Page 16 of Duke of Pride (Sinful Dukes #4)

CHAPTER 16

The Edge of the Garden

“S ay it, Victoria!”

He was so close, his enormous body keeping her exposed, ready for ruin. And yet no words slipped from her lips. This was war, and the spoils were pleasure. The pleasure his mouth gave her as the tip of his tongue circled her one nipple. Then the other. Again. Devastatingly slow, barely there.

Not enough!

Her hand went in his hair to guide him where she wanted more, needed more. He caught her wrists mid-air, pulling them behind her back in one fluid motion, trapping them. She gasped in desperation, arching into him, hunting the pleasure he was denying her. He nipped her collarbone.

“Want more?” His voice was almost unrecognizable with gravel. “Beg me. Give me what I want.”

An electric jolt went through her at his debauched words. She shook from head to toe, her core leaking brazenly. This time, the answer refused to form because her body had forgotten its basic functions. Like drawing breath.

“So stubborn,” he accused.

His fingers were next, going up her ankles, grazing the skin behind her knee. Victoria writhed without control over her body, her mind, her very soul. A ripple of desire lanced through her every cell.

“Stephen!”

“Yes!” he hissed.

He dared more, his fingers marking her thighs as they dug into her skin. His mouth found the sensitive skin behind her ear, and he kissed and licked till she was boneless, unable to control her body.

His fingers became even more daring. He ventured higher, higher, closer to where she was aching, where her whole being was wound up. He nipped her neck as he touched her there.

“Oh God!”

Victoria almost catapulted out of the bench, out of reality itself. She dug her nails into the hand that was holding hers and drew desperate breaths. She had never been touched there , never thought about how it would feel to be touched there.

“That’s it, Victoria.” He coaxed more sighs out of her.

He found her slick heat, and she trembled. One slow, lazy stroke, then another, not much, just enough to make her whimper with want. Then, he pulled away.

“No!” she protested.

She fought to free her hands, she arched her back, she tightened her thighs—anything to keep him there, where she needed him the most.

“You like this. You want this,” he purred.

He came closer, his breath fanning her face, his hips gently rocking against her. He was seducing her in the most devastating way possible. She leaned up for a kiss at least, but he pulled back a little, fire burning in his eyes.

“I want to kiss you, Victoria,” he said softly. “I want to touch you.”

He leaned in, just barely, just one light stroke over her lips. It set her on fire. She chased after him, but he wouldn’t allow it.

“I want to show you pleasure. I will show you pleasure,” he hummed. “Just tell me what I want to hear, Victoria. You won’t ever let him touch you, never even think that you will be his.”

Victoria nearly sobbed in frustration. He caught her earlobe between his teeth. His fingers returned, firmer now, touching her with agonizing precision. She parted even more for him, no shame at all in her need. He found a spot there, a bundle of nerves, and he circled it softly.

Her soul left her body. This was the best she had ever felt in her life. There was nothing else in the world, nothing mattered. If the whole of the ton descended upon them, she wouldn’t stop. There was only him, his heat, his torturing words, his exploring hand, his wicked mouth. He planted open-mouthed kisses on her neck, licked her collarbone, bit her nipple. And his fingers…

God!

She squirmed and tensed and sighed and said his name again and again, out of her mind. Pleasure coiled tight in her belly, her body a bow ready to snap.

Then, he stopped.

Her cry of protest echoed through the greenhouse. He muffled it with his kiss, deep and possessive.

“You will not marry him, Victoria,” he demanded against her lips. “Say it. He won’t ever touch you like this.”

She moaned. The hand holding hers tightened, and the other grabbed her decisively by the jaw, bringing her closer to him, and forcing her to look into his eyes. She was floored by the need she saw in those tempestuous eyes. She licked her lips.

He smirked in triumph. “Come on,” he purred. “Let me hear it, and I will make you feel so good.”

She hated him. Hated how easily he unraveled her, how he knew how to control her. Hated that she needed this, needed him—all of him. Still, her eyes holding his, she refused to give him that one thing he wanted.

“There is the fire.” He kissed her deeply. “There is the passion.”

His kiss became a tempest, a storm, a whirlwind. She was utterly at his mercy, tangled around him, his hand firmly keeping her in place, every nerve ending his to tease. She had only to say that one thing, and he would make good on his promise. He would make her feel it all, take it all.

No.

She held onto that last semblance of control, the only shred of power she had over him. She rejoiced at seeing him undone by jealousy. He was going mad, thinking that someone else would touch her.

His fingers were on her once more, her slick wetting them as he slid them again and again from her entrance to that peak. Each time, the feather-light touch became more insistent. She pulled him closer, her thighs trapping him in.

“Say it, Victoria!”

His thumb kept swiping over her bundle of nerves, one finger teasing her entrance dangerously, sweetly.

“Stephen. God! Stephen! Just… I want…”

“That’s it,” he roared. “Say it, Victoria. Say it, and I will give you everything you want.”

He went still. He didn’t pull away, but he didn’t move a muscle. And he pinned her down so that she wouldn’t either.

Victoria let out a soft cry. If he were to stop now, she might as well die. Tears of frustration pricked her eyes. She needed him more than pride, more than logic. She wanted him more than her next breath.

“I won’t,” she choked out. “I won’t marry him.”

Stephen exhaled. For a heartbeat, the only sound was their ragged breathing. They were locked in a heated gaze, the weight of what was happening heavy between them, but no one was stopping. He leaned closer, his mouth curving against her skin.

“Good,” he whispered.

His fingers moved again— finally —but this time with devastating purpose. One elegant, strong finger dared more, sliding against her entrance, still not fully entering. But he didn’t need to. His thumb circled that aching peak that had become the center of her existence.

“Look at me,” he commanded.

Victoria’s eyes flew open, locking onto his. His gaze was dark with need, his lips parted, his breathing labored. He, too, was wrecked, ruined. Every stroke of his fingers mirrored the possessive hunger in his voice. When he pulled closer, she felt his need, hard against her thigh, and the shock sent a shiver from her head to her toes.

“This is so…” She barely recognized her own voice.

“You were good for me, Victoria.”

Her mind shuttered. His words were so wicked, so deliciously depraved, but they made her pant, made her wetter than she already was.

“So good.”

His voice curled around her like mesmerizing smoke, clouding her, and she inhaled him with each breath he stole. His touch became more insistent, rougher, faster. He released her hands, and she wrapped them around him, dug her nails into his shoulders, tugged on his hair, and searched the hot skin under his open shirt.

Pleasure twisted tighter, her thighs trembling around his wrist. His thumb pressed harder, his fingers slid against her entrance, and the world narrowed to that single point of contact.

“Stephen, I— oh God —please. I just want…”

“Yes, yes, yes,” he growled, lost, his body tense.

“Ah!” She was gone.

“Let go,” he urged, his mouth crashing onto hers. “I want to see you.”

A cry tore from her throat as pleasure detonated through her, white-hot and relentless. Her back arched off the bench, her thighs clamped around his wrist as waves of ecstasy rolled through her in dizzying succession.

Stephen swallowed her moans, his kiss turning filthy, his tongue licking into her mouth as if he could taste the very moment she came undone. His fingers never stopped circling, thrusting shallowly, wringing every last bit of pleasure from her until she was gasping, oversensitive, trembling.

“Very good,” he murmured against her lips, his voice thick with satisfaction.

His voice sent another pulse of heat through her, even as the aftershocks still rippled through her limbs. Her hands, tangled in his hair, dragged him closer, her nails scoring his scalp as she clung to him, dazed and desperate. Stephen’s breathing was ragged as he watched her with a look of raw hunger. His fingers, still slick with her, traced idle, possessive patterns along her inner thigh.

For a long moment, they stayed like that, their foreheads pressed together, their breaths mingling. Then, Stephen withdrew his hand, bringing his glistening fingers to his mouth with a dark smirk.

“So sweet.”

Victoria blushed. But she was not ashamed. If anything, she wanted more, her body vibrating with want, with need. If she could, she would never leave this greenhouse. She would stay in here with him forever. Doing this, doing more.

He tucked a stray strand behind her ear, the look in his eyes a mix of surprise and desolation. She saw the war raging inside him, the same war that—she realized—had raged between them since the beginning.

“We need to go back,” he said.

No, we don’t .

“Wait here, I will bring you an overcoat.” He got up

“No, it’s…” Victoria was at a loss for words.

“It’s cold outside,” he said in a tone that was colder than the night air.

She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from screaming at the whiplash of emotions. He let one side win—the same he always let win. He looked down at her, fixing her with a hot look.

“I’d hate for you to get sick,” he added softly and then left her there.

The moment he left, Victoria was alone in the greenhouse.

Her first thought was that she had miscalculated the number of rooms in the house. She had forgotten to count the greenhouse. She chuckled in the silence. And how would she name this one? If the carriage incident was ‘ruin,’ then what was this? Greenhouse ‘devastation?’ The smile withered on her lips.

She didn’t want to name it. She didn’t want to file it away. She didn’t want the night to end and morning to come. Didn’t want to go down for breakfast and pretend, again, that nothing had happened.

She leaned back and looked up at the moon through the glass ceiling. Her skin still hummed where he had touched her. The warmth of his body slowly faded, leaving only the humid embrace of the greenhouse. She lamented the loss. Not only of his body so close to hers—though she missed the way he made her feel—but of something more.

The way he listened to her, the way he gave her time to open up. He had listened when she spoke of her fears, and understood her in a way no one else ever had. He had seen her , not just the rebellious bluestocking odd-one-out, not just his sister’s best stubborn friend. And she had seen him, too. The man beneath the title, the propriety.

Yes, they had shared a moment so hot, so intimate. He was so close, touched her most intimate parts, tasted her whole. He controlled her body in a way that made her tremble still. But what they had shared before that was deeper and harder to discard. Their bodies followed instinct. Their minds followed a different path that led them to each other. Her heart…

The realization struck her like lightning, sudden and undeniable.

I love him .

A hysterical laugh bubbled up her throat. Of course, she would fall in love with the most impossible man in England. The one who had just given her pleasure so intense it had shattered her, then walked away because he thought it was the proper thing to do. The one who matched her wit for wit. The one who was not intimidated by her, and instead allowed her to be herself in his own infuriating way.

Why does it have to be this way?

She was fighting to grasp at the revelation, rationalize it, deny it, shake it away when the door cracked again. First, Euclid ran to her and rested his head on her lap. Of all the things she needed to grip onto reality, this mutt was the best one. It was as if Stephen knew what she needed before she did.

“He insisted on following me,” Stephen explained. “And I thought it might make a good excuse if anyone saw us.”

He drew close, but she focused on Euclid’s stupidly happy face, holding back her tears. He wrapped a warm cardigan around her shoulders. His. She knew from the smell immediately.

“We can always claim that he ran away and got lost, and we were looking for him.”

She chuckled cruelly.

He sat across from her, watching her. She didn’t have to look up to feel his gaze drilling into her.

“Victoria?” His voice was laced with concern, a real one. “Tell me you are fine. Did I…?”

Victoria shook her head. He did nothing wrong and did all of it wrongly. She was the fool to allow this to happen, to fall for him, to feel more than she should for him.

“Victoria?”

She swallowed.

“It’s that I just realized,” she lied, “that when I leave, I’ll have to leave Euclid behind.”

Victoria lifted her eyes to his. The air cracked between them. It always will, no matter what happened. This inevitable truth was something that she would have to live with for the rest of her life.

His eyes shuttered, heavy with something that resembled sadness more than anything else. He opened his mouth to say something but then shook his head.

“Let’s go back, Victoria. It’s late.”

Yes, it is.