Page 16 of Courting the Duchess (Spy Society #1)

T he following morning, Alaina rose, dressed, and went down to break her fast a little earlier than usual. There had been something comfortable about her last few meals with Sterling and a part of her looked forward to a repeat that morning. They’d moved past the awkwardness of the early days and adopted something akin to the civility Sterling had pleaded for in the beginning. It felt like quite an accomplishment to look back and see how far they’d come in the weeks since his return. The shift in their dynamic was undeniable. Even if she hadn’t completely forgotten their past, they were far closer to reconciliation than they had been.

She entered the morning room to find only Sterling. No footmen hovered on the edge of the room ready to seat her and prepare her plate. Instead, her husband stood and held his hand out to her. There was a new gentleness in his hazel eyes, an unexpected sincerity that stole her breath. He was dressed simply, but immaculately in a charcoal coat and matching breeches, a well-fitted deep blue waistcoat, and crisp cravat at his throat. The sharp line of his jaw was freshly shaven, and, in all, he was devastatingly handsome.

“Good morning,” he greeted her. There was a velvety curl to his voice that made her stomach flutter.

“Morning,” she replied automatically and allowed him to help her to her chair.

“I trust you slept well?”

“Yes, I—” Alaina’s words died in the air when she caught sight of the small crystal vase on the table between their chairs. It was stuffed with fat, glorious peonies in various shades of fragile pink.

Sterling spoke beside her ear when it was clear she could not find her words. “They’re your favorite flower, are they not?” His warm breath on her naked neck made her shiver.

“How did you—” She stopped speaking again when she caught sight of his confident smile mere inches from her face. The man was full of surprises. If he’d taken the time to figure this out, then perhaps he did care.

Perhaps he was telling the truth about all of it and spoke from his heart.

And, even if he hadn’t expressly explained why he’d left her in the first place, maybe he had told the truth about his activities when he’d been away.

It was nearly impossible for her to swallow past the growing lump in her throat. She couldn’t tear her eyes from his because she saw hope there for the first time in a very long while.

Alaina spent the rest of the day agonizing over the advice Lady Juliette and Viscountess Sommerfeld had given her. Sterling had made himself scarce following that morning’s meal—whether because he had actual business to attend, or he wanted to leave her alone to stew and contemplate the appearance of the peonies at the table, she wasn’t sure. Either way, that is precisely what he did.

And this suited Alaina just fine because the last thing she needed was a witness to her racing mind.

If her friends could have come to such a conclusion—that she and Sterling had already wasted far too much time—even without knowing the full extent of Sterling’s confessions and this morning’s efforts, then did that mean the answer was right in front of Alaina the whole time? Was her stubbornness preventing her from seeing the reality of the situation? Was she perhaps missing out on what could possibly be a future of contentment and wedded bliss if she could only climb over this hurdle? Could she truly forgive the last eight years and allow herself to admit there was more to Sterling than she’d believed? Could she accept the words he offered her and consider penance paid?

She spent hour after hour torn between desperately wanting to be left alone with her thoughts and wanting to face her husband to see if she still felt the same when confronted once more with his beautiful face. Only after a solitary supper in her rooms when Sterling sent word that he’d been held up in a meeting did Alaina find herself standing before the door adjoining their chambers. She’d listened to the now-familiar sounds of Sterling returning, the murmur of his baritone as he and his valet conversed, and the ensuing silence as, she presumed, her husband settled in for sleep.

Only this one barrier stood between them, and yet, it felt like the largest of chasms. Could she possibly consider setting aside her pride, taking the initiative, and moving to cross that void?

Her nerves were uncharacteristically powerful as she forced herself to turn the polished brass knob with clammy fingers. Unlocked, the door swung open on silent hinges. She didn’t believe she’d made a sound, but Sterling immediately stirred nonetheless. He abruptly sat up, the deep blue coverlet slipping down his naked torso. The only light in the room was cast from the banked coals in the fire; the orange glow cast his angular features in mesmerizing shadow and relief. Her eyes drifted downward from the sharp lines of his face to the muscular planes of his bare chest, the defined ridges of his abdomen, the corded muscles of his arms as he propped himself up and ran a hand through his tousled chestnut hair burnished and glowing in the dim room.

“Alaina?” Her name in his husky voice sent an unexpectedly pleasant chill traipsing up her spine. “Are you well?”

She could only nod, unable to speak over the pounding of her heart when faced with her first naked man…her husband of nearly a decade.

Alaina hesitated another moment before entering the room and pressing the door closed behind her with a snick of finality, never removing her eyes from Sterling’s face. Though his features were immobile, Sterling swallowed so hard that she could see the bob of his throat even in the flickering light.

“Alaina…” he whispered as she approached the bed; it might have been a curse or a prayer. Perhaps a little of both.

“How did you know about the peonies?” she asked more steadily than she felt. She’d mulled over the options off and on throughout the day. He could have easily enough learned the information from her maid or even one of her friends. If he paid attention, he’d have noticed she wore peonies affixed often enough to her bonnets.

His response, however, was nothing Alaina could have anticipated.

Rather than immediately respond, his hazel eyes burned into her for several prolonged seconds. Just as she was about to repeat her query, he rolled to the side, giving her a spectacular view of the flexing muscles of his expansive back, and reached for a pile of papers lying in an open wooden box set atop the small table beside the bed. He held out the stack to her but still said nothing. Alaina stepped close enough only to retrieve the papers and skim them in the flickering firelight. It took her less than a second to recognize her own handwriting, to be yanked back in time to the days she’d once been a young, na?ve girl writing to her husband and hoping each day would be the one he’d return to the doorstep of Morton House.

Her letters.

He’d kept them.

All of them, judging from the heft of the stack she held, and what remained still in the box beside his bed.

“Your grandmother’s garden was filled with peonies…but your favorites were always the ones so pale pink they were nearly white.” His voice was at once soft and deafening. Her throat grew tight with unshed emotion, silencing her. “You used to collect the enormous blooms by the armful.”

She looked up to see a faint, rueful tilt to his beautiful mouth just before her vision grew watery and blurred.

Her husband missed nothing.

It may have taken him time to figure things out, but he’d done it.

She heard him curse beneath his breath, and then the hasty rustle of fabric as he gathered the coverlet around his body and rose from the bed to close the gap between them in two long strides. Clutching the fabric around his waist with one hand, he gently pulled her to him with the other, cradling her against the warmth of his chest, his hot skin pressed to her cheek. The papers fell heedlessly from her fingers and fluttered to the rug at their feet like leaves in autumn. Her palms pressed against the hardness of his stomach, but not to push him away. Not this time.

“What did I do?” he asked, sounding both pained and baffled. “Please, tell me how to fix it.”

What could she tell him? That simple flowers were the thing to split open her guarded heart? That her resolve to cling to the tattered remains of her animosity had been done in by peonies?

But it was so much more than that at the heart of it. To know he’d carried pieces of her with him in all his travels, and—even if he hadn’t written back—they’d meant enough that he’d kept them, carted them around, held them, and read them repeatedly.

Alaina shook her head as best as she could with her face buried in his chest and looked up to meet Sterling’s concerned gaze. Hot tears escaped her eyes when she witnessed the earnestness there, the vulnerability she hadn’t been expecting. “You have no idea what it’s like to suddenly realize that you do matter to someone—that you have always mattered…”

His mouth hardened, but his eyes grew softer than she’d ever seen before he pulled her against his body more tightly, as if wanting to absorb every ounce of pain she’d felt these past eight years. She inhaled the lingering delicious scent of his cologne, a hint of starch from his cravat lingering at the pulse in his throat, and the unique, clean musk of his skin. Alaina was suddenly keenly aware of his feverish flesh and nakedness, though it was absurd because how could she not be aware of this man’s body and presence? If she’d learned one thing, it was that she was aware of his every movement and every glance. She was so tired of fighting this, so tired of being alone—especially when this man holding her would give her everything, had done so much to ingratiate himself to her once more. He’d met every one of her challenges with fire of his own. And he was strong enough to be calm and quiet when it mattered most.

The warmth of his eyes spread throughout her body with insistent tendrils until she felt it from her head to the tips of her bare toes.

“Will you kiss me?” she whispered without thinking.

“Always,” he murmured, his pupils widening to nearly swallow their hazel rims. His hand snaked up to cup the back of her head, his fingers gently winding between the strands of her thick plait of golden hair to tilt her chin up. His warm breath tickled her lips, parting them on a sigh, and then his mouth grazed hers in an incredibly tender side-to-side skim.

He pressed gentle caresses to her top lip, then the bottom, then the sensitive corners, before finally giving her that which she ached for. His mouth sealed over hers, a perfect fit. Their lips mated in a perfect combination of need and tenderness, tasting and learning one another in a way that was so very long overdue. Sterling’s tongue met hers, sweeping in deeply to tangle and stroke her until her joints grew weak. Though relatively untutored, she met his kisses and touches with her own, gradually losing her self-consciousness as the minutes ticked by. She stepped more closely to hold herself upright by wrapping her arms ’round his neck, stretching to her toes until her calves burned.

A hot, steely hardness pressed against her lower abdomen, through the layers of the coverlet, her robe, and nightshift. Long and thick, his member throbbed insistently, demanding her attention. Happy to oblige, she leaned in even closer. Sterling released a low, deep sound in his throat. Her leaden mind all at once snapped to attention. Even her practically inexperienced mind recognized what this meant. Her husband desired her, in no uncertain terms.

Alaina broke the kiss, pulling away just far enough to give their mouths a breath’s space between. Her eyes darted down to the straining bulge between them. The ladder of his abdominal muscles above the edge of the sheet clenched convulsively, his chest heaved unevenly. She’d seen him shaken by arguments, practically vibrating with tension, but nothing compared to how tightly coiled he was just then.

Despite her burning cheeks, Alaina shoved aside all trepidations, bolstered her courage, and slowly reached forward to hook her fingers in the edge of the coverlet draped around Sterling’s hips. The heat of his bare skin seared the backs of her knuckles most deliciously. Slowly, she began to tug the fabric from his grasp. There was only a moment’s hesitation before he relinquished it to her, and she could feel his eyes upon her as tangible as a finger’s touch. When the coverlet dropped to the floor, Alaina released the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding in one long, slow exhalation.

He was a beautiful man, her husband.

Shamelessly, she admired the thick strength of his thighs, honed from years of riding; the lean cut of his calves dusted lightly with light brown hair; back up to the impressively thick column of his aroused sex where it sprang from a nest of dark chestnut curls, accentuated by the elegant wings of his pelvis. Alaina swallowed convulsively. Oh my… None of her friends had ever described the male member in such glorious, vivid detail as the one before her.

And she doubted any words could ever do it proper justice.

It excited her and made her nervous in equal measure. Faced with its jutting pride, its wide, blunt head and the soft, heavy sac beneath filled her with a confusing amount of anticipation. She knew as much that, should a man care to try, this part of him might bring her an unspeakable pleasure. And, if she’d learned one thing, Sterling would go to great lengths to do so.

It is your right to demand pleasure from me…

His words expanded within her skull until there was little room for anything else, like heady, intoxicating smoke in a closed room.

She dragged her eyes up along the thin trail of tawny hair that climbed toward his navel, across the defined ridges of his abdomen, the smooth planes of his chest and broad shoulders, the tenseness of his neck muscles as he held himself impossibly still and in check. His swirling hazel eyes watched her with an emotion she could not fully define. Desire was there, to be sure, but something else. A question?

“Alaina,” he whispered almost painfully. She could only meet his eyes and curl her lips between her teeth as she waited in tense silence for him to continue. “What I told you earlier about there never being other women…” Her heart stuttered. Was he going to admit to a lie? Now? “There never was another woman. Not since the day I met you.”

Alaina’s mind stuttered at the admission, taking far longer than it should have to process it. “You mean…”

“When I told you none of the despicable rumors of my behavior on the Continent were true, I meant it. In all this time, no face has ever enticed me as much as yours, no mouth has drugged me so sweetly. I knew the moment I saw you, I wanted you; I knew the first time we spoke, I would never desire another.” He spoke with bald frankness, though the slight pink on the crests of his cheeks was incredibly endearing. “I cannot lie and say I have never seen another woman bared before me, but I can speak with confidence when I declare there has never been another woman as beautiful as you, wife. And I hope only to bring you pleasure.” His chest rose and fell with deep, broken breaths, as if his heart were attempting to break free of its cage. “You can touch me,” he rasped. “Please, touch me. Put an end to my misery.” She’d never heard her husband so near the brink of shattering. It was counterintuitively humbling to know she held all the power—even more so when she considered that, beyond all odds, this situation felt as if they were on leveler ground than they had been in years. He stood naked before her in both body and heart; he had yet to see her thusly. He was handing her control, and it was so tempting for her to relent and do the same.

Hesitantly, Alaina reached up and, with a feather-light touch, ran her fingers along the lines of his defined collarbone to the point where it melded into the swells of his broad shoulders. Her hands traced a tantalizing trail down to his flat nipples, so different from her own needy buds pressing so insistently against the soft fabric of her nightshift. Her nails grazed a path further to the undulating muscles of his abdomen, the defined wings of his pelvis, and, feeling unaccountably brave, through the crisp nest of hair cradling his member. She was utterly enthralled, and she was rewarded with a desperate inhalation from her husband. Still, he did not touch her in return. Her hands froze just shy of caressing that part of him that bobbed and strained so fervently for her attention.

Sensing her hesitation, Serling held himself even more still than she thought physically possible for a living, breathing man. “What is the matter?” he asked with a very subtle tremor.

“I—I am…” she trailed off, suddenly feeling very silly voicing her insecurities. “You are so beautiful,” Alaina finally breathed, unable to meet his eye for fear of what she might find there. Few times in her life had she felt less certain of herself, and it was maddening. “And I am unsure.”

Sterling crooked a finger beneath her chin and gently lifted it so he might look into her face. The corner of his mouth was tilted in a small smile, but it was far from mocking or unbearably prideful. It was reassuring. And what she saw in his eyes melted her all the way to her molten core.

“Come,” he breathed and engulfed her hand in his before turning to lead her across the room and, to her surprise, away from the bed. Her spiraling mind halted when she glimpsed the delectable swells of his rear, flexing with his every confident step. So distracted was she that she nearly collided with him when he stopped before the full-length looking glass leaning in the corner of the room.

Sterling’s hands gently guided her to stand before him to face the polished surface. His beautiful eyes were deep green in the dim lighting when they met hers in their reflection.

“Do you know what I see?” he asked, standing so close she could feel the vibrations of his voice in her back. She forced herself to break his intense gaze and ran her eyes along her shadowed figure. She wasn’t vain, but she knew herself to be reasonably attractive—at least, she’d been described as such in tabloids and by more than a couple of admirers taking advantage of her absent husband to boldly proclaim their admiration. She possessed a slim figure and had learned long ago how to accentuate her features with her fashion choices. Her golden hair glinting in the flickering light was considered desirable. Her nose was straight and had been described as fey. While taller than some women, she wasn’t so tall as to be considered unattractively so, or to be intimidating to most male dance partners. Any grooming or dressing was merely a facade.

No man had ever seen her so unadorned, so without artifice. And now, as she stood before the mirror in her husband’s bedchamber, she saw a woman who was nearing thirty years of age. A married virgin. A woman who wore no rouge and whose hair hung down her back in a simple plait affixed with only a satin ribbon. Her wrapper in a print of blue flowers was modest; the lace of her nightshift tickled the tops of her feet, and her bare toes peeked from beneath the fabric. She fought the girlish urge to bury them in the pile of the rug.

“Just a woman,” Alaina replied with uncharacteristic meekness.

Her husband tilted his head, his lips curving further. “I see a woman of fiery passions and unparalleled intelligence.” There was a gentle tug on her hair and his strong fingers tenderly unwound her plait. She watched him in the mirror, marveling at the intensity in his gaze and how it contrasted with his gentle touch. “A kind heart, but one unwilling to be trod upon.” His arms reached around her and untied her wrapper in one swift tug. Her body began to vibrate with anticipation as the garment was slid from her shoulders and discarded. She caught where Sterling’s eyes had locked and noticed the prominence of her aroused nipples was infinitely apparent through the delicate fabric of her nightshift. When she would have covered herself, Sterling caught her hands in his and pulled them back to place searing kisses on each of her palms. Her self-consciousness melted enough that she allowed him to weave her arms back behind his neck, arching her back to jut her breasts toward the mirror.

“Do not move,” he ordered gently, causing an unexpected rush of liquid heat between her thighs. “I see…” he continued huskily, trailing his fingers down her sides, making her shiver and her eyes slide nearly closed; “a most desirable woman, in mind, soul…and body.” His fingers twisted in the fabric at her hips. “This body,” he breathed, “has driven me mad with desire since the day we met. And I have never wanted another.” The words were like the release of a dam, losing a flood of need through her limbs. Her flesh was suddenly almost unbearably hot and her inner muscles clenched reflexively, aching for unnamed relief.

She was fascinated by the painfully slow raising of her nightshift’s hem as Sterling continued to wrap the fabric around his hands. “I lay awake at night, hard and aching, thinking about these legs wrapped around my hips.” She shuddered at the image; only her arms locked around the back of his neck kept her upright when she would have otherwise melted into a puddle on the floor. “When I can sleep, I dream of kissing every last inch of this perfect flesh.” The fabric rose above her navel, revealing the glistening golden curls at the juncture of her thighs. So aroused, she was well past the point of modesty. She pressed her thighs together in an effort to staunch the delicious throb pounding there with every heavy beat of her heart. The fabric continued to rise, dragging against her sensitized nipples just enough to cause an unbidden gasp to escape her lips.

Sterling released an involuntary groan of his own. “And these breasts…divine isn’t apt enough for their perfection.” He gently unclasped her hands to pull the fabric over her head and dropped it to pool around their feet. He steadied her with one strong forearm around her waist, pulling her back against his chest, the thick column of his sex notching perfectly against her rear. He bent his head and pressed a hot, open-mouthed kiss to the soft flesh of her neck. “I have never stopped wanting you, Alaina,” he groaned. “It kills me that you ever believed that was not the truth. I have always wanted every part of you with everything I am and everything I have. I swore it the day we stood before the archbishop, and I have never stopped believing it.”

Alaina turned her head to look back up into his face. The raw honesty there was her undoing.

She tilted up and caught his mouth with hers, the first time she’d initiated a kiss with him. She felt consumed by his power and heat, and she savored it. She reveled in it. She wanted to lose herself in it and never resurface. She wanted to believe every one of his words and she allowed it to happen—to give herself over to this attraction simmering between them.

His large hand spanned her flat abdomen, stopping just below her navel, hot as a brand yet tender as a feather. His arm tightened around her ribs.

“May I touch you?” Sterling rasped in between kisses. “Please.” The pleading in his tone made her fall apart.

She nodded jerkily, not fully understanding what he was asking—he was, after all, already touching her, the full length of his hard body nestled against her back—but she knew she wanted whatever he was willing to offer. “Yes.” The word finished with a gasp as his hand already dipped lower. Tenderly, carefully, he parted the folds of her sex with one blunt fingertip. He traced her seam, spreading the dewiness there with every pass. When she would have been embarrassed to have him discover that wetness, the approving rumble from his chest bolstered her confidence. He liked what he’d discovered.

“Even more beautiful than I’d ever imagined…” Sterling’s voice was barely above a growl.

His other hand rose from her ribs to cup the weight of her left breast, and a groan of stark desire rumbled like thunder from his body through hers until she felt it in her soul. When the calloused pad of his thumb found the budded peak, she shuddered at the desire lancing from that point throughout each of her limbs and back in time with his touch before it settled low in her stomach. He worked a gentle, insistent rhythm with both of his remarkably skilled hands; plucking her nipple and then soothing the ache, gradually stroking more deeply within her intimate folds until his finger met the very center of her tight core. Those skilled fingers of his circled there, spreading her slickness and making her throb until she involuntarily arched her hips into his touch, and then he suddenly retreated. Alaina would have whimpered in confusion, but his fingers slipped up several inches to discover an even more sensitive spot at the crux of her sex. The pad of his longest finger pressed just right and she gasped in shock at the intensity of the sensation, finally breaking their kiss.

Alaina’s hazy vision caught sight of the intensely erotic image they made standing there before the mirror. His temple rested against hers, his fingers cupped her and lashed her close to his body, his other hand confidently worked between her legs as he made her knees tremble with his touch. Her spine turned to jelly, her thighs twitched helplessly as he added another finger to his machinations. The sight of his glistening fingers disappearing between her folds, stroking her where no one had before, should have scandalized her, but, instead, it served only to inflame her passion. Her breath hitched when she met Sterling’s eyes in the mirror and she found them burning with an unnatural intensity.

Suddenly, his fingers dipped lower once more, pressing against her entrance. Her body tensed instinctively.

“Relax, love,” Sterling said against her neck, nipping at the lobe of her ear. She began to shake her head—how could she when she felt like a bowstring ready to snap?—until he caught her mouth with his, kissing her so deeply, possessively she felt it in every inch of her being. Her toes curled, her muscles went molten, and Sterling took the opportunity to press his fingers forward, invading her body in the most delicious way. She gasped against his lips and, when his thumb rubbed that secret pearl in time with the slow, shallow thrusts of his two longest fingers, she lost control of her limbs. Her head fell back against Sterling’s hard shoulder, and her pounding heart was all she could hear…well, that, and the deep, pained rumble of Sterling’s voice.

“So sweet,” he growled. “So tight.” He cursed. “I don’t know how I shall survive.”

She might have collapsed had he not insinuated a leg between hers from behind, helping both to spread her wider for his efforts and prop her up. She clutched at his forearm, her nails biting into the corded muscles, and panted frantically. Something was building. A crisis was coming. She didn’t know how to stop it—what to do.

“Sterling,” she whimpered.

“Look,” he replied. “Watch yourself in the mirror. See how glorious and desirable you are as you come apart in my arms.” His thick member throbbed against her back, the arching of her spine and rocking tilt of her hips earned her a guttural groan of approval from her husband. Despite her hazy vision, she did as he commanded. She focused her cloudy vision on the reflection in the mirror.

Who was that woman with the flush cresting her cheeks, the passion-glazed eyes, the kiss-swollen lips? The woman who was wantonly spread before a mirror as a man touched her most intimate of places, who held her bright pink nipple trapped in a tantalizing grip between two fingers of the broad hand spanning her pale breast? This woman who was so overcome with lust that she couldn’t hold herself up without that man’s assistance?

Alaina didn’t recognize this confident, sensual being. And she had Sterling to thank for that.

One crook of his finger inside of her coupled with a firm circle of his thumb sent Alaina spiraling. She cried out raggedly as wave after wave of pleasure overcame her. Part of her was terrified of this loss of control, but she also never wanted it to stop. As if reading her mind, Sterling continued his ministrations, never slowing or stilling, murmuring harsh words of encouragement against her hair as she bucked against the heel of his palm where it continued its insistent pressure. She clung to Sterling, riding each pulse of her orgasm and allowing him to wring every last glimmer of pleasure from her body until she went limp, whimpering in shock and exhaustion, both of their bodies slick with sweat—hers from ecstasy and his from restraint.

As she floated down, Sterling continued to nuzzle her hair, planting gentle kisses and reassuring words to her hair. He held her up when her shaky legs would have given out; remained steadfast and strong when she would have given up and given over to her weakened muscles. He continued to hold her until the world was once more solid and steady—until she could find her footing once more. Still, however, he didn’t free her. He allowed Alaina to turn within his embrace, pressing against the length of his body. Her eyes closed, she rested her forehead to the hard, sweat-dampened plane of his chest as he stroked her back from the nape of her neck down to the sloping curve of her rear and back up.

“We can stop here,” Sterling finally whispered thickly. “If you wish.” He seemed to hold himself impossibly still, barely daring to breathe…a hunter terrified of scaring off his target.

Though the tremors of her orgasm still rippled throughout her body, though Sterling had given her the most joyous physical experience of her life, Alaina couldn’t help but feel as if something was missing. The throbbing juncture of her thighs ached for more…something she couldn’t name but knew in the most primal part of her that it existed.

And, judging by the insistent throb of Sterling’s arousal between them, he craved more as well.

Alaina looked up into his face, so gorgeously sculpted, taut with self-control. She didn’t recognize the husky, sensual voice coming from her throat when she said, “Make me your wife in truth. Make love to me.”