Page 35 of Duke with a Lie (Wicked Dukes Society #4)

“Just a few nights more,” he said to her, lowering his head and taking her lips with his.

He kissed her slowly, deliberately.

He kissed her even knowing that he was lying.

Because when dawn painted the sky tomorrow morning, he would be gone, and his goddess would be better off without him.

Aubrey carried her to the bed.

They were both naked, for the towels from their bath had fallen away.

Her hair was dripping. She didn’t care. His lips were on hers as he gently laid her on the bedclothes.

She couldn’t get enough of him, coasting her hands over every part of his body, committing him to memory.

The protrusion of his clavicle, the blades of his shoulders, the sinew of his upper arms, the rigid slab of his abdomen, the sculpted muscles of his chest. She wanted to know him in her fingertips and her heart, to never forget what these charmed nights of passion in the cottage had been like.

Because she couldn’t quite shake the fear that these stolen moments would be all they could ever have. His words this evening had been laden with caution. He was warning her away from him.

It hadn’t worked, of course.

Like Eos, she would do anything for the man she loved.

She would face her brother’s wrath. She would battle the demons of Aubrey’s past that he kept locked away from her.

She would end her understanding with the Earl of Carnis when she returned to London.

When she was no longer bound to another, then, surely then, Aubrey would be free to ask her to be his wife.

Nothing could come between them.

Aubrey made love to her with a quiet fervor that was new, raining kisses on her breasts, sucking her nipples until she begged for him to take her. She was awash in sensation, so very alive for the first time, renewed in her lover’s lips and tongue and clever hands.

He circled her wrists with a tender grasp, bringing her arms above her and pinning them to the bed as he kissed her deeply, giving her his tongue.

She arched into him, feeling utterly at his mercy and loving every second of it.

The movement arched her back and forced her breasts into his chest as he fed her wild kisses that went on and on until she was breathless and dazed as he raised his head.

His emerald gaze glittered down at her. “You are more beautiful than any goddess could ever hope to be.”

“I am only all too mortal,” she said, smiling up at him. “For you, I would gladly be a grasshopper.”

He kissed her again. “You are too good for me. Too pure. Too lovely. Too much heart. I want to keep you here forever so that no other man can ever have you.”

She knew the feeling. She was intensely jealous of all the women who had known him before her.

Who had shared intimacies with him like bathing and sleeping, who had kissed him and listened to him breathe in the night.

Not because she feared he had given a part of himself to those women, but because it was less time she’d had with him.

He gazed down at her seriously. “There is something I want to do, and if you don’t wish it, you have only to say the word.”

“Yes.” She lifted her head and kissed him. “I want to do anything with you, everything with you. Show me.”

He kissed her deeply, then rolled to the side, releasing her. She admired the ripple of strength in his back as he reached to the floor, retrieving something from the Axminster. It was her embroidered stockings, she realized as he held them up for her inspection.

“I want to tie your wrists to the bed,” he said.

And all the wicked rumors she had heard about him descended upon her. But they didn’t frighten her. They filled her with desire.

“Would it please you to do so?”

“Immensely, but only if it pleases you. Some find desire can be intensified by restraints, by the knowledge that you are helpless to do anything but receive the pleasure your lover wants to give you.”

Her nipples tightened to hard points, and the liquid heat between her thighs was enough to tell Rhiannon that she wanted to try this with him. Not just for Aubrey, but for herself. She wanted to embrace every part of herself with him.

Slowly, Rhiannon extended her arms above her head, just as he had placed them with his grip a few minutes before. “Do it.”

His gaze darkened. “You are sure?”

“Tie me to the bed,” she told him. “And then make me yours.”

He swallowed, his Adam’s apple dipping almost violently. “God, minx. You are perfect in every way. Never let anyone tell you otherwise.”

She had no intention of doing so.

“I won’t.”

He moved quickly, his touch gentle as he maneuvered each hand and secured her wrists to the bedposts. The knots held, but the stockings weren’t tight. She could freely move.

“Say the word, and I’ll untie you,” he murmured, returning to brush kisses over her breasts.

She would have answered him, but he cupped her breast in a possessive hold and sucked hard on the peak, making her clitoris throb. “Oh.”

Somehow, being at his mercy only heightened the pleasure. She was his to be used, to be pleased, and that knowledge was heady.

He moved to her other breast, sucking and nipping gently with his teeth until she writhed beneath him, seeking more.

“Impatient minx,” he chided gently, running his tongue around her nipple.

“Please, Aubrey.” Her body bowed from the bed, moving toward his knowing mouth beseechingly.

He gave her everything she wanted, lightly strumming over her pearl as he tormented her sensitive breasts until she was on the verge of spending.

But then he removed his touch and kissed a path down her stomach, not stopping until he was between her thighs.

He sipped at her sex as if she were fine champagne.

Her hips pushed off the mattress, her feet flat on the counterpane, toes curling into the soft nest of bedding.

She was aflame.

His hands coaxed her thighs wider, and then his shoulders wedged into the gap he’d created.

He used his mouth and tongue on her until she was slick and desperate, until her breathing was jagged and rushed, until her heart was pounding and perspiration slid down her spine.

By the time he worked a finger into her channel, she was all but ready to come, and yet still, he kept her on the edge.

He danced light touches over her, sucked hard and then gentled, bit and then licked, penetrated and then withdrew.

It became a game, and Rhiannon was the helpless pawn, spread beneath him for his wicked delectation.

And oh, how he feasted. Until she was writhing and moaning, half mindless from the pleasure.

Only when she was desperate with the need for release did he give her what she wanted, positioning her legs against his chest before sinking deep inside her with one smooth thrust.

For a moment, she saw stars edging her vision.

The intensity of the bliss shooting through her was like fireworks across the canvas of an inky midnight sky, lighting her up.

Explosive. She was filled with him, the angle of his cock inside her divine madness as he began a rhythm that took her swiftly over the edge.

She came on a keening cry she couldn’t hold back, the force of her climax taking her by surprise. Murmuring sweet endearments, he rode her harder, faster, the intensity of his thrusts telling her he was also close just before he withdrew, coming all over her belly in hot white jets of seed.

In the aftermath, he untied her wrists and aligned his body with hers, nestling alongside her in the rumpled bedding.

She was overwhelmed with sensation and emotion, her heart pounding, his spend cooling on her skin.

He retrieved a handkerchief and gently mopped up the mess he had made before discarding it.

With the glow of the lamp behind him, he looked golden and beautiful, and she had never been more moved in all her life. She reached for him, cupping his cheek.

“I love you,” she said before she even realized it.

The words had slipped from her of their own volition, a confession she’d never intended to make.

Aubrey stiffened at her side but said nothing, and she wished she could retract them. That she could tear them out of the air, expunge them from his mind. That she could unsay them. But she couldn’t. It was too late.

Then he leaned over her and kissed her softly on the lips. “Go to sleep, minx.”

That was all he said, nothing more. He settled the bedclothes over them both, cocooning them in warmth, and then he pulled her against him.

Disappointment sliced into her heart, but she hastily banished it. What had she expected? That a hardened rake like the Duke of Richford would confess his undying devotion to her?

Aubrey had repeatedly warned her what he was. A rake to the marrow, heartless. She knew it, and she loved him anyway.

Loved him enough for the both of them.

She would just have to keep those forbidden words tucked away inside her heart from this moment forward.

With what remaining time they had.

Telling herself this, she fell asleep wrapped in his arms.

But when she woke in the morning, it was to the sunlight streaming in the windows, the cottage quiet and still, nary a hint left behind to suggest the past few days had been anything more than a figment of her imagination.

Not a handkerchief, nor a necktie. Not even a button from his shirt.

Nothing but the faint scent of him on his pillow and a bathtub filled with water that was as cold as her heart.

Aubrey was gone.