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“It is different when one side is loyal and the other is not,” he replied.

“And that is precisely my point,” she shot back, rather pleased that he had tumbled headlong into her trap. “Ido not want a disloyal, philandering husband. I did not agree to that. I do notwant to be the lady that everyone whispers about behind their fans.”

She affected a high-pitched voice. “Oh, is it notawfulthat the Duchess must share her husband with leagues of women? Oh, what a poor creature. Oh, how do you think she bears it? Oh, I am so glad that my husband is faithful.” To her unease, the mere thought of being the source of nasty gossip sent shudders through her. “They will mock and pity me, and I cannot stand either.”

The carriage hit a rut at that moment, jolting her sideways. Will looked like he was about to lunge to help her, but as the carriage steadied itself, he sat back, leaving her strangely disappointed.

“But you did not want me as a husband either, and you have overcome that,” he said with a faint note of uncertainty in his voice. “You will overcome your shyness about lovers too.”

She groaned, throwing her hands up. “How many ways must I say it? I do not want a disloyal husband! I do not want to take lovers! I do not want to be left in a distant estate while my husband does whatever he pleases with whomever he pleases, hopelessly waiting for him to come home! It goes against everything I believe in and have always believed in.” Her opportunity was racing toward her though not quite in the way she had anticipated. “That is why I think it would be best if we?—”

His lips silenced her in a fierce, fiery press. His arm wrapped around her, pulling her to him while his other hand braced against the squabs.

She should have pushed him away, she should have kicked him in the shin again, she should have insisted on finishing what she had to say while she had the chance… but that graze of his mouth on hers chased away all reason and sense.

In an instant, she was kissing him back with equal fervor, wrapping her arms around his neck, pulling him even closer. She ran her fingertips through his silky dark hair, smoothed her palms over his stone-hard chest, and gripped his lapels, all the while crushing her mouth to his in a frantic, desperate kiss.

Heat smoldered in her belly, embers pulsing up into her chest, setting her lungs ablaze as she gasped down shallow breaths. She did not care about her rule, she did not care about his rules, she did not care about anything but kissing him, holding him, seeing what more he had to offer her.

He seemed to share in her eager abandon as his lips drew away from hers, trailing searing kisses down the curve of her neck, the column of her throat, the ridge of her collarbone, and across the straining rise and fall of her chest.

Each one tingled on her skin, igniting trails of a delicious sensation that could only be described as friction through her veins. The tingling trails converged in her chest and cascaded down into her belly and beyond, the promise of pleasure sparking a rush of heat between her thighs.

Groaning in the back of his throat, he drew his tongue up the valley between her breasts. “I would taste this sweet flesh,” hemurmured, “but I cannot bring myself to ruin such a gown as this.”

His hand smoothed over the rise of her bosom, caressing her through her dress. “I cannot even disturb this neckline, lest I rip it.”

He kissed the swell of her breast and sat back on his haunches, kneeling before her on the carriage floor. Holding her gaze, he trailed his fingertips from where his tongue had been, to her abdomen and her thighs.

With a wicked smile, he reached her ankle.

Slowly, he began to draw his hand back up. It took her a second to realize that his hand was no longer above her skirts but beneath them, his touch running up the back of her calf until his hand closed around her thigh. A gentle grip. A reminder of past moments. An invitation to tell him to stop if she so wished.

When she did not, he pushed her skirts higher, all the way to her hips.

Before she could ask what he was doing, though she had a sneaking suspicion thanks to one of her banned books, he bent his head and kissed the milky skin of her thigh.

It was quite something to see him kneeling and bent over her like that, but although it should have felt like she was the one with all the power, she knew that he had it all in his possession. Shewas at his mercy, and she would not have wanted to be anywhere else.

“Oh…” she gasped as his tongue moved along the sensitive flesh of her inner thigh, his hand sliding across the top.

She had read of things like this, but as his tongue flicked against that sensitive, hidden pearl, what she knew from her books came to a sudden and incendiary end. It was unlike anything she had ever experienced or imagined, every nerve in her body suddenly alert, every part of her attuned and impatient to feel the next strike of his tongue.

When it came, she was not even remotely prepared.

Her breath hitched, her neck arching, her hands gripping the edge of the velvet squabs as he tasted her again—a slow, teasing stroke this time, as if he were truly savoring her. Meanwhile, his hands explored, grasping and caressing the supple flesh of her thighs, her hips, her backside, holding her as she began to tremble.

He must have known the effect he was having on her as she began to gasp and moan, responding eagerly to every roll of that gifted tongue, as skilled at repartee as it was at… whatever this glorious thing was.

Soon enough, she felt that familiar sensation rising within her, building higher and higher to the command of his tongue and touch. But it was not quite like what she had experienced before, when he had strummed and circled that swollen bud. It was fargreater, rising up to higher heights, transporting her further and further into that mysterious realm of pleasure.

“Oh, Will!” she cried out, feeling it racing toward her. “Yes, my wolf. Yes…”

That euphoric wave was seconds from crashing over her when he suddenly drew his tongue away and turned his head to press a kiss to the inside of her thighs.

Slowly, with a cunning smile, he eased her skirts back down over her legs, adjusting them so they were exactly as they had been before he had begun his thrilling endeavor.

“But… I… What did…” Lydia fumbled for any words that might string a sentence together, her mind still dazed.