Page 27 of A Duchess Bound (Dukes of Dominance #2)

G erard sipped his tea while reading over the dukedom’s ledgers.

After some time, his back began to ache, and he stood, stretching with his arms extended towards the ceiling.

He could not quite remember when he had begun looking over the numbers, but it had been early in the day.

Certainly, it had been before noon. Now, it was hours past nightfall.

He heard footsteps outside his study and glanced towards the open door. The footfalls were too soft to be Halls’s steps, and they seemed too hurried to be one of the maids walking past.

A delicate hand curled around the edge of the doorway, and Dorothy entered his student. Gerard inhaled sharply. The only source of light was the candles flickering on his desk, and the feeble light cast Dorothy in stark contrast, emphasizing her distinctive, feminine curves.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

The answer was obvious, though. She had come to him three times, and each of them had ended the same way. His blood roared in his ears, and he stood, putting his palms flat against his desk. He thought of taking her over that desk.

He thought of her tied to his bed, like he had threatened. She had all but dared him to have her that way.

“I imagine you know why I am here,” Dorothy said.

His lips curled into a slow, sly smile. After a heartbeat, Dorothy took a step into his study, pulling the door closed behind her. That was certainly interesting.

“I do know,” he conceded. “But I always enjoy hearing you say it.”

“I am here for you.”

“And what shall I do for you, my lady?”

She crossed the room and put her hands on her desk. Dorothy stood across from him, her face resolute. He could have leaned forward and kissed her.

“You are an insufferable man,” she said. “I tell you to leave me be, and you whisper salacious things in my ear.”

“Only because I love to see how flustered you become.”

“You always try to dictate the terms of our relationship!”

He tilted his head, gazing into her lovely, crystal-blue eyes. “Indeed. Because you let me.”

“Because you distract me.”

“Oh, so sad,” he said, his voice full of mock dismay. “Poor Dorothy!”

“You are trying to do it again!” she cried. “Have you no compassion? No mercy?”

Gerard frowned, noting the catch in her voice and the quickening of her breath. It was difficult to say if the woman was frustrated or flustered. Perhaps, she was anticipating some amorous encounter, which he would find quite amenable.

“If you are suggesting that I offer you some pleasure, I am only too willing to oblige,” he said. “You need only ask, and I will make you experience a release unlike any other. You will scream my name by the night’s end.”

She lowered her eyes and inhaled raggedly. Gerard looked at her lowered head. Dorothy looked so sweet and docile like that. His loins stirred in interest. It would be but a small matter to move behind her and pin her body against the desk. He could grasp her hips and take her from behind.

“Do you remember the promise that you made to me?” Dorothy asked. “It was not just that you would give me pleasure with your hand or your mouth.”

Gerard frowned. “I do remember my promise.”

Her head snapped up, her eyes wild and feverish.

“I want you inside me,” she said. “I—I want to know how it feels to have my muscles pressing against your manhood, as you plunge yourself into me. You have had every opportunity to do it. I have offered to let you do it, yet you have refrained each time.”

His throat was raw. “So you have.”

“So when do you intend on doing it?” she asked. “I am in agony thinking of it, and I—I know I should end this. But I cannot, not when I am consumed with thoughts of you.”

It was a reasonable request, and he felt a little spark of guilt for denying her for so long.

“I wanted to be certain that you were lucid when you made that decision,” he said at last. “I wanted you to make it with the full understanding of what it was.”

That was part of the truth, the respectable part.

Gerard wryly thought that Dorothy would be considerably less impressed if he admitted that he was denying himself to prolong the pleasure.

If he did not make love to her, it would be an eventuality to anticipate, something to look forward to.

But if he did fulfill her wishes, there would be nothing else to excite him, no other goal to reach.

“I do understand what it means!” she protested. “I have understood for quite a long time! Have I not told you again and again that I am not some sheltered, blushing maiden who needs your protection?”

“I know that you are not,” Gerard said, his eyes dipping from her face to her ample breasts, wrapped in the soft lilac fabric of her bodice.

His fingers twitched over the desk. “But you have seldom experienced lust, which tends to impact one’s senses.

It will make you feel sensations that you have never imagined possible and crave what you have never felt before. ”

“I am aware of that,” she said.

He leaned forward, so her breath mingled with his. Dorothy’s eyes darted to his lips, and satisfaction curled within him. Gerard raised a hand, tangling his fingers in the soft curls that pressed against her temple. She swallowed audibly, and a fissure of pleasure jolted through him.

What would those lovely, pink lips look like wrapped around his manhood? He tucked a curl behind her ear, letting his fingers drift down to her jaw and over her throat. Her skin was soft like silk and as white as cream.

“You may know,” he said softly. “But that does not mean you can handle it.”

“I can,” she breathed. “I promise I can.”

He cupped her cheek and placed a long, deep kiss against her lips. She moaned against his mouth, her arms wrapping around his neck. The desk jolted slightly as she pressed against it. Gerard kissed her until his lips ached and his lungs burned. Then, he withdrew.

Dorothy stared at him with wide eyes, her lips slightly parted.

She looked half-mad with lust, braced on her forearms. Her chest heaved, her breasts threatening to spill from the confines of her bodice.

A pink flush spread over her cheeks, and she shifted on her feet, pressing her thighs together beneath her gown.

“I think it is time that I show you my bed,” he purred.

“Oh, yes ,” she whispered between pants for air.

He swept around the desk and brought her into his arms, pulling her flush against him. His hands swept greedily over her body, tracing the path of her spine and down to her hips. He grasped handfuls of her buttocks through her fine skirts. She gasped, the sound equal parts offended and aroused.

Gerard dipped his head and kissed her neck, inhaling the sweet mingling of lavender and rose. Dorothy dug her fingers into his jacket, pulling the fabric taut over his shoulder blades.

“Good girl,” he murmured, pulling the sleeves of her gown down. “So good.”

Gerard deftly undid her gown and let it fall to the ground.

His hands went next to her stays, untying the laces with practiced fingers.

The moment the ties were undone, he tossed them away.

Dorothy gasped again and clung more tightly to him, her hips jolting against his thighs.

Gerard’s trousers grew tight, his manhood straining for release.

“To the bed,” he murmured against her throat.

They held one another, kissing and touching and panting, and cut a path across the floor of his study.

Gerard tore the door open. They fumbled into the corridor, stumbling over their own feet and too lost in passion to notice.

Gerard seized Dorothy’s petticoats, casting them aside. She kicked free of her slippers.

Along the way, she lost her stockings. Dorothy reached for his jacket and made to pull it from his shoulders, but he seized her wrists and held her fast. “Not yet,” he purred. “I will undress if I wish. That is not your decision to make.”

Then, they were kissing again. Gerard seized Dorothy’s chemise and tore it from her body, leaving her entirely naked. Before she could cover herself, as he sensed that she wished to do, he grasped her breasts. He found that they were soft and yielding.

Gerard caressed her breasts and rubbed his thumbs over her pink nipples until they grew hard. Dorothy moaned raggedly, and he pinched one between his fingers. Dorothy jolted and pressed against him, rubbing her thighs against his trousers.

He grasped her around the waist and kissed her bare shoulder. Then, her neck. They stumbled into the bedchamber. Gerard squeezed her thighs, his fingers wandering over her body with shameless abandon. He dipped a hand between her legs and found her already wet and hot.

“Oh, please!” she gasped.

Dorothy’s thighs quivered. He backed her to the bed and kissed her hard. “Lay back,” he whispered against her cheek.

She did, hurrying backwards over the bed linens. Gerard smiled. It was nearly comical just how eager she appeared. He crossed his arms, smiling and taking in the sight of her body.

Dorothy’s hair remained pinned neatly up, but the rest of her was disheveled and undone. Her cheeks were the color of roses, and her eyes dark with want. Dorothy’s chest rose and fell quickly, her breasts shaking with each breath.

Gerard’s gaze swept over her large breasts, down to her trim waist, and to her broad hips.

Her slender thighs were spread, exposing her sex to him.

Already, arousal gleamed along the delicate curls at the apex of her thighs.

Even though Dorothy was a spinster, it seemed impossible that the men of the ton had refrained from noticing her for so long.

“Beautiful,” he breathed. “Magnificent.”

Gerard was the first man to ever see her like this, so open and exposed. It was really for the best that he take her, for it would be a terrible shame if this exquisite lady never experienced the pleasures of having a man inside her.

She shivered and curled her toes into the bed linens. Dorothy gazed at him, her expression shy and curious. “Will you make love to me now?” she whispered.

His manhood ached. He knew that she must feel as though her body was engulfed in flames, and Gerard burned with her. “Just one more thing,” he said deliberately. “Then, I will.”

Gerard strode leisurely to an old chest that he kept across the bedchamber, aware of Dorothy’s gaze following his every step. He opened the chest and withdrew the familiar silk ties, four of them. They were pale blue, the same color as Dorothy’s eyes.

When he turned to her, she inhaled sharply. “What are you going to do with that?”

Gerard grinned wolfishly. “I am going to tie you to the bed, of course. Just as I promised.”