them, interring them deep in his heart where the memory would sustain him for years to come.

  Something he had thought long dead rose from the silent depths of his soul. It stirred, stretched, and hummed as a blast of pleasure and pain arrowed through his cock.

  Sweet mercy…what in God’s name is this?

  Chapter Eleven

  With a virulent curse, Alexander pulled from Katherine and launched from the bed. Too fast and without form. The muscles of his legs twisted, pain ricocheted up his back, and his leg crumpled. He stumbled back against the bed, and with a cry, she jerked up to catch him. His weight flattened her against the bed, and it was all so ridiculous, he laughed.

  “This is not remotely humorous,” she muttered, her lips pressing against his shoulder.

  With a grunt, he moved, and she scrambled from beneath his weight. He shifted onto the bed, and the pain came, a dark tide that rolled over him, freezing him in place. It spasmed from his calf, the muscles knotting in urgent demand, his heart racing, his body tensing against the agony. He’d thought he defeated the episode earlier when he’d spent almost an hour working through the knots and cramps while she’d slept.

  “Let me,” she whispered, coming up on her knees and pushing the two pillows beneath his leg.

  A groan slipped from between his teeth, and it bothered him that she would see him so weakened.

  Worried eyes peered at him. “Where does it hurt most? Alexander…please trust me with your pain as you did with your memories.”

  The softly whispered entreaty burrowed into his heart. He lifted his chin toward his left thigh. And without hesitation, she gripped his flesh and started a deep press of her fingertips into his muscles. The cramps fought her ministrations, sweat beaded his brows, and he gripped the bedsheets between his fingers.