Would I Lie to the Duke

by Eva Leigh

  Noel reached down and took Jess’s hand. They’d removed their gloves for eating, so their palms pressed snug against each other. Her fingers were like the opening stanzas of a poem he knew by heart.

  He stroked his thumb back and forth over hers, her skin soft but not in the same way as most ladies. There was a slight hardiness in the feel of her, as if she did more than pour tea, write letters, and practice at the pianoforte.

  “You must feel at home here,” he murmured.

  She glanced at him. “Why do you say that?”

  “You mentioned a rural upbringing. Unless you made that up to hide the fact that you and your jewel-thieving family traveled from glamorous city to glamorous city, breaking hearts and stealing precious gems.”

  “We only turned to stealing so that we might pay for our dear old gran’s medical treatments.” She guided them off the path and down a sloping hill, where tall grasses brushed against their clothing. When he stiffened at the sound of something rustling in the brush, she said, “Don’t worry—there are several mousers at this farm that keep everything rodent-free.”

  Grateful, he exhaled. “I’m certain McCameron would give me a roasting if he knew my loathing of mice and rats. An inescapable part of being a soldier, he said. That, and weevils.” He shook his head. “No, thank you, kindly.”

  She made a quiet scoffing noise. “Farm life’s not for you, then. Because there’s no avoiding a host of wriggling things and creatures with pincers and many, many legs.”

  They reached the bottom of the hill, and stood on the banks of a cheerful river, water streaming over rocks and gently chuckling. The last strains of daylight played upon the river’s surface.

  “So, your life wasn’t just rural, it was downright agrarian.”

  “I grew up on a farm,” she said after a moment. “There were no glamorous cities or carefully plotted robberies. Just cows and goats and a fair share of manure.” She shot him a look. “You wouldn’t have liked it.”

  “Here, now,” he said in mock affront, “I once had to wear a woolen waistcoat instead of one made of silk. Never say I’m not adaptable.” With his free hand, he stroked a finger along her cheek and then down her neck. Her warm, silken flesh thickened his thoughts far more than any mead they had imbibed.

  “Carriford suits you well enough,” she said, leaning into his touch. “Is a farm entirely too rustic?”

  He looked behind him at the fields that stood at the top of the slope. “Don’t know if I’d make for much of a farmer. But with the right inducement, I’d be willing to try.” He stroked across her lower lip, and smiled when she playfully nipped at him. “If it means hayloft trysts with you, then I am certainly amenable.”

  He regarded her. “On Bond Street, and at the Bazaar, you were in your element. Lady Hawk. I’ve never seen a woman, no, never seen a person so confident and knowledgeable about the world of finance. Surely, I thought, this is where she belongs. This is who she is.”

  She said nothing, but her gaze was clear and direct.

  “Yet here you are, at this farm, and there’s something about you, something . . . looser.”

  “A woman with loose morals?” She lifted a brow.

  “The very best kind. But my meaning is that you’ve got a softness out here, a centered calm I didn’t feel in London.” He shook his head. “Pay me no regard. I think the smoke-free air has addled my brain so I can only spout nonsense. Which makes me ideally suited for politics.”

  “You would begin a policy of government-mandated carousing.” She squeezed his hand, and an echoing squeeze centered in his chest. “Perhaps I’m Lady Hawk and also the girl from the farm. Perhaps people don’t have to be fully one thing or the other. For example, there’s you.”

  “One hundred percent ducal stock, which makes me phenomenally overbred. Unless,” he added thoughtfully, “my mother had a wild affair with the groundskeeper—but I doubt it, given that I have my father’s eyes, nose, and severe reaction to shellfish.”

  “That’s not what I mean.”

  “I swell up and itch all over—”

  “Noel.” She pressed her lips together as if fighting a smile. “Lord Trask warned me about you.”

  “About my sensitivity to shellfish?” He raised a brow.

  She stroked a finger along the base of his thumb. “He said you were a dazzling comet—with the underlying message that you were all flash and fire, with little substance.”

  “The rotter,” Noel said without rancor. “Thank God I’m too indolent to challenge him to a duel.”

  “But there’s deep nuance to you.” She stepped closer to him, the distance between their bodies mere inches. “The way you are with your friends, the way you care for them . . . you have a good heart. A wonderful heart.”

  In a whisper, she said, “And it’s softer than you think it is. Perhaps more than you want it to be—but you can’t help yourself. You’re made the way you’re made, and it’s beautiful.”

  His eyes grew hot, and his throat tightened. “Damn,” he muttered. “I want to say something, anything, that’s droll or urbane and”—he swallowed—“and safe.”

  “You don’t need to,” she murmured.

  “Not with you.” He tipped his head forward so that their foreheads touched, as they had last night in the larder. “Because I’m safe with you. I trust you.”

  Her eyes squeezed shut. “Oh, Noel.”

  He kissed her. A velvety, slow kiss full of desire and gratitude. Because she’d reached into the very core of him. With her, he was simply himself, just as she was herself, and as his tongue stroked against hers and he tasted her flavors of honey and spice, he sank into the place they created together. A place that was theirs alone.

  “Want to lay you down in the grass and have you beneath me,” he growled between kisses. “Hot and soft and fierce. I need to be inside you.”

  “I want you there.”

  “Tonight.”

  She pulled back slightly, and a look of pain crossed her face—too quickly for him to be certain that he’d seen it at all. Her eyes opened and he saw focused resolve there. “Midnight. In your bedchamber.”

  “You’d prefer my room to yours.”

  “I want to see you in your native habitat.”

  Ah, she’d kill him with her insight. “It’s a bit of a trek.”

  “One I’ll make willingly.”

  God, how he loved the way she took what she wanted. “Delightful woman. Go all the way down the main corridor, then left, then turn right at the Chinese vase, and I’m the third door on the left. It’s somewhat confusing.”

  “I’ve an excellent sense of direction. Never more so than when I’m motivated.”

  They kissed again, mouths open, hearts open. It anchored him and he vowed to himself that this night he would give her everything.

  Chapter 22

  In the end, Jess could not stop herself. It was a mistake, a terrible mistake, but she had to make it. At midnight, she stepped into a pair of slippers, draped a shawl over her shoulders, and left the Gillyflower Room in search of Noel’s bedchamber.

  Cool air swept around her as she walked, navigating the corridors of the old, rambling house. Darkness surrounded her—she hadn’t taken a candle to prevent detection.

  Her family and the business were safe. Jess’s gamble had worked, and the thought alone was nearly enough to make her run through the countryside, clad only in her nightgown, shouting her relief.

  Yet there was a cost. There always was.

  In all the ways in which this scenario had taken shape in her imagination, losing her heart to a duke had never entered her mind.

  Yet she had, and tonight would be her last night with him before she disappeared from his life forever.

  Moonlight spilled into the hallway from tall, diamond-paned windows. Her body moved of its own accord, following a silent call. To him.

  Jess paused outside his room. Just beneath the door, light flickered. Her heart leapt into her throat as she rais
ed her hand to tap on the wood.

  The door opened before she could make contact with it, revealing Noel. Firelight cast a glow around him, and in his untucked shirt, his waistcoat undone and his coat gone, he was in beautiful disarray. It looked as though he’d dragged his hands through his hair many times as he’d waited for her. Dark stubble emphasized his lips and the angles of his jaw, and his eyes were dark as mystery as he gazed at her.

  Her breath caught. He was so beautiful. Even his damned bare feet were beautiful.

  He held out a hand to her. She stared at it before sliding her palm into his.

  Gently, firmly, he tugged her inside. He shut the door behind her. Locked it.

  As she leaned against the door, he stepped close to her. His chest brushed against hers, and he cupped his hands around her hips. Their rough breaths mingled in the narrow space between them.

  “Wasn’t certain you were coming,” he said, his voice low and sonorous.

  She closed her eyes as the heat of him penetrated every last corner of her being. “I’m here now. For tonight. And then—”

  “No need to speak of then. Let’s have now. Jess.” He growled her name as he brought up one of his hands to cradle her jaw. A man with such large hands should not have been able to touch her with this reverence, yet he did. He tilted her face up.

  She lifted onto her toes and, wrapping her hands around the back of his neck, brought her mouth to his. Their lips opened to each other. They kissed long and deep, each stroke of their tongues urging need higher. It was a kiss that felt both familiar and astonishingly new, as though she’d crossed a doorway she had walked through a thousand times, to find not an expected comfortable room, but a chamber of wonders.

  Her breasts grew tight and sensitive, her nipples firming into points that brushed against the unyielding expanse of his chest. His hips pressed into hers, and she was branded by the length of his arousal as it curved along her belly. Instinctively, she rocked against him. Small flares of pleasure lit inside her.

  “Been hungering for you all day,” he growled. “Wanted to carry you off into the fields and fuck you beneath the sun.”

  She made a low, needful sound, because she wanted that, too. “Tell me what you want now.”

  “You. In all the ways I can have you.” He reached up and threaded his fingers with hers. “Tell me what to do. Command me.”

  Without relinquishing their hold on each other, she pushed against his hands, putting a small distance between them.

  “You want my commands?” At his nod, she said haughtily, “Show me your cock. Take it out.”

  His nostrils flared and his jaw went taut—with arousal.

  He took his hands from hers, and they trembled slightly as he worked the fastenings of his breeches to free his straining erection. It was thick and full and reached upward in a luscious curve. Already a tiny bead of moisture glossed the slit.

  “Here’s my cock, Jess,” he growled. “Hard and aching. What shall I do with it? Order me to fuck you.”

  “Not yet. Touch it. Let me see your hand stroking yourself.” The command was outrageous and deeply arousing to speak, but saying the words was nothing compared to watching him wrap his fingers around his shaft and pump. “Look at me while you do it.”

  His gaze flew to hers, infinitely dark. Watching his face contort with pleasure brought slick heat between her legs and made her breasts heavy.

  “What pace?” he rumbled. “I could fist my cock slowly, imagining I’m deliberately plunging deep into you. Or I could go hard and quick, pretending I’m fucking you in a frenzy.”

  God, how could she keep standing when he spoke to her like this? “Slowly. I want to watch you bring yourself close to coming. But you aren’t to come, do you understand? Do not let yourself climax.”

  She looked down to see how his length grew longer, and seemed to fill his hand even more.

  “You will kill me,” he said hoarsely.

  “You won’t die. But,” she added with a sly smile, “you’ll come close.”

  “I need something from you first.” He released the hold on his cock and brought his palm up to her lips. “Lick.”

  Her knees nearly buckled as she ran her tongue over his hand. There was a hint of salt and musk on his skin, the flavor so delicious she moaned. With his gaze holding hers, he fisted his cock. His strokes went smoother now that she’d provided lubrication, and the cords of his neck stood out as he stroked himself.

  “Fuck,” he snarled. “I need to come.”

  “Not. Yet. If you feel yourself on the verge, you must stop.”

  His hand stilled, and his chest rose and fell with harsh, ragged breaths. He’d never looked more aroused, and she certainly had never felt more aroused. If she was to touch herself, not only would she find herself soaking wet, but she’d climax with a single stroke.

  A moment went by, and then another. His breath slowed.

  “Touch yourself again,” she demanded. “Slowly. You must go slowly.”

  An animal sound rose up from him. “Yes, Jess.”

  He pumped into his hand, and she loved every moment of it, seeing this powerful man bend to her will, working himself into a haze of agonizing pleasure because it was what she decreed.

  “I’m close,” he panted after several more strokes.

  “Stop.”

  Even as he groaned, his hand froze. He truly was hers to command. And he gave her that power over him.

  “Good. Very good.”

  “Jess.” He bowed his head, then looked up through his lashes. “Please, I ask you to . . .” He swallowed hard. “Suck my cock.”

  Torrential heat poured through her. She hadn’t known that mere words could bring her to the very precipice of her own release, and yet his did.

  “Go.” She pointed to a wingback chair beside the fire. Only then did she take in the details of his bedchamber—its dark wooden paneled walls, the heavy but ornately carved escritoire and clothespress, and the massive four-post bed that dominated the room. It suited the lord of the manor. It suited him. “Strip, then sit there, and I will show you what wicked servants get when they make demands of their mistresses.”

  Noel pulled off his shirt so quickly he thought he heard it tear. His breeches followed, and then he was nude.

  She was still clothed. The difference in their state of dress—him, completely exposed, while she had not revealed any part of herself—whipped his excitement into a fury.

  He strode to the chair and lowered himself down. His cock was like a second heartbeat, so hard and aching as it angled upward toward his navel. He’d never delayed his release like this, and the pain and pleasure of it was beyond measure.

  She walked to him, her head back, and in her finely woven nightgown, with her hair loose about her shoulders, she looked like an elfin queen ready to command her armies.

  “Hold the armrests,” she instructed him.

  He obeyed, clutching them so tightly his knuckles went white. And then he held his breath as she slowly lowered herself to her knees and licked her lips.

  Noel was forced to squeeze his eyes shut, because the picture she presented—preparing herself to take his cock in her mouth—brought him close to climax. Then he realized something, and he opened his eyes again.

  “A moment.” He pulled a cushion from behind him, and slid it under her knees.

  She bestowed him with a grateful smile. “Thoughtful.”

  “I live only to serve you.”

  She inclined her head in gratitude, then instructed, “Hands back on the armrests.”

  He obeyed, panting as if he ran full speed across the rolling fields, and hissed as she wrapped her fingers around his cock.

  “Mm,” she murmured. “Beautiful.” She lowered her head and licked the crown.

  “Fuck.” His voice came from somewhere deep and dark. And then he didn’t know any more words as she took him in her mouth. She bobbed up and down, her tongue swirling around his shaft.

  She lifted her h
ead enough to speak. “Who gave you permission to be silent? Talk to me. Tell me what you feel. If you don’t, I’ll stop sucking you.”

  “Please don’t stop.” He loved begging her. “I’ll do anything you wish.”

  “Then talk.”

  “I love your mouth. I love the look of it. The—fuck yes—feel of it.” As he spoke, his words barely more than growls, she took him back into her mouth. “All that wet heat. The velvet of your tongue on my cock. Sucking me. Good God.” She swirled around the head of his cock, timing the strokes of her hand on his shaft with her licks. “Just want to— Christ.”

  “Want to what?” she murmured between strokes.

  “I want to hold your head and pump into your mouth.”

  Her gaze heavy lidded, she pried one of his hands from the armrest and placed it on the back of her head. His heartbeat raced at the feel of her hair against his palm, and what it meant.

  “I give you permission,” she said regally. “Fuck my mouth.”

  He swore again, and once more when she positioned the crown of his cock between her lips. Then any attempt at keeping himself in check burned away, and he thrust his hips up, plunging into her mouth. They both held her steady as he did what she commanded. She dug her fingers into his thigh, urging him to use her as he wanted—though they both knew it was she who held all the power.

  Pleasure built, gathering low and spreading through him in a web of fire. His release loomed and he tried to pull back, tried to take himself from her mouth.

  “Jess,” he rasped. “Going to come.”

  Yet she remained where she was, and tightened his hand on her head.

  God above, was she truly going to let him—

  His climax ripped from him. Wave after wave of ecstasy slammed his body after the release he’d been denied finally broke free. His back arched and he groaned, his entire body going rigid with the force of his orgasm. And she took it. She swallowed him, never pulling back until he gave up the last of his seed.

  “My God, Jess . . .”

  She’d completely ensnared him. He was hers, for all time.

  He could not find words. They seemed so small and confining, when what he felt was beyond language.