Page 132 of Dukes for Dessert

For once in his bedeviled life, Sebastian quieted. He stilled. Cords of velvet and silk encircled his limbs and secured him to this spot, to this moment, forcing him to remain in one place long enough to catch up with himself…

And take a breath.

A slow, easy inhale, flavored with notes of orchid and amber, bloomed inside of his chest with the languid deliberation of a sunset. Refusing to bend to the will of Man, God, or the relentless influence of Time itself, the sensation struck him dumb and stripped him of the wits upon which he so heavily relied.

Miraculous.

There was no other word for it. With each breath taken deeper into his chest, the consistent tightness eased, replaced by another need that surprised him as precious little did in this world.

His desire, though all-consuming, had lost its violent edge. The possession and provocation thrumming through his veins paused in his chest to expand and melt, before flowing in languid, honeyed beats to the rest of him, carrying a foreign substance as dangerous as any toxin.

One to which he couldn’t subscribe an exact identification.

Tenderness, perhaps. Vulnerability. Need, in its most generous form.

The need to worship the parts she kept hidden, even from herself. To adore what had never even been appreciated. To give to her what had only been taken.

He knew the bliss of unrepentant indulgence. He’d tasted the sweetness of discarded inhibitions. He’d drenched himself in pleasure so heady it’d bled into pain and become all the more intense for it.

And this vision of desire had never even been allowed a taste?

In-fucking-tolerable.

“Veronica.” Lord how he loved to say her name. How he hoped he could whisper it against her sex. “Let me make you come.”

5

“I am not having sex with you.” It wasn’t a sentence Veronica imagined she’d be forced to utter today.

Or ever.

Especially not to this man.

Furthermore, she’d never even considered that the denial would be a difficulty.

Sebastian Moncrieff had her pinned down. Not physically, but in every other conceivable way. Somehow, he’d guessed at the desire she’d discovered more than a year ago, as she’d witnessed him fornicate with another woman.

On a desk very much like this one.

His head had danced between the woman’s thighs, and drawn by a macabre curiosity, Veronica had watched in fascination as the woman had cried and strained and screamed beneath his attentions.

Veronica’s disbelief had been accompanied by another distressing discovery. One that’d made her thighs clench on an aching pulse accompanied by a yawning chasm of emptiness deep in her womb.

The sight of his naked body had intensified the ache. The play of muscle swelling and cording in his arms and shoulders. The flat of his tongue on forbidden flesh. The strain of his taut abdominals as he hammered her into the desk.

It was the first time she’d watched a woman climax. That she’d known such a thing was possible.

Her body had responded by releasing a rush of wet desire, and the ache had been so overwhelming that even the friction of her thighs with each step was impossibly, unbearably sensual against the slick thrum of need.

She’d resisted him then, and hadn’t had to contend with such unwanted sensations in the time since.

Until today, when he insisted upon invoking the wicked memories, along with her body’s reaction to them.

He’d explained her own desire to her, which should be the most aggravating factor in the entire world.

And yet, here she was, a pulsing puddle of slick arousal, her legs ready to give out at any moment.

She refused to give him the satisfaction.