Page 36 of Duke of Wickedness (Regency Gods #4)

It wasn’t a smooth retreat from the party; just as when they had entered, their return to the stairs was peppered with people who offered an encouraging word, a sly comment, or an invitation to David, Ariadne, or both.

She didn’t tug at David’s arm to rush through these interactions. This was partially because she hoped that they could slip away relatively unnoticed—at least as far as was possible. Part of it was because everyone was being lovely, even when they were being risqué and suggestive.

But much of it was because with each pause, with each moment that stood between her and getting the thing she wanted so very badly, she felt a tight, delicious anticipation growing inside her.

When they finally made their way to the staircase, she was almost disappointed that the appealing wait would be at its end.

Almost. But certainly not entirely.

They had only made it around the first curve of the staircase—the first bend that took them out of sight of most of the partygoers below—when David pressed her against a wall and took her mouth with his.

“I am a selfish man, little bird,” he said gaspingly between kisses. “I wanted to give you everything you wanted tonight. I wanted you to have it all. But I am so bloody desperately pleased that I have you all to myself.”

She smiled into his mouth, her hand reaching back to take off his mask. She was ready to see him , the part only she got to see, at least on nights like this, and not the face he showed everyone else.

“David,” she crooned, just for the pleasure of saying his name. “I do have everything I want.” She tugged gently at his hair, pulling him far back enough that he could look at her. “Or I will just as soon as you show me everything you promised.”

His laugh felt a little desperate and relieved.

“Never let it be said that I go back on my promises, my darling,” he said.

Her pulse raced at the endearment—but then, he always was able to make her heart beat faster.

He led her down the hall, and she noted that they passed his study, as well as the room where she’d gotten dressed earlier.

Their progress was slow; David tugged her along, but he also paused to kiss her soundly every few feet, and by the time they made it to a closed door at the end of the hallway, Ariadne’s senses were dazzled, and she was burning with desire.

He opened the door and led them through.

She knew at once that these were his private chambers.

At first, she couldn’t precisely place how she knew it.

Then it clicked in her mind: the rooms carried, in their very air, the same warm scent of him, the soap he used in his bath lingering underneath the light, pleasant cologne that he habitually wore.

And maybe more than that, it was the energy of the place, the atmosphere; there was a sense of David in this place.

She felt the intimacy of the choice, and it meant so much that she couldn’t say anything about it without revealing too much.

“My love,” he said, and thank God that it was dark in here, Ariadne thought, or else she really would reveal something she ought to keep hidden, “I don’t know that I can wait very long.”

“Don’t wait,” she said. She was beginning to fear that this heat and wanting and desire inside her was building to be too much, that if she didn’t turn it into physical pleasure soon, it would ossify and surround her heart in an unyielding force that would break her, if she let it.

And David—her David, for tonight at least—didn’t leave her wanting. He cupped her cheeks with his hands and kissed her and kissed her and kissed her .

Distantly, Ariadne realized that they were moving, their feet taking them deeper into the room, David moving with the kind of practice that came from being intimately familiar with a space.

He didn’t need to look to step around the armchair in front of the fireplace, nor to move through the door that led them into the bedchamber proper.

And if he didn’t need to look, then neither did she, because she trusted him implicitly.

When he turned her and guided her to sit down on the heavily embroidered counterpane, she realized that he hadn’t touched her anywhere but her cheeks and her lips for the whole journey across the space.

She made to recline—she felt too boneless to remain upright much longer—but he stayed her with a hand to her shoulder.

“Wait,” he murmured, leaving her in place as he crossed around the end of the bed and to the other side. He climbed up behind her, pausing only to kick off his shoes, then knelt at her back, tracing a gentle touch up her neck before sinking his fingers into her hair.

“It was excruciating,” he admitted as his deft fingers found a hairpin and plucked it free, then another, “wrapping you up in this gown and not knowing if I would get to unwrap you myself.”

Plink . The hairpins were going into a little pile, enough now to make a minuscule sound as David dropped the next one.

With each freed lock of hair, he rubbed gently at her scalp, releasing the pressure from holding up her heavy coiffure all evening.

She was well accustomed to that kind of weight, and she scarcely noticed it most of the time, but the way he caressed her made her feel even more limp and boneless than she’d already felt.

He trailed reverent fingers down each long, golden curl, letting them lie, one by one, over her shoulder.

“Now that I have the opportunity,” he said, keeping up the sensuous, maddening, glorious pattern, “I am going to enjoy every moment of it.” He paused, just long enough to press a kiss behind her ear, and then his hands went back to her hair. Plink , massage, smooth. Plink , massage, smooth.

Ariadne let out a whimpering little moan. Who would have ever thought that it could feel so good to have her hair touched?

“I,” he went on, pulling loose the last of the pins now, running his fingers through her unbound hair, then digging his thumbs into the base of her skull in a way that made her groan even louder, “am going to worship you.”

The dark promise in the word made her breath stutter.

“I thought—I thought that was what we did—the last time,” she groaned as he moved the massage down the column of her spine, pressing between her shoulder blades before beginning to attend to the many ties that made up the bodice of this gown.

If she’d thought the slender, wrapping fabric a tease as it was going on, it was nothing compared to now, nothing compared to the way each cool breath of air made her gasp as it touched a new slice of overheated skin.

“Oh, sweet girl,” he crooned, kissing the top knob of her spine. “That was only the beginning. Tonight, I will show you more. Tonight, I will show you everything . All the pleasure you can handle—and then a bit more, just as my reward.”

Oh my , Ariadne thought.

Except maybe she said it out loud, because she heard David chuckle as he reached around her, the last of the ties undone, leaving the dress slithering off from around her shoulders and baring her to her waist, save for the French-laced chemise.

He pressed a kiss to her lips from the side, and the position should have been awkward or strange, but instead, it was wonderful.

“Indeed, my sweet little bird,” he said. “I want to see you completely undone.”

“Yes,” she breathed. “I want that.”

If the previous times had been only partial undoing, she couldn’t imagine what she might feel like if he went even further about it.

With another laugh, this one full of promise and intrigue, he guided her gently back against the counterpane, carefully drawing her hair to the side so that she didn’t catch it beneath her.

He took a moment to play with her hair, twisting it into a long rope, then winding that rope around his hands, pulling it just enough so that she could feel it go taut, but not so much that it hurt her, not even the slightest bit.

“If you only knew the kinds of thoughts I have about your hair,” he said, twisting and untwisting the strands. “I’ve had a thousand filthy fantasies about draping it over your breasts and painting you clothed in nothing else, about holding it to guide you as you suck me.”

Ariadne felt her throat bob hard as she swallowed.

“Do you…paint?” she asked, because she was not at all prepared to ask about that other thing he had mentioned.

He laughed, dropped the rope of hair, and kissed her right on the nose.

“I do not, but hush,” he chided. “Don’t bring your practicalities into my carnal fantasies, all right?”

“Oh, if you insist,” she said, striving for airiness but coming out sounding nothing less than desperate. “Are you going to make any of those fantasies a reality any time soon?”

She was going to end up actually suffocated by her stays if he didn’t do something .

They weren’t even laced particularly tightly, as she’d done them up herself, but that didn’t much matter.

Her breaths were coming heavily, and every brush of fabric against her skin, no matter how light or fine, felt like an intolerable offense.

“So many of them,” he vowed.

He threw one knee over her so that he was hovering above her, one hand braced next to her shoulder as he bent down to kiss her mouth, her cheeks, her chin.

He spent an inordinate amount of time kissing along the edge of her chemise, but not going further, until arousal had made Ariadne’s nipples into such tight buds that she was confident that she could rip right through the fragile lace that covered them.

David put his free hand to good use, reaching down between them and tugging at the lacing on her stays until the knot came free, then working his way back up toward where he was pressing kisses, pulling the corset aside as he went.

She had the hysterical thought that there was some good in having a notorious rake as her first lover, if he could attend to disrobing her without stopping those maddening, featherlight kisses. She had the wisdom not to say it--just barely.