Page 10 of A Virgin for the Duke of Scars (Ton’s Beasts #1)

T heresa resisted the urge to squirm under the intensity of those gray eyes. She would not back down. Not even when his gaze made her all tingly and hot.

“Well? Tell me more about your rules,” he prompted, moving toward her with the lazy grace of a panther.

Her heart pounded so loudly in her ears that she could scarcely hear herself. “First of all, as I said, I insist that you abide by them,” she began, her mouth suddenly dry.

“As long as they are within reason,” he said.

Theresa nodded. Fair enough.

“I have considered your rules, and I understand my duties,” she continued.

He stiffened visibly, his eyes flashing at her words.

Tread carefully now, Theresa.

Talking to him like this was like reasoning with a feral beast—she did not know for certain how he was going to react to her demands, only that she wished to have a discussion between two level-headed adults.

With a deep breath, she straightened her back and looked him in the eye just as resolutely. She was not going to back down on this.

“Regardless of our duties, we must be able to spend time together each day,” she said, the words coming out in a rush before her nervousness took over.

He looked at her as if she had just gone mad and told him to run around Hyde Park naked.

“Whatever for?” His voice was cold. Glacial.

“Why, so we get to know each other, of course.” Now, she was beginning to feel frustrated with him. “And you must not touch me on days when we are fasting. Or at all, really, unless I explicitly ask it of you—which I cannot do so unless I get to know you better.”

She knew very little about marital relations. Such talk was considered taboo in the nunnery, and her mother had not even thought to inform her that she was getting married until she was being marched down the aisle, much less educate her about intimacy between man and wife.

All she knew about the production of offspring was limited to that one time she walked in on a scene in the chicken coop.

She had watched with horror and morbid fascination as the rooster had its way with one of the hens.

With all that loud squawking, flapping, and feathers flying all around, the poor hen did not look like she had an easy time of it.

If she were to be brutalized in such a manner in the marriage bed, she would rather it happen at the hands of a man who was not so much a stranger to her.

“Is that so?” His silky drawl pierced through that cacophonous memory of the chicken coop.

Somehow, he had drawn ever nearer until he was only a few steps away from her. Her breath hitched, and she inadvertently took a step back.

“There is no need for all that frivolity,” he continued, stalking toward her. “I have my ways of making you beg for my touch, wife.”

A searing heat shot through her, her mouth opening in a slight gasp even as she took another step back.

She shook her head. “I will not back down on this,” she told him firmly.

His answer was a smug smile, steeped in male arrogance. “That remains to be seen.”

“Will the people in this manor keep me company at least?” She demanded, frustration and that strange heat swirling within her. “I am not used to being so alone.”

That was the truth. Even in the nunnery, privacy was a luxury that was only granted to Mother Superior. The rest of the nuns had to share their living space with everyone else.

Theresa had spent but one night in her room at Wyndham Park, and the silence had left her feeling hollow the entire night.

The Duchess’s Suite she was to occupy in Blackwell Manor was at least three times as large.

If she spent the rest of her days by herself, she feared she would go mad before the month ended.

But her husband simply waved her protests away. “You met my sister. She is thrilled to have you here, as you can very well see.”

“Unlike some people I know,” Theresa muttered under her breath. She looked at him in exasperation. “Have you any other siblings, then? I have a sister—not that I know her.”

“An older brother. Dead,” was his flat response.

If he ever noted the bitterness in her tone when she mentioned her sister, he showed no sign of it. In fact, the only indication he gave was that he wished to end this conversation. Immediately.

Very well, then.

Theresa sighed. “Now, about the rules I mentioned earlier… As you very well know, I have no idea how a marriage is supposed to work, much less how marriages in the…” She frowned.

What is that word they used to refer to their community?

“The ton ?” he supplied.

“Yes, the ton . I do not know how marriages in the ton work,” she continued. “However, I do know that it is impossible to make a baby without kissing.”

“And how would a little nun know about making babies?” He drawled.

Theresa felt her face heat up. Was she actually having this conversation with him of all people?

“Well, Sister Edith once told me that kissing comes before making b-babies,” she stammered. “And that it is supposed to feel wonderful!”

The corner of his lips quirked into a smirk. “It particularly boggles my mind as to why a nun in the countryside would profess to know so much about the act of making children.”

“W-Well, that is not my secret to tell!” She burst out defensively.

But he simply chuckled . A low laugh that rumbled deep in his broad chest.

Theresa looked at him in surprise. She had truly believed Sister Edith when she told her that particular tidbit a few days after her first courses had started.

Could she have been mistaken? Could there be some other way that he knew?

“So, what you are saying is that you want me to kiss you?” The Duke drawled, slinking toward her with predatory grace. “In the interest of performing your wifely duties, of course.”

Theresa gaped at him and took a step back.

He took one forward.

She took two more back and hit the edge of his desk.

He reached for her, his fingers brushing a lock of hair that had fallen from her coif, whispering against her bare shoulder and igniting nerves she had never thought existed.

“If I were to kiss you now, you would not deny me, would you?” He murmured silkily, his face so close to her own that she could feel his warm breath against her warmer cheeks.

Theresa shook her head. No .

“Because it is your duty, and you are a good little wife, are you not, my dear?” His voice seemed to vibrate in her skin and skitter down her spine to pulse achingly in that secret place between her legs.

“I… I d-do not know how to be a wife.”

Why were her words coming out in gasps?

The slow smile that curved his lips only made her heart pound harder.

“I suppose I can show you a few things,” he murmured, his face dropping to where her neck met her shoulder. “For one, I do not need to kiss you to seduce you.”

He expertly turned her around until she was bent over his desk, her hands braced on the polished wooden surface. Heat arced down her spine as he trailed his fingers down her back, undoing the row of tiny buttons with practiced ease.

Her breath came out in a stunned gasp as her dress sagged down her shoulders.

“I can simply tell you to spread your legs for me,” he continued wickedly.

And they did . They simply obeyed his command and parted like the Red Sea.

Impossible .

But what cognition she had left gave way to mindless pleasure the moment his hand snaked into the front of her loosened bodice, boldly cupping her breast and molding the soft flesh in his fingers as his whims dictated.

Her eyes fluttered shut. Her lips parted, but no words came out. Heat tore through her like a blazing wildfire as she arched into his wicked hand, and when he lightly pinched an aching bud, a soft mewl finally escaped her.

Good Lord, the sun was still high up in the sky, the curtains were still open, and he was doing such things to her body that should have invited the wrath of God upon them.

But instead of divine fury, all Theresa felt was an aching need made even more insistent by the feel of his hand sliding up the inside of her thigh.

“Husband…” She moaned softly. “I think?—”

He made a sound of disapproval that was punctuated by his finger sliding through her folds, sparking mind-numbing pleasure in its wake.

“In the next few minutes, the only words I want to hear from you are yes , please , and more ,” he growled in her ear. “Am I understood?”

She let out a tortured gasp as his finger stroked her heated flesh. “Aaron…”

“That one will do as well.”

Theresa bit her lower lip. Did he truly think her still capable of intelligible speech at this point? Her husband must have seriously overestimated her abilities.

Her fingertips dug into the polished wood as his expert fingers stroked her, eliciting a carnal pleasure unlike anything she had ever imagined. Meanwhile, his other hand sought her other breast, tweaking its tip with masterful ease.

It was as if he knew precisely how to draw out maximum pleasure with but a flick of his fingers.

She was not so sure if such a talent was a gift from the heavens or the devil himself. To have her craving, practically grinding her hips into his hand with mindless lust… was this what the Lord truly intended for a union between a man and a woman?

“Do you like that, wife?” Aaron murmured seductively in her ear. “You’re so hot and wet, and I have barely touched you. Tell me, do you like it so much?”

“Yes!” She gasped with a slight nod.

He chuckled, and the vibrations in his chest against her back ignited something inside her. A need she did not recognize, but it felt as if her whole body was reaching for it.

For what, exactly?

She let out a frustrated moan when his finger ceased its ministrations on her flesh, only to have it slide inside her while he pressed on that aching bud where the sensations had gathered.

“So tight,” she heard him groan. “So hot and wet and tight for me.”

“Yes!” She gasped. “Aaron, please…”

There. She had used only the words he had commanded her to use. And yet he continued to torment her with his fingers on her breast and in the slick folds between her thighs.

“What do you want, my sweet, obedient little wife?” He purred. “What is it you will have of me?”

“More!” She sobbed. “More, please!”

She felt his warm lips on her neck as he slid another finger inside her. Her eyes widened briefly in shock before another moan, louder, escaped her lips.

“Then you shall have it,” he said, his voice dripping with sensual promise.

At once, his fingers drove into her mercilessly as he pressed on the aching pearl between her legs. Theresa felt as if she were being carried along in a stormy sea, with no harbor in sight. She had lost all control, surrendered it to the man who held it on the tips of his fingers.

“Do you feel that, Theresa? Do you feel what I am doing to you?”

She nodded. “Yes…”

“Good.” His thumb swirled insistently around her bud.

Theresa felt herself splintering into a million and one glittering fragments of dazed ecstasy. A glorious rapture, unlike anything she had ever known, seized her. She slumped, her legs giving way beneath her as shudders wracked her body.

She felt strong arms wrap around her, catching her as she started to slide to the floor in a daze.

“W-What was that…?” She murmured.

“That,” her husband chuckled, “is the pleasure between a man and a woman, my dear.”

She gaped at him in surprise.

Good Lord, if that was how children were made, then she was very much surprised that the world was not overcrowded.

“Now,” he said, his voice astonishingly cool and calm even as she gathered her wits about her. “You will not question me again.”

Theresa looked at him. The man looked so smug that he was actually smiling .

She resisted the urge to laugh at him and patted his face consolingly instead. “We shall see about that, my dear husband.” Then, she rose and kissed his cheek—the one that was not covered by his mask. “Thank you… for this. ”

She caught the playful eyebrow he raised as she lowered her gaze to her disheveled clothes, her cheeks heating up when she recalled just how he had undone her earlier.

And they had not even kissed, just as he had promised her.

“The pleasure was all mine, wife,” he murmured, a wicked smile curving his lips.

She stood still as he gathered up her stays and then buttoned up the back of her dress. She reached up to her hair and found it mussed beyond salvation.

“I… I think I can finish up by myself,” she stammered, suddenly feeling shy.

He nodded. “Very well. I shall step outside for some fresh air.”

“Thank you.”

As Theresa ran her fingers through her hair, he turned back, his hand on the doorknob.

“Is there something else?” She asked.

He nodded and looked at her, his eyes grave. “I must warn you not to provoke me or break my rules, Theresa. There shall be consequences for your behavior.”

She lifted her chin defiantly. “Then you shall find yourself gravely disappointed, my dear . Or you might as well ready these consequences of yours.”

“Theresa,” he growled.

But she simply smiled serenely at him. “My dear husband, you will find that such threats have little to no effect on me.”

He glared at her once more and then stepped out, closing the door behind him with a click.

Especially if this is what I get for provoking you .