Page 23 of A Gamble on the Duke (The Gambling Dukes #4)

“Now, I am going to have my fill of your mouth before we go any further,” he said seriously, gazing down at me with all the experience a gentleman of his position clearly had. “Is that quite understood?”

I could not help but shiver in his arms. “Maybe. Maybe you’ll have to show me.”

My eyelashes fluttered shut as he slowly, slowly lowered his lips to mine. This time the kisses were not rapid or hasty, but they were just as passionate; slow, languorous, Alfred taking his time to please me.

And please me he did.

“Oh, Alfred…” I couldn’t help but moan.

A door opened further down the corridor and our heads snapped to glance in that direction. Without a word being exchanged between us, I grabbed the handle of the door we were standing beside, turned it, and we half stepped, half fell into the room.

It was a guest bedchamber, the place put to sleep as so many of the guest rooms were, with large white sheets.

But there was a bed.

“You are so beautiful,” Alfred murmured, slowly stroking down my back until his fingers came to my gown’s ties. “So beautiful—I want to see all of you.”

I swallowed. “All of me?”

Somehow this had not occurred to me. Of course it would make sense for Alfred to see me utterly naked…but?—

“All of you,” he confirmed, his eyes sparkling. “And you’ll get to see all of me, too.”

All of him?

Well now, that was quite a different story.

“I’ve often wondered what is under here,” I said shyly, brushing my hand over his buttock.

He twitched, but not away from me—into my hand. “I can’t wait for you to find out.”

Alfred couldn’t say much more, he was too busy kissing me, pressing kisses on my shoulders as he slipped my gown from them, my collarbones, my breasts as my gown slipped to the floor, pooling in muslin, my stays and chemise the only thing keeping me from him?—

Try as I might, his heady kisses were twisting my mind in all directions, making it impossible for me to think.

As it turned out, my body didn’t need me to think.

My fingers scrabbled at his jacket, his waistcoat, his shirt buttons, and all the while my knees trembled and my secret place ached with the need that Alfred was building.

Need for him.

“Oh, Catherine,” Alfred breathed as my stays were removed and he pulled my chemise over my head. “You are…perfect.”

Perfect?

I had definitely never thought of myself that way—but maybe it didn’t matter. The way Alfred was looking at me, wide eyed and hungry, I would believe anything he said.

Anything.

“And you’re still clothed,” I said with a tut as I shook my head and attempted to undo the buttons on his breeches. “Now if I could just?—”

“Here, let me.” Alfred captured my hands, swiftly kissed the ends of my fingertips, and within seconds?—

“Oh, my God,” I breathed.

It probably wasn’t the right thing to say—but honestly, there was nothing else I could say in that moment.

He was…ma gnificent.

I wasn’t exactly ignorant. I had seen engravings of classical statues, and there were a few with the fig leaves off.

But Alfred was…I mean, I had no idea how he was going to?—

“You look afraid.”

I swallowed, glancing away from his manhood and up at his face. “Not afraid, just…well. I’m not sure how the mechanics are going to work.”

His chuckle was not mocking me, but rather bringing me into the joke, though I still wasn’t sure how. “Trust me.”

And I did.

I trusted Alfred, Duke of Kineallen, with everything. My body, my reputation…

Even my heart.

“Come here,” he said quietly.

I didn’t need much more of an incentive to step into his arms, nor did I need to support my own weight as he started to kiss me. No, Alfred lifted me bodily and carried me, slowly, onto the bed before laying me upon it.

Dear God, this was happening.

I could hardly believe it. I was about to lose my innocence to the handsome, charming, distant and utterly unobtainable Duke of Kineallen.

And it was all I wanted.

“So beautiful,” murmured Alfred as he joined me on the bed, nestling between my thighs. “And you know, I think I need to warm you up before I enter you.”

I shivered, though not from the cold. “I already want?—”

“I know what you want. And I’m going to give it to you,” Alfred said seriously, his gaze deep as he stared into my eyes. “But I’m going to reward you first.”

I shivered again, my thighs tightening around him in anticipation of the pleasure he had shown me once before. “Reward?”

“Yes, you’ve been ever so good,” murmured Alfred, kissing me swiftly before lowering his mouth to the corner of mine, and pressing another kiss there. “So good.”

Why his words were making me hot and tingling all over, I didn’t know—but perhaps it had something to do with the way he praised me…and the way his right hand was moving slowly up my thigh, stroking and caressing until it reached?—

“Alfred!” I couldn’t help but cry out his name as my hands gripped his shoulders.

No one could blame me. What else was a woman supposed to do when a man slipped his fingers into her folds?

“Oh, so wet,” Alfred murmured, capturing my lips and pleasuring me with a blistering kiss, even as his fingers stroked the wet core of me. “So ready for me…you want this, don’t you?”

I moaned, tilting my head back as waves of bliss started to ripple through me.

How did he do that? How did he know precisely what I wanted, just what I needed to feel so, so good?

“Tell me,” came his low voice as his thumb joined his fingers, slowly circling my clit. “Tell me how much you like this.”

“I—I love—I love this,” I gasped, hardly able to string two syllables together. “Alfred I need—I want?—”

“And I’ll give it to you,” he growled, kissing me furiously as his fingers refused to quicken. “When you’re good and ready?—”

“I’m ready—I’m ready now,” I pleaded, twisting my hips into his hand, thrusting myself onto his fingers, my ankle curled up over his buttocks. “Please Alfred, please—please?—”

“Christ, you feel good,” Alfred muttered, his breathing inexplicably quick. “You have been so good to me, Catherine?—”

“Yes—yes?—”

“So damned good,” he breathed as his thumb pressed harder as it circled my clit, and he captured one of my nipples in his mouth.

And I came apart.

“Alfred—Alfred—yes, yes, yes!”

It wasn’t waves of pleasure but a crest, a peak, a mountain I had thrown myself from and was now coming apart on the air. Every inch of me trembled and rocked, my back arching as I could have wept, the ecstasy was so entire.

And when I slowly, slowly returned to earth, hardly knowing my own name any longer, I blinked up and saw Alfred, the Duke of Kineallen, smiling down at me in wonder.

Kineallen

Dear God, she was magnificent.

No woman had ever taken her pleasure from me so boldly. No woman had ever come apart so completely.

And no woman had ever looked up at me like that.

Adoring.

Trusting.

Knowing that whatever we shared here meant something more than either of us could—or were willing to—articulate.

My heart soared as my fingers slowed, the rush of giving my woman pleasure almost as potent as the pleasure itself .

And I knew that I couldn’t wait much longer.

“Now then,” Catherine said quietly, gazing up at me with affection that I knew I did not deserve. “Is it not time that you took your own pleasure?”

My jaw tightened as I tried to smile. “You don’t want any more, then?”

I knew it—knew it the moment her eyes widened in shock. “There is more?”

“There is certainly more if you want it,” I said lightly, shifting my weight on my elbows and nestling the very tip of my manhood at her entrance.

Her absolutely dripping entrance.

Hell’s bells. It was going to be an exercise in self-control, this one.

“I want it,” Catherine said, her voice almost breathless yet steady at the same time. “I want you.”

I want you.

Did she have any idea what those words did to me? How swiftly I could be taken over by her, how if she asked for it I would give her anything?

Even my heart?

I pressed a heady kiss upon her and tasted delight, and amazement, and a hunger for more.

Oh, this woman of mine. She was far more than I could ever have imagined.

“I’ll be gentle,” I muttered, glancing down at where our bodies met and trying desperately to remind myself not to blow my load the moment I entered her.

“Don’t be too gentle,” came the wanton words of my lover. “I want all of you, Alfred. All of you.”

All of me?

Hissing through my teeth and wishing to God I have any semblance of self-control, I slowly pressed my manhood into her secret place. She was wet, and she was warm, and her body welcomed me, inch by inch by inch.

“Catherine,” I moaned as I buried my face in her neck and breathed in her, feeling myself utterly surrounded by her, consumed by her.

Christ, she felt incredible. Every part of my being was concentrated on the several thick inches of my manhood now sheathed within her, and when I propped myself up to look into her eyes?—

They were wide. And they were delighted.

“You feel incredible,” Catherine whispered, smiling up at me in apparent wonder. “Is…is that done, then? We have made love?”

I tried not to laugh. “Not quite.”

“Because you have not made the noises that I have made,” she said quite seriously. “I had hoped it would be as good for you as it is for me.”

Hell and heaven, but this woman could push me over the edge easily.

“It will be,” I promised, hoping to God I would be able to get her to climax again before my body’s instincts took over. “Oh, it will be.”

It was almost over before I could properly start. Just as I was about to lift my hips and then thrust back inside the woman who was starting to mean more to me than my own life, Catherine arched her back and tilted her hips.

“Damn,” I breathed, biting my lip as I held tenuously onto any grip I could manage. “Catherine?—”

“You like that?” The artful minx, she was grinning up at me as though she’d won a prize. “What else is there to enjoy, I wonder?”

Her hands stroked my nape and I shivered, before grabbing first one hand, and then the other, pinning them together above her head.

“Alfred!”

“Let me take my damned pleasure, woman,” I growled, pressing a kiss upon her lips so that she could see I was not angry at her.

When I lifted my head, her eyelashes were fluttering with apparent abandon.

Interesting. That was worth remembering for another time.

“Then take me,” Catherine said, opening her eyes and jutting out her chin boldly, almost challenging me. “Take me just as you want.”

Well, I was hardly going to say no to such an invitation.

Lifting my hips and thrusting my manhood deep inside her, I groaned at the aching sweet pleasure that shot through my whole body.

“Yes,” Catherine moaned, “that—that did feel good.”

Only good? My technique was slipping.

It wasn’t slipping for very long. Within minutes, I had built a rhythm that had my woman gasping, panting, breathing out my name as a whimper, as a plea, one that I wasn’t about to give her.

Not yet.

“You feel so good, Catherine,” I said in a ragged voice, thrusting deep into her, my balls tightening with the repressed longing I was not going to give into—not yet. “So damned good.”

“You make me feel good,” came her unschooled reply, her whimpering moans continuing as Catherine managed, “In fact I—I think I’m—I’m going to—Alfred!”

If she had said not a word, I would have known her climax was here—rippling through her, tugging at my manhood as it pounded into her, grabbing it, forcing me over the edge upon which I’d danced for so, so long?—

“Catherine!” I cried as I poured myself into her.

More, and more, God, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d teased myself and a lover so long.

And then all I could do was collapse into Catherine’s waiting arms and discover, much to my surprise…

That I never wanted to leave them again.