Page 133 of Dukes for Dessert

“I’m never doing that again,” she vowed. “I know you think you are some legendary sort of lover, and I’m sure you’ve honed your skills with untold multitudes of women, but I will not yield. You can look to take your pleasure elsewhere—am I understood?”

Closing her eyes, she wished her voice carried the same strength as did the words, but alas, her voice trembled as pathetically as her legs did.

“I think it is I who am misunderstood by you, dear Veronica,” he said. “I’m not after taking pleasure, only giving it.”

She did her level best to wither him with a look. “I have not given you leave to address me so informally. It is ‘my lady’ or nothing at all.” She wasn’t the sort that insisted on such proprieties, except when her hackles were so thoroughly engaged. She needed space. Air. A moment to think! All of which was in short supply in his presence.

“Seeing as we’re contriving a murder together, I reckoned we were past such distinctions.”

“Well…” She groped about for a witty rejoinder and came up with exactly nothing. “We’re not. It is just such distinctions that keep us civil.”

“Fine—then allow me a kiss, my lady?”

She eyed him warily, unstitched by the dimples beneath his puckish smile. By the width of his jaw and the roguish sparkle in his otherwise lethal eyes. He was the embodiment of carnality. Temptation incarnate sent from the Devil himself, to entice her.

“Only a kiss?” What was she doing? Surely not considering this madness. “You’ll expect no…no pleasure from me?”

You have my word.”

“Words are empty,” she said on a hitch of breath as he lifted a finger to her lips, tracing whisper soft trails of fire on the outline of her mouth.

“One finger.” That finger traced down her chin, the tiny buttons of her high-necked gown, down the center of her throat, awakening nerve endings she was unaware she’d possessed. “And a kiss. That’s all I ask. If I touch you with anything else, you have my permission to cut the offending appendage off.”

Curiosity overcame her contrariness. “One finger?”

“So long as it has free rein to roam where it likes.”

Intimate muscles gave an involuntary clench. “I don’t know…”

“It is a proposal of zero risk, my lady, with only pleasure to be gained. To be guaranteed.”

“But what if…” She paused, a familiar insecurity gripping her.

Mortimer had always been angered at her lack of response, her grimaces of pain, and her general discomfort in the marriage bed. He’d humiliated her in front of doctors and mocked her openly about her frigidity. After so long, she’d been beyond caring what disappointed the brute, let alone what pleased him.

But this man? Something told her she would not withstand his disdain. Could not risk it.

“What if I am not able?” she whispered.

A storm gathered on his features that somehow made him all the more beautiful. “Woman, during this impossible and purely hypothetical event, the fault would entirely be mine. I would have failed us both and would immediately request another attempt.”

It wouldn’t be her fault.

None of this was her idea, responsibility, nor was it incumbent upon her to even perform her duty of receiving the pleasure…

How many nights had she lain awake, beset with the memory of that woman writhing beneath him? How many times had she wondered? Wanted? Yearned?

For a mere taste of what he did to her.

“One finger,” she acquiesced.

The splendor of his victorious smile blinded her, and it took an embarrassingly long time for her to figure out just why he patted the top of the desk. “I would help you climb up, but alas even my finger is not so strong.”

She opened her mouth to verbally protest, while her body moved to comply, sliding onto the desktop until her feet swung above the floor.

Eyes gleaming like a predator who only stalked at night, his mouth descended, claiming hers before she could change her mind.

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