Page 8 of A Bet with a Duchess (The Gambling Dukes #1)

EIGHT

Fynn

God, she was going to tip me over the edge and she didn’t even know it.

I watched her eyes flicker, a quiet moan leaving her throat as she heard my words.

“Do you have to, Georgiana? Have to tempt me, have to taste so sweet then forbid me another taste?”

I had her now; or at least, I soon would. The woman who had been teasing me the moment I had stepped into this place, the woman who had haunted all my dreams the nights since.

The woman who had writhed under me in pleasure as I had kissed her merely days ago in the study.

“You can’t say things like that to me,” Georgiana breathed.

But I could see the desire in her eyes; she wanted it, wanted more. Had anyone ever told her, I wondered, just how beautiful she was?

“I can and I will,” I said softly. “Damn, Georgiana, you are the most beautiful?—”

“No more words.”

I blinked. Had I misheard? I had always thought women wanted to hear how desired they were, how beautiful, how damned gorgeous they would be under my hands.

Rake, no, but I’d had my fair share of experience.

Georgiana was looking at me, though, with a very strange look. She had never looked at me like that; like all inhibitions were about to be thrown off, thrown away, forever.

A surge of hunger rocked my body, and I didn’t want food.

“No more words?” I repeated softly.

Georgiana shook her head, her silky golden hair shifting under the candlelight around the dining room. “Don’t tell me. Show me.”

I swallowed. “Stack the deck, I thought, coming here. Make a bet with a duchess. Prove to them, the world, that you’re a journalist to be reckoned w?—”

“Stack the deck?” Georgiana laughed gently under her breath. “Oh, Fynn. You have so much to learn about the Gambling Dukes way of things. Stack the deck? Throw out the deck. Create your own deck. Take what you want, no apologies.”

And she was leaning forward, rising from her seat, and my heart was thumping so wildly I could barely take in that Georgiana was no longer standing but sitting, sitting on the table before me, that long silk gown covering the luscious legs I knew were underneath.

“You said you were hungry, Fynn,” she breathed, pushing aside the cheeses, the fruits, the biscuits, the pretzels, and lowering herself onto the table, a veritable feast. “Eat.”

I needed no further invitation.

My chair fell back behind me as I rose hurriedly, manhood hard, knowing what she wanted, knowing I could give her something no other man could.

“Eat.”

I moaned as I slowly pushed the hem of her silk dress up, past her ankles, past her calves, past knees I had seen before and had never touched, higher, and higher, until?—

“God in his Heaven, Georgiana,” I breathed.

The minx wasn’t even wearing undergarments.

Georgiana looked up at me, her eyes heavy with lust. “I knew, somehow, I just knew?—”

“Of course you did,” I said hurriedly, breath jagged in my throat as my manhood hardened in my breeches.

And so had I. The French letters I took everywhere with me—well, one never knew—had been slipped into my pocket before I had come down.

I had known, somehow, that this would be a meal I would never forget.

“Eat me,” Georgiana whispered, a slight flush on her cheeks as she asked, commanded, begged to be taken. “Fynn—Fynn!”

Her cry of my name pushed me beyond what I thought I could endure but I couldn’t take my pleasure now, not yet.

I had to obey first.

Parting her knees, settling myself between them, I tried not to moan aloud as I looked at her, legs splayed, welcoming me in. Delicate hairs pointed down to her warmth, her throbbing clit which wetted my thumb as I slowly drew it over.

God, if I wasn’t careful, I was going to lose all control.

My initial kiss was on her thigh, just to the left of her center, and Georgiana moaned, her back arching against the table, and a fork or knife, I couldn’t tell you which, fell to the floor.

“Aren’t you hungry?” she whimpered. “I said eat me, Fynn, don’t tease me!”

But tease her I would. My hands shook only slightly as they grasped her hips, holding her still, my tongue slowly licking, kissing, nibbling up her thigh as I grew closer and closer to the heart of her, the warmth of her, and I made sure she was absolutely gasping for it before I slowly placed a kiss over her folds.

“Fynn,” Georgiana moaned.

I almost moaned in return. Oh God, if I thought her lips tasted sweet, it was nothing to how these lips tasted. A heady musk of desire and heat and need, and I could taste it all.

My manhood throbbed. Soon .

Her hands grasped my hair, her fingers entwining within it as I slowly started to work her. Slowly, slowly, I told myself, trying to hold myself back from the heady delight I was feasting on.

Slowly, my kiss deepened, my tongue slipped past my lips and into her.

“Oh, yes,” moaned Georgiana, driving me to distraction by the mere enjoyment I was giving her. “Deeper.”

How could I deny her?

I built a rhythm, slow at first, my hands keeping her hips still as they bucked, trying to draw more of me in, but I knew what I was doing.

Knew I would give her far more pleasure if she just behaved.

“Oh, Fynn, God, no one has ever?—”

I moaned. Of course no one had ever made her feel like this, no one had known her as I did, no one wanted her as I did.

No one knew how to pleasure her as I did.

“Fynn, please, please?—”

I could feel her tightening pleasure growing, taste it in her, and I increased my rhythm, turning the tip of my tongue in a circle against her clit and she twisted under me, her moans growing in pitch and volume, and I knew someone could hear at any moment but God I didn’t care?—

“Please!” Georgiana cried, her fingers tight in my hair.

And I knew what she wanted, knew what would push her over the edge. One of my hands left her hips and reached up to her breast, capturing it without needing to see.

My thumb and finger tightened around her nipple, twisting, the same rhythm that I gave her with my tongue at I lapped at her sweetness and?—

“Fynn!”

Georgiana’s whole body rocked as her peak overwhelmed her, and it was all I could do to hold on, her bucking frame thrusting into my mouth and I welcomed it as she utterly lost herself, lost herself as I consumed her, giving her the pleasure she deserved.

When I finally lifted my head, Georgiana was looking at me with wide, pleasure-filled eyes.

“Fynn…Fynn, that was?—”

I didn’t let her finish. How could I? I hadn’t yet, and my manhood was straining against my breeches, begging to be allowed to do what it wanted. What it needed.

“You are magnificent,” I said darkly, lifting my head and body only to rip off my waistcoat and shirt, buttons pinging everywhere, but what did I care? “Georgiana, you are perfect.”

“And you are skilled,” she breathed with a laugh, hands placed on each side of her now as though she was about to rise from the table. “I never knew it could?—”

“I didn’t say my hunger was gone.”

Georgiana’s eyes widened as she watched me unbutton and unzip my breeches. “Fynn, I?—”

My breeches fell to the floor and her gaze shifted from my bare chest to the place between my thighs. “You were saying?”

I watched her swallow as I stood there entirely naked. Naked before her.

But then, hadn’t I been naked before her already? Hadn’t I opened myself to her, made myself far more vulnerable to Georgiana, the Dowager Duchess of Cartice than I ever had before, with anyone?

Wasn’t this just the natural culmination of what we started less than a week ago?

Georgiana swallowed again. Then she laid back on the table. “Take me.”

I didn’t need more of an invitation. After hastily retrieving a French letter from my breeches and slowly moving the thing onto my manhood—a part of me now aching for the same promise of pleasure I had already given the woman of my dreams lying on the table before me, a meal I never thought I’d ever get to eat—I moved back between her legs.

“I wanted to do this the moment I met you,” I said in a jagged voice as I slowly slid myself into her folds.

Christ, she was warm, and wet, and ready for me.

Georgiana met my eye. “I wanted you to do the moment I saw you.”

I groaned, leaning to kiss her, trying not to come right into her this very moment. “You wanted to bet.”

“I always gamble,” she whispered, her hands clutching my shoulders, her fingertips digging into the muscles as she clung to me. “I knew you were a safe bet.”

“I always play to win,” I said, gritting my teeth as I moved almost out of her then thrust back in, groaning at the tension of pleasure that rocked my body.

God, I was going to lose myself in her, and not just her body. Her soul, her mind, everything.

Georgiana tilted her head slightly then arched her breasts into my chest, nipples erect through her silk gown, grazing my chest, making me moan with longing. “Then win, Fynn.”

My hands found hers, swiftly pinning her against the table as she arched her back once more, and I build a rhythm within her, faster this time, now I had already brought her to ecstasy, and it took all my self-control as sensual delights scattered across my skin, every part of me aching for her, feeling the well of pleasure building, building as she moaned, as I brought her closer to her own peak, and?—

“Fynn!”

Thank God—I didn’t think I could hold on much longer. As Georgiana shook under me, her body rearing against mine, her hands struggling to be free as I held her down, down where I wanted her, where I needed her, my own orgasm overwhelmed me.

“Georgiana!”

I poured myself into her, everything I was, everything I could be, the man I wanted to be when I saw myself in her eyes, the joy exquisite, so potent I could weep?—

And then I collapsed into her arms.

Georgiana

There was something different in the air. I knew it, even if I couldn’t explain it.

But there was. And I knew why.

Fynn.

“I always gamble. I knew you were a safe bet.”

“I always play to win.”

I couldn’t help the flush pouring across my cheeks as I stepped boldly this time, without hesitation, over to the drawing room I was already unconsciously considering Fynn’s.

Fynn’s room.

I had my own townhouse in London, from my dower, and there was a large room on the second floor I hadn’t really known what to do with. Everything I needed in the place was already set out; my study, sitting room, dining room, a kitchen I barely stepped in. Four bedchambers—one for me, the others for guests—a large drawing room, and a terrace that looked out onto Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament.

And then this room. Empty. Unfulfilled.

A study for Fynn, perhaps?

The moment the thought ran through my mind my gaze caught Fynn’s, seated by the big bay window in the East Drawing Room. He smiled, and I absolutely melted. I was almost a puddle on the floor, it was a miracle I was able to keep walking toward him.

The man I?—

I caught myself just in time. No. This was ridiculous! I didn’t even know the man a week ago; at least, I had exchanged several angry letters with him, a formal letter, and even tried to meet him at his newspaper’s printers once to shout at him but hadn’t managed it.

And now I was considering…

“You look happy this morning,” Fynn observed wryly as I settled on the arm of his chair.

I kissed him briefly before I replied. “Yes.”

He grinned, that twinkle in his eye I knew so well returning, and it was all I could do not to slip into his lap and ask him to take me again.

I mean, now I knew how skilled he was…

“I thought you’d be working.”

“I am,” said Fynn, tapping his temple. “In here.”

I rolled my eyes. For an investigative reporter, he was daft sometimes. “I mean, I thought you’d be hounding me to ask for access to our archives again. Look through our records. Find this mysterious scandal you’re so sure is in there.”

He didn’t answer. At least, not with words. His strong arm came around me, pulling me into his arms just as I had imagined.

Damned man could even read my mind.

“Well, I would need a key to do that,” Fynn said cheerfully. “One of those fancy keys. You don’t, I suppose, want to make me one?”

I laughed, heart soaring. “What, and give you unlimited access to Dalhurst Manor? No thanks.”

God, it was fortunate in a way that he was leaving tomorrow. I wouldn’t be able to hold out for long if his stay was indefinite, I thought wildly, heart racing, stomach twisting in that glorious way I now knew could only be created by his presence.

“I suppose you’re right,” he said with a heavy mock sigh. “I’s also need your mind to know the layout of the house, wouldn’t I?”

As though I was the mind reader now, I raised my fingertips up and he kissed them. “You would.”

“Do I get to keep the rest of you too?”

“I’m a bargain, I’ll tell you that.”

I had resisted kissing him for so long, I almost sighed with relief as I leaned and found his lips as eager as my own.

There was nothing like kissing Fynn. Paul had been…quite adequate, I suppose. I had kind of assumed he was as good as it got; someone handsome, yes, but with nothing much going on between the ears, and a strange way of getting slobbery when he got excited. Of course, he had been in his early seventies when we married.

Fynn could not be more different. As tingles of pleasure started to ripple through my body, my lungs tight in my chest as I thought about what pleasure we would share, I was suddenly conscious of footsteps.

Footsteps in this direction.

“Blast,” I muttered.

I had only just managed to stand out of Fynn’s embrace when the door opened.

“There you—oh.” Markham glared at the man seated beside me. “I thought you’d gone.”

“Tomorrow is my last day,” said Fynn pleasantly—far more pleasant than my friend was being, at any rate, which wasn’t difficult. “Saturday is when I go.”

I could see the displeasure on my friend’s face, knew he saw Fynn’s presence here as an inconvenience at best, and a betrayal on my part at worst.

“Right,” Markham said with a heavy sigh. “Fine. Georgiana, tomorrow when he’s gone, we’ll talk.”

The door slammed before I could say anything.

Fynn whistled. “Not my biggest fan, is he?”

I shrugged, slipping back into his arms. “I suppose not—but then, I don’t think any of my friends have much better opinions of you, to be honest. Markham just utterly fails at hiding them.”

“Oh, charming!” Fynn chuckled, kissing the corner of my mouth before moving slowly to the center. “Are all of you this welcoming?”

“To people coming here in the hopes of writing a four page spread about us and tanking our reputations?”

It was the wrong thing to say. I could feel it in my chest the moment the words had stumbled out, barely breathed between kisses, but Fynn had heard them.

He pulled back, his brow heavy. “You really think that’s all I'm here for now?”

I hesitated. I was not usually one to make demands of people, let alone the men I flirted with. Not that I’d flirted with many.

I’d learned few things from my time with Paul, however mundane it was, and that was that men didn’t like getting pinned down.

I mean, I was almost certain some of them did.

But not when it came to commitment. Men didn’t wish to be told where to go, who with, where they would be in five minutes time, let alone five months. Five years.

And Fynn was…special.

There was something different about him. Certain though I was that he had only come into my life to destroy it, he hadn’t, had he?

And he was an honorable man. I knew there was nothing for Fynn to find, and he was a man of his word. If he didn’t find anything…

“Why, Georgiana, then you can do whatever you want with me.”

He wouldn’t just print lies, I told myself firmly as I looked into his deep eyes. He wasn’t that kind of man. He wasn’t a man to lie to improve his own lot in life. Why, he’d refused to reveal the truth to claim back his own inheritance.

Perhaps it was his principles that attracted me so deeply. I mean, his looks didn’t hurt, but looks could be found anywhere in London if you knew where to go. Plenty of handsome gentlemen.

That was how Lilah kept herself busy, at least.

I couldn’t blame her; widows had a great deal more latitude than unmarried ladies.

But Fynn was different.

“I don’t know why you’re here,” I whispered, surprised at the softness of my own voice.

Fynn smiled weakly. “Good. Because neither do I. None of this makes sense.”

“Does it have to?”

Whatever had come over me, it was radically altering my preconceptions of what a connection like this looked like. I held my breath as I looked at him, my hands pressed up against his muscular chest which I had had the benefit of seeing utterly stripped of all clothes just yesterday.

His own hands were tight around my buttocks. I shifted slightly, feeling the strength of his fingers, watched him swallow.

Whatever I was to him, he was the same to me. We just didn’t know what it was yet.

“I shouldn’t be distracting you from work,” I said quietly, before dipping my head to kiss his neck.

Fynn groaned, but he didn’t push me away. “How can you say that, and then do?—”

“This?” I whispered in his ear before nibbling it.

What had come over me? This wasn’t me; and yet it was. Perhaps it was the me that had always been there, dormant, never meeting a man to coax it out.

Whatever it was, I was aching to be touched by him and knew nothing could satisfy in the way Fynn did.

Not even our bet.

Our bet.

I sat up and looked Fynn directly in the eye. “The bet. We’ve only got a day before the winner is decided.”

He nodded, his dark hair tousled by my kisses. “You told me you’d stack the deck.”

“I told you to throw out the deck and make your own,” I said quietly.

What would happen on Saturday, when Fynn was meant to leave? Would he? Would I leave with him?

“Well, as far as I can see, there’s no point in stacking the deck.”

I tensed. That didn’t sound like the Fynn I knew. “What do you mean?”

My gaze raked over him, trying to understand what he meant, where this conversation was going—where I wanted it to go. The whole thing was a mystery to me.

Fynn’s finger stroked my buttocks, not in a ‘I'm going to tear your clothes off’ way, more’s the pity, but in a ‘every part of you deserves to be touched’ way. It was hypnotic.

“Fynn?”

“I mean,” he said slowly, his voice low, “that as far as I am concerned, you’ve won.”

I stared. The words didn’t make sense. “Won?”

“I always play to win.”

“Then win, Fynn.”

It was impossible to prevent a shiver of desire rushing through my body. Had he felt it?

“I'm not sure if I have,” I said quietly. “Not yet, at any rate.”

I thought for a moment he would say something; admit his feelings for me, pour out his heart, let me know what he was thinking, explain to me my own thoughts and feelings because I had no idea what they were.

Only that they were about him.

Then a slow smile crept over his face. “You’re right,” Fynn said quietly, his right hand moving from my buttock and slowly meandering past my hip toward my secret place. “You haven’t won yet this morning.”

My breath hitched in my throat. He couldn’t mean— “Fynn?—”

“Quiet,” he said darkly, capturing my lips with his own as he slid his fingers under my skirts and moved toward my clit. “Or someone will hear. And you don’t want me to stop, do you?”

I whimpered in his arms, leaning my head against his shoulder as his fingers pushed past my undergarments and into my wetness. “No.”

“Then win, Georgiana,” Fynn moaned under his breath was his fingers started to work me. “Win.”