Page 147 of Dukes for Dessert

She’d drained the very substance of his life and swallowed it. Consumed him with warm little licks and soft, encouraging sounds until he was nothing but her leftover scraps.

Happily so.

She could discard him at her will. Throw him to her hounds, and he’d lie there and yearn for her as he was ripped apart. For another touch. For another kiss. Just one more taste.

When he was able, he reached down and hauled her to her feet, crushing both her body and her mouth to his.

This time, she met him with equal fervor, her tongue sparring brazenly as they melded the flavors of the other into one irresistible sexual delicacy.

Never in his life had Sebastian savored anything so sweet.

By the time she broke the kiss they were both struggling for breath. She tucked her head against his chest as she visibly sought control of her lungs.

Calling upon one final, rational thought, he disengaged his hips to tuck his sex back into his trousers, chagrined to discover he was still half-hard. After such a powerful release, he’d expect to need at least half an hour to fully recover.

As it was now, he wasn’t certain he ever would.

“You didn’t have to do that,” he said, concerned by the tension in her body against his.

“I needed to,” she said, her forehead still pressed into his clavicles as if she couldn’t extricate herself to face the enormity of what they’d done. “I-I wanted to.”

Swamped with compassion, he smoothed unsteady hands over her shoulders. “Tell me what you are thinking,” he murmured, pressing a kiss into the wreck he’d made of her tidy hair.

She still didn’t look up, so he had to strain to hear her. “Would it be possible to—I know this isn’t what—that we aren’t—but… I…” Several unformed sentences died with a trembling sigh.

Hooking a finger under chin, he pulled away so he could lift her gaze to his. “Tell me what you need.”

She pressed her lips together, gathering strength. “Would you…hold me?”

“Woman, if you asked me to, I’d hold up this train.”

He turned her around and did his best not to stumble as he directed her toward the bed. It was difficult not to sweep her up and carry her, but something stopped him. Not just the lack of available space in a railcar, but also a sense that she needed her physical autonomy just now.

Taking the initiative, he sat on the bed and reached for her, allowing her to slide between his open legs and once again tug at the silk knot at his throat.

“I know I’m ridiculous,” she said with a self-effacing smile. “But I can’t relax knowing this is tight and confining.”

“Undress me at your leisure, my lady,” he teased, hiding a spill of bittersweet warmth in the cavern of his ribs.

“I won’t be undressing you,” she informed him crisply. “I just need you to be comfortable.”

That warmth… It spread like sun-warmed honey through his limbs as he sat with uncharacteristic stillness, submitting to her ministrations.

Her eyebrows drew together as she plucked and grappled at the loops he’d secured rather tightly.

I need you to be comfortable.

How many women had told him they needed him? Too many to remember.

In fact, he’d forgotten every single one… Every woman who’d ever needed him. To fuck them. To adore them. To pleasure, arouse, and excite them.

Women were often very generous, especially in bed. It was one of the things Sebastian loved about them the most.

But never in his life had one offered something so genuine and uncomplicated as this. A consideration of his simple comforts.

Sebastian could not detect one hint of sex or seduction in her movements, no coy glances from beneath her lashes. No moistening of lips. Just concentration, and eventually, victory, as she finally grappled it loose and slid the offending tie from his neck.

He swallowed, unencumbered by the garment, and still something threatened to choke him with a suspicious heaviness in his throat. Something concerning.