Page 145 of Dukes for Dessert

His entire life he’d spent bedding women who could have no claim to him. Not to his body, his money, his time, nor his heart. Neither did he seek to keep them once he’d had them. Not even a mistress. A handful of lovers had been amusing enough to dally with more than once. But even upon that rare occurrence he’d made certain feelings were never involved.

And the moment a woman twitched a possessive eyelash in his direction, he’d disappeared like smoke in the sea mist.

A pirate’s life was lucky in that respect.

Lucky… And lonely.

Why did she make his loneliness feel less like freedom and more like a consequence?

A soft knock on the door caused him to flinch, though he should have known it was coming. He’d left her so abruptly, he couldn’t even remember if she’d been finished with her orgasm.

“Moncrieff?” came the hesitant call from the other side.

“I’ll be a moment longer,” he croaked out, turning on the water to wash his hands and splash over his face, hoping to cool the fever there.

What was he going to tell her?

The woman already didn’t trust him, for better reasons than he’d admitted to her. If he told her the truth now, she would run from him in terror.

How could he explain that he’d become so overcome by lust he’d almost lost his humanity? That the sight, and scent, and taste of her pleasure had driven his tattered dignity into the dirt… That he found a quickly fraying thread of decency and used it to shut himself in here.

He’d wanted to take her, in every possible way. To steal her. Claim her. Own her. Possess her.

Only her.

Always her.

He’d wanted to thrust himself inside of her body, so that the last man who’d had her was not the monster she’d married. A beast Sebastian carried forward from the seed of his Viking ancestors convinced him he could fuck the memory of any man out of her. Could turn her into a vessel for him, alone. To shape her to his cock…

And even that wasn’t the worst of it.

Images of her, wrapped in the richest fabrics he could provide and adorned in gems he’d draped over her, glittered in his mind’s eye. While he’d had his tongue buried in the most wicked parts of her, his imagination had summoned other fantasies.

Ones he’d never before entertained.

If he could make her come, could he make her laugh? Could he make her feel safe and protected?

Could he make her happy?

Make her his?

Groaning, he ran his hand over his face, doing his best to wipe away the lunacy.

He was not a man a woman would want to keep.

The knock sounded again, this time more urgent. “Is everything…are you all right?”

Categorically not.

Sebastian looked down to where his cock throbbed painfully against the placket of his trousers. Even the fine fabric felt like sandpaper against the sensitized flesh.

Perhaps if he relieved his pent-up desire, some of the madness would abate. At the very least, he’d be able to think more clearly.

“I’ll only be a—” He gasped in relief as he undid his trousers and released the shaft into his hand.

“Sebastian?”

Yes. Say my name. The column flexed in his grip, a bead of moisture trickling from the head.