Page 16 of A Duchess to Reclaim (The Devil’s Masquerade #2)

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“Y our Grace!” Miss Chiron’s startled whisper broke through the silence of Amelia’s darkened sitting room. He’d awoken her when he’d opened the door from her slumber on the couch, but Miss Gerhardt was still sleeping soundly on the one opposite of her

He put a finger to his mouth, and she sighed in relief.

“What are you doing in here?” He whispered.

“We were all playing with the children and then Her Grace was reading them a story,” she whispered back, starting to get off the couch. “I suppose we fell asleep as we listened through the opened door. We shall go now.”

She moved toward Miss Gerhardt as if to shake her, but Dominic stopped her.

“Would you mind staying a little longer?” He asked her, looking toward the door to Amelia’s bedroom. “I must talk with my wife.”

“Of course,” she whispered back, settling herself on the couch again.

Dominic gave her a nod of thanks and quietly went through the open doorway to Amelia’s bedroom. A single lamp was still lit, casting a soft yellow glow around the elegant room. In the bed laid Sarah and Lydia, their small nightdress-clad bodies spread out in comical shapes as if they’d dropped asleep mid-play. He found Amelia curled up in the nearby settee, sleeping soundly with a book still clutched in her hand.

He knelt down by her face, a smile drawing across his face as he took in her features. She looked exhausted, but peaceful. Having her sisters fully in her life was obviously doing wonders.

An ache formed in his chest as he continued to look over her face. He couldn’t deny it. He had missed her. Carefully, he pried the book from her hands and laid it quietly on the nearby table, then picked her up.

A soft, breathy whimper left Amelia’s lips as he drew her toward his chest, and his heart wrenched painfully when she immediately nestled into his arms. She was soft, warm, and light in his grasp; her hair cascading down over his arm like a shield- as if someone so small could protect him.

Dominic swallowed silently as he studied her features in the dim light. Could he do this? Could he actually let himself fall in love?

No. The answer came as quickly as the questions had. He was not a man to fall in love. He was barely a man that could show affection. To anyone, really, not just Amelia. And she deserved affection more than anyone he’d ever met.

Silently he carried her out of the rooms, up the stairs, and to his own quarters. It wasn’t until he was softly closing his bedroom door with his heel that Amelia stirred again; her long lashes fluttering as she squirmed a little in his arms. Slowly her eyes opened as she became aware that she was being held, and immediately he felt her shift from pliant to rigid.

“It’s all right, shhh,” he soothed, holding her closer. “It’s me.”

Amelia immediately relaxed in his arms again as she blinked several times; a look of confusion crossing her beautiful face.

“Dominic?” Her voice was so soft and still filled with sleep; creating the perfect sultry combination that immediately made his knees grow weak. “Where am I? What are you doing?”

“You fell asleep on the settee,” he explained. “You needed a proper bed, so I brought you to mine.”

Amelia awakened a little more at that, but didn’t try to fight his grasp.

Put her down, his mind screamed as his grip grew tighter. Put her down and walk away.

“You…you brought me to your room? You’ve never done that before.”

Dominic swallowed, feeling the tight mental grip on himself begin to slide away.

Amelia’s hazel eyes studied him in the dim light; affection, perhaps even worry shining through them.

He felt her slide her fingers to his jaw, and he winced as her delicate touch caressed over his flesh. Not out of pain. He wished it was pain. But out of the sheer gentleness she displaying for him.

“What’s this?” She whispered.

Dominic closed his eyes and let out a breath through his nose, fighting the carnal urges rising within him…but it was more than that, wasn’t it? It was more than carnal. It was emotional. The unfeeling man feeling everything. Because of this woman.

“Boxing practice,” his replied, his voice suddenly hoarse. “Couldn’t concentrate. Caught myself a solid blow to the face.”

“Does it hurt?”

“It’s nothing,” he replied, and it really was. It was not his jaw that bothered him.

Amelia continued to look at him, those golden-hued orbs full of quiet contemplation seemed to break through his walls of muscled strength and mental absolution and look into his very soul. Everything that was him seemed visible to her.

“I’m not like Hugo, you know,” he told her, his last level of resistance rising up to protect him. “There was no childhood atrocity for me that took away my happiness. This is who I have always been; how I have always thought.”

“My cold king,” she murmured, her gentle touch moving to his neck. It laced fire through his veins and he grunted at the pleasure. He hated that he loved her touch.

“The Duke of Truth and Vernacular. You know all of the bare truths of how things come to be. So why would you believe that I thought of you any other way?”

“I am just explaining that there is no little boy to save. No man to change as I always have and always will be this way.” He said, his tone growing gruff.

He wanted her to fight with him. To grow those sharp little fangs and use her wicked tongue. He could handle her that way. Handle anyone that way. What he couldn’t take was her acceptance. No one, save for his friends, accepted him for who he was.

“I do not want to change you, Dominic,” she whispered, her soft voice undoing him as she caressed her touch up over her his ear then down the back of his neck, “I want to know you. And I think I am starting to.”

Dominic grit his teeth, suddenly wary.

“What is it you think you know?” He demanded, pulling away from her touch. “Hmm? Shall you now paint me as some redeemer as so many have tried? Because I assure you I am not.”

“No, you are not,” Amelia murmured.

Her answer surprised him, and when she reached to touch him again, he didn’t pull away.

“You are pragmatic. Calculated. You coordinate people as if they were chess pieces. You don’t make mistakes. You don’t make messes. You simply clean them up and use them to your advantage. You take those that have been discarded and give them new purpose. But it is not out of altruism that you do this. No. You simply see what those you give new purpose to can do for you.”

Dominic stared silently at her; stunned. There was no ‘but you’re a good person’ no ‘you just don’t want to admit it’. Just acceptance. Pure and true to who he was.

For a moment longer he stood there with her in his arms, torn between the need to put her down and walk away that instant or pull her closer and finally give in to those mounting needs that had consumed his every thought.

“When you rescued me that night you told me that I would be safe if I married you,” Amelia went on, those fingers of her absolutely undoing him; “Did you ever consider that if given the chance you could be safe with me too?”

Dominic’s resolve bottomed out then. Him. She wanted to protect him? Not begging for safety but trying to provide it? No one had ever offered that to him before.

No longer able to help himself, a groan poured from his throat as he pulled her closer and kissed her lips. Amelia gasped at the ferocity, growing rigid again another for another moment, then she softened again as she brought her arms around his neck and kissed him back. His body instantly reacted to the soft touch of her lips, and every craving he’d been building up the last three days came pouring out of him and into that kiss.

He suckled her lips, her tongue, savoring her sweet taste. He walked them forward until his knees brushed against the edge of his bed, and as he laid her down he blanketed her body with his own. Amelia’s hands moved from his neck to his shoulders, smoothing down the tense muscles of his back and he arched into her touch.

Stop. Stop. This is not what you came here for. A voice in his mind demanded. But his hunger over rode that voice, and he deepened his kiss as his hands wrapped around Amelia’s rib cage just under her breasts. He groaned as he felt the soft undersides fill his palms and he squeezed greedily.

Amelia broke away from his lips, her head tossing back as she let out a moan. He took the opportunity to run his tongue down her throat then catch the loose fabric of her nightgown in his teeth. He tugged it down until her turgid nipples were exposed and began lapping at them like a man starved.

He could make her burst like this, he realized as Amelia writhed beneath him; her moans growing throatier and more desperate as her hands fisted into his hair. He could make her do so all sorts of ways, and he desperately wanted to. He wanted to touch and lick and bite her body everywhere and every way until he knew every little avenue that would bring her pleasure.

Dominic was startled at his thoughts. He’d never had this much need for just one person. But just as he was about to pull away; to take a breath and rethink what he was doing, Amelia’s hand slipped between their tightly pressed hips, and he felt her palm glide over his rigidness and cup him through his trousers.

Other women had wanted to touch him before. He knew he was an attractive man. Most of the time he was very willing to oblige and was rewarded for such. But Amelia’s touch was different. Still new and exploring, but she was able to reach into some sort of dark hidden place within him and bring him great pleasure wherever her fingers chose to graze.

Dominic’s hips twitched as she pressed her palm against him yet again; his body begging for more. He hadn’t been with a woman since they’d gotten married. Even when his urges arose swift and strong; he’d poured himself into his work instead.

“Dominic,” Amelia moaned, bringing his attention forward. He’d been so lost in the pleasure of her hand he hadn’t realized that he was still lavishing attention to her breasts.

Beneath him Amelia’s body hips began to move faster, needier against her own knuckles of the hand that palmed his manhood. He had her so very close to the edge and he wanted to send her over with an almighty push.

To his body’s disappointment, he drew Amelia’s hand from between them; pressing it firmly into the bed. Amelia whimpered in equal disappointment as he did so, but Dominic quickly repositioned his hips, and he slid his rigidity over her mons. Amelia’s entire body shivered and bucked at the sensation, and he suckled and stroked her harder until her breath suddenly ceased and her back froze in an arch.

Then she released all at once, her body crashing down into the mattress as new breath flooded into her body. Immediately he felt her juices soaking through his trousers and he groaned at the evidence of her pleasure. Her relief was so evident that it caused him to follow. His manhood swelled and grew rigid to the point of pain within the confines of his trousers- and then he was emptying himself into them.

He let out a ragged groan as he burst, nuzzling his face into Amelia’s breasts as his cock pulsed and he shot his seed into his trousers; making an utter mess of them.

Still, it did nothing to calm him down or lessen his need.

More. He wanted more.

Dominic drew his head up to capture Amelia’s mouth again, and as he did so, their hands attacked one another’s clothes. They tore and tugged until there wasn’t a stitch of fabric left between them, and they both breathed a heavy sigh of relief when their bare skin finally slid against one another.

“I want to taste you again,” Amelia breathed, her eyes hazy and dilated when he was able to finally rip away from their kiss. Her lips were bruised and swollen from his onslaught; glistening from one another’s mouthwatering need.

“You’ll have to wait, little vixen,” he rasped, then slammed his mouth down on hers again.

Her nails drug up his naked back, making him shiver and thrust his hips forward. As he did so the tip of his cock nudged against her dripping petals and he moaned into her mouth at the sensation. It took everything he had to drag himself away, to not simply lift her hips and drive himself deep into her center- but he did.

He did so and retraced the path his lips had just taken down to her breasts, then over her taut belly and finally between her legs. A bestial growl rumbled through his chest as he suffused his mouth her mons; eating and lapping at her with abandon.

Keening sounds of pleasure erupted from Amelia’s lips as she threw her legs over his shoulders and arched her back into his greedy mouth. Within a minute he felt her thighs tremble then tighten around his head just a scant moment before her juices flooded over his tongue. He slurped and drank her like a man dying of thirst; needing several long moments before he could slow his pace and take long, languid licks over her still quivering mons.

He wanted more, wanted to feel her burst on his tongue again, but then he felt Amelia’s claw-like nails dig into his shoulder blades and pull. He allowed her to drag him up, following the small spikes of pleasure-filled pain, then let out a dark chuckle as she pushed at his shoulders and made him roll over onto his back.

Unlike him, she spared no time tracing over his chest or abdomen. He was thankful for it, for he needed no such seduction tonight, and imagined such would only drive him further into a frenzy. Instead her wet, velvety tongue dipped immediately toward the thick, pulse tip of his rigid cock, and she tasted him.

Dominic let out a hissing breath as he felt her flat tongue mold into an arrow and flick mercilessly over his mushroomed head; hungrily drawing out the beads of pre-cum that had gathered and began to drip down his length. There was no question that her need was as great as his own by the way she hungrily swallowed him and hollowed her cheeks to create suction.

He gathered her hair in fists, not to control her mouth but so he could watch himself be thrust so viciously in and out from between her stretched lips. The sight of her was the absolute picture of carnal hunger; and it was his undoing. He tossed his head back as his release roared through him, and he held her to his cock as he pumped rope after thick rope of seed down her throat.

* * *

In the depths of Amelia’s mind she heard a tiny voice attempting to speak reason.

Stop now. No further. You know what he’s about to do.

And she did. They’d perhaps only spent a short amount of time together since Dominic returned from abroad but she was a perceptive person. They would get close and then one of them would run. First it was him, then her, then him, then her, and the pattern would go on and on because as much as she knew he was afraid to get to close to her, she was just as frightened to get close to him. Life had taught her not to lean on men.

The only time they didn’t seem to want to run from another was whenever they allowed their bodies to speak for them. So yes. She knew that this was the time to rise from the bed despite her trembling legs and walk away- and yet instead she felt herself slide up his waist; her legs straddling his hips in such a way that his still rigid manhood strained against her entrance.

Dominic’s eyes were flashing pure liquid silver as he looked up at her; a scant trace of alarm passing through his expression.

“What are you doing?” He whispered, pressing her hips away, “You will hurt yourself.”

“Only for a moment,” she whispered back, then tried to move his hands.

His hold on her only tightened, and he shook his head.

“No,” he rasped, pulled her down to his chest before he rolled.

“We should stop. Amelia, we need to talk.”

“You’re saying goodbye,” she stated, nudging his hips closer to hers with her opened thighs.

Dominic’s eyes widened and the hint of regret that sparkled there confirmed she was right.

“It’s all right,” she whispered, running a hand down his chest.

Yet even as she said it, she felt her heart break in two.

“As I said earlier. I know who you are. I know I cannot change you. Nor do I want to. Now that the rumors about me are gone you will be sending the girls and I back to Ellsworth I suspect, and you won’t be joining us. Am I wrong?”

Dominic’s brow tensed as if he wanted to negate her, but he shook his head; sparing her the hurt of a lie. Truth. He always bartered in truth. And she respected him for that.

“I have done much thinking since you left after bringing me the girls,” Amelia went on, her hands smoothing over his back, his chest, his neck as he stayed locked atop her.

“And I think perhaps this distance you want between us could be a good thing. You would not be happy with us, and I don’t want my sisters around unhappy men anymore. They have dealt with that enough.”

“And what of your needs?” He asked, his tone sounding wary.

“I have thought of those as well,” she replied, “And I have come to this conclusion. I have curiosities, yes, but I do not want to visit the Devil’s Masquerade anymore. Nor try to find another partner to quench my desires either. I want it to be you. My husband. The man who rescued me from uncertain horrors. Even if it is only once.”

Amelia felt Dominic’s muscles grow rigid above her at the mention of the Devil’s Masquerade. It was where he found her again. Standing tall and graceful and beautiful; a vivid contrast from how he’d last seen her. But it was true. The experience of the parties and the power she felt from them paled in comparison to being wanted by this man.

No one would make her feel what he made her feel. Hundreds of eyes all trained and filled with need were nothing compared to his heated silver gaze.

“Give me this,” she whispered, tilting her chin slightly as her fingernails dragged lightly over his scalp. “Let me be with you before you go.”

Some indiscernible emotion passed through Dominic’s gaze as he stared down at her, and to her relief, he dipped his head and placed the sweetest, most sensual kiss on her lips.

“If we are going to do this,” he whispered against her mouth. “We are going to do this right.”