Page 65 of Dukes All Night Long

K ate watched from the shadows of the garden as Walter slipped from the stables.

He was home from school and had brought with him the pug-nosed Alfred Purey, Lord Foley, and Kate had done everything in her power to avoid the boys.

Not only were they loud and meddlesome, she did not care for the way her brother behaved when in the presence of his school friends.

Walter had always been prone to tantrums and outbursts, but having an audience made him near intolerable for a younger sister.

She didn’t know what drew her to the stables—something about the way her brother and his friend crowed and cackled as they walked away—but she ignored her father’s warnings of enormous horses and rough grooms and did just that.

She caught soft sniffles incongruous with the rest of the equine snuffles and whickers.

Eventually, she located a dirty heap in the far corner of the hayloft.

She nearly screeched when the heap moved, lifting its head to reveal a boy about her brother’s age with a bloodied nose and torn shirt.

He glared at her with deep, dark eyes that dared her to come closer.

She knew a new stablemaster had been hired and he’d brought with him his ten-year-old son.

He appeared to be Walter’s age and two years her elder, so Kate reasoned that this must have been that boy.

“Hello,” she greeted him gently.

He said nothing.

“Let me find some rags for your nose.” She ducked away before he could protest and returned to clean him up.

That was the first of many times she tended to Preston Bailey’s injuries in the wake of her brother’s cruelties.

“You disappeared fifteen years ago,” Kate sobbed, nearly drowning in the deluge of memories as she held his face between her hands.

How could she not have seen it before? He’d grown into a man, to be sure, but there were echoes of the boy she’d once known.

The shape of the nose was similar, the dark hair and slightly thick brows; the most telling, however, were his eyes.

Those dark pools had been so haunted, so lost when she’d known him.

Now, they were hard like chips of obsidian.

If she searched, she could see the same boy in there. Still lost. Still unsure.

He rolled off of her and sat up. “My father needed to find a new position.”

“Because of what happened.” There was no question in there.

Kate’s mind fell back to the last time she’d seen Preston Bailey as she knew him, five years after their first meeting. Walter and his friends were in Town from school. They’d spent the evening riling each other up, over-imbibing in cheap drinks, and returned home with chaos on their minds.

Preston had been in the mews, their perfect target.

“My father demanded that we flee even though it meant he’d have no recommendation to offer a potential new employer. He was worried I’d be arrested and hanged for assaulting the son of an earl.”

“But you were not the aggressor.” He never had been…of that much, Kate was certain.

“Do you think that would have mattered to any magistrate? To your father?”

It pained her, but Kate knew in her heart of hearts that what he said was true.

Her father was willing to turn a blind eye toward his son’s despicable behavior, but he’d never have tolerated a servant fighting back—especially not when Walter was on the losing end of the altercation.

The old earl would have done all he could to spin the situation to make Preston the villain, and have him punished beyond the letter of the law.

It would not have mattered how much abuse Preston had suffered throughout the years, he would be damned for the one and only time he had stuck up for himself.

His thumb tilted her chin back up so she met his eyes. Kate knew he could read the truth there. “So you see, we had to leave as quickly as possible. You have no idea how many times I’ve wished I’d left you a note thanking you for your kindness.”

Kate pulled her lower lip between her teeth and nodded. “You had no choice.”

He pressed his forehead to hers and inhaled deeply. “I never would have left you willingly. Even if I could never have you, I wanted to be near.”

“Preston…” she breathed.

His forehead rocked against hers when he shook his head. “Not Preston. I shed that name and that persona long, long ago. I am Duke. Only Duke.”

“If it is what you wish, then I will address you as Duke…but know that I will never erase Preston from my heart. The boy who fed stable cats, spoke softly to the horses, and had the most beautiful smile I’d ever seen.”

He stood and scrubbed his face as he strode toward his desk to put some space between them.

“You always did see the best in people,” Duke ground out. “Kind to the beasts others would have dismissed.”

“You were never someone I could have dismissed.”

Kate rose to stand at the window, holding herself tightly as she watched the rivulets of rain slash across the leaded glass panes and struggled to come to terms with the revelation of Duke’s true identity.

The night outside was dark and she could see only her warped reflection cast in orange firelight.

In the street far below, a carriage splashed and rumbled across the cobblestones.

The world suddenly felt so small. Everything outside of the space she and Duke shared ceased to exist. Her brother was forgotten. She would suffer no negative consequences from his betrayal. There was no tomorrow.

She caught a shifting of light reflected in the glass as Duke raked a hand through his dark hair.

“You could have refused him,” Kate said softly, addressing the reflection rather than the man. Somehow, that was easier. “My brother…you could have turned him away…rejected his offer to use me as collateral.”

“I could have,” Duke said, low and quiet, and much closer than he had been before.

“But you did not.”

“No,” he rasped. “I’d watched him for too long.”

Kate turned to face him; his striking features were devastating in the firelight.

“And you have been watching me, as well—for more than just tonight.” His silence was telling.

An unexpected ripple of excitement danced the length of her spine at the realization that she may not have seen him, but he’d always been there.

He’d never stopped caring about her. “You’ve measured me, analyzed me as if I am one of your games of chance. ”

“All of life is a game,” Duke said, leaning in. “And I have learned to play only games I intend to win.”

“Am I to be the prize in this game?” she asked more than a little breathlessly.

“A man would be a fool to think he owned you.” His hand cupped the side of her face; his calloused thumb brushed her cheekbone. He swallowed hard as his eyes focused on her mouth.

“But, if I gave myself to him…?”

“Then it is you who would own him . All of him.”

Duke was drawn in by the fluttering of Kate’s eyes, the quickening of her breath escaping from her parted lips.

He pressed his mouth to hers once more, igniting a slow, passionate descent into pleasure.

At first, he did not register when she began tugging at the knot of his cravat and working the coat from his shoulders.

“What are you doing?” he murmured, pulse pounding in his ears.

“Taking charge of my life.”

“But—”

“I have no reputation worth guarding any longer.” She pulled back and interrupted him. “And there is no man I have ever desired more in body and soul. Accept what I am offering you because I do it with my eyes wide open.”

With a groan of surrender, Duke shucked his clothing and immediately set about assisting Kate with hers.

Though his hands trembled, he didn’t think there had ever been a woman so quickly bared as she was.

And she was utterly glorious. Kate possessed elegant curves and high, small breasts topped with ripe cherry nipples, everything he’d dreamt of and more.

They took turns exploring one another, exchanging reverent touches and tender kisses of appreciation.

When their patience wore thin, Duke guided her back to the chaise and directed her to straddle his hips.

He wanted her to take the lead, to show him how she liked to touch herself.

She was shy at first, but, following his words of praise, she did as he directed, her fingers working in tight circles over the slick petals of her sex.

Duke was utterly consumed by the sight. Never had his imagination come close to the beauty of the real thing.

When her body began to tremble and he knew her orgasm was near, he positioned his cock at her entrance and ran the thick, blunt head through her nectar.

Immediately, she began to rock over him, enjoying the pressure and the new sensations until his tip slipped inside.

Slowly, testingly, she sank down an inch.

“That’s it,” Duke groaned, his eyes unblinking as he watched her body move over his. “Use me. Take your pleasure.”

Kate planted her hands in the center of his hard chest and used them for leverage to roll her pelvis over his.

She moved slowly, allowing her body to adjust to the deep penetration of his thick staff.

The noises she made told him the stretch and burn were just the right mixture of pain and pleasure.

Bracing her knees, she rose until only his head remained inside.

She focused on the play of emotions on his face, the utter rapture in his eyes as they dilated with need.

It emboldened her to sink back down onto him with exquisite slowness until he trembled with restraint.

“Kate,” he groaned, sounding as if he were suffering the worst sort of torture. His hips gave a little buck and collided with the pearl at the crux of her sex.

“Oh!” she gasped.

“Again.”

Once more, Kate rose up and sank back down on his length. Each time she did so, he lifted his hips in such a way that he unleashed a shock of pleasure that made her toes curl.

They worked together to discover their rhythm, his body filling hers again and again, until Duke could take it no more. He flipped their positions, pressing her thighs open wide and bracing a foot on the floor for leverage.

“D’you like that?” he demanded, his cultured accent slipping into his less refined native inflection of London’s lower classes.

“Yes!” she cried and snaked a hand between them to tease her body once again as he continued his relentless onslaught.

Untried as she was, she still welcomed the rough way he claimed her, each of her delighted whimpers driving Duke’s need higher.

Their coupling was the graceless mess of two people coming together for the first time, both overcome by the depth of their passion.

It wasn’t but another minute until her body began to quake and she threw herself over the precipice of her climax, keening, trembling, throbbing in ecstasy.

“Fuck!” he slammed into her body, drawing out the shocks of her orgasm until her voice went hoarse.

He pinned her with his considerable weight, held her at his mercy and used her for his pleasure as she’d used him.

His pelvis ground against her mound with every thrust, rhythmically rubbing the pearl at the apex of her sex.

“So good,” he growled and moaned when her fingernails bit into the flexing flesh of his shoulders.

“So damned good.” She raked her nails down the hard plane of his back, clutching at the luscious mounds of his buttocks and holding him deep until he finally handed control over to his orgasm.

It ripped through him with violent force, pulling his muscles so tightly he feared they might shatter his bones; it made his mind go blank and wiped his vision.

His body was no longer his own as his hips bucked uncontrollably and he filled Kate to the hilt.

She took all of it—all of him—holding him with her hands, her legs, her core.

She welcomed him. She accepted him. As he filled her with his seed, he lost control of his senses.

His muscles were still quaking with the force of his climax and his thick member was still pulsing between her legs when he rolled to the side and carried her with him.

They lay intertwined in the most intimate of ways as he peppered her face with kisses and whispered, “I love you, Kitten. I have loved you ceaselessly for years. Ever since you took a chance on the half-feral boy in the stables, ignored his protests and insults, and cleaned his wounds… That lad laid his heart at your feet and pledged silent fealty to you…and never stopped. You gave me hope.” She kissed him tenderly and her lips tasted of salt from tears.

“If you allow me, I will care for you for the rest of my days and you will never be at Lufton’s mercy again. ”