Page 8 of Dukes All Night Long

S he wasn’t certain what she had expected from his words—perhaps that he would ease away from her, take his time as he had done before.

But patience was not what she wanted. She didn’t want careful reverence or controlled restraint.

She wanted to feel his need—wild, desperate, consuming. She wanted him undone.

And so, she met his gaze, her voice low, thick with emotion. “Then don’t be patient,” she whispered. “Be reckless. Be hungry for me.”

For a moment, he was utterly still. Then she saw it—something in his expression shifted, deepened. The soft tenderness of his regard turned sharper, hungrier, darker. The air between them thickened with unspoken need. And then he kissed her. No. He consumed her.

This time, there was nothing gentle about it.

His mouth claimed hers with a feverish intensity that left her breathless, and she gave herself over to it, to him, with every fiber of her being.

Her hands roamed beneath the linen of his shirt, desperate to feel the heat of his skin, the flex of taut muscle beneath her palms. Every point of contact between them felt like a match to dry tinder.

She felt the precise moment he lost control.

His breathing grew ragged; his hands no longer hesitated.

One slid up the back of her thigh, bunching the delicate linen of her nightdress until it lay forgotten somewhere about her hips.

The other hand cupped her breast through the near-transparent fabric, and she gasped against his mouth as his thumb passed over the aching peak.

“Colin…” Her voice broke, more plea than protest.

He tore his mouth from hers, only to trail kisses along her throat, lower still, until his mouth replaced his hand. The sudden heat of him—his lips, his tongue—wrung a cry from her that she could not suppress. It echoed in that dimly lit chamber, a testament to the power of their need.

She had forgotten this—how completely he could unmake her with nothing more than his touch, his mouth. But her body remembered. It remembered everything.

Every stroke, every caress, every whispered word sent her spiraling further from herself. His hands moved lower, finding her slick with need, and she arched into his touch with a wantonness that would have shamed her, had she the presence of mind to feel it.

But there was no shame. Only this feverish ache inside her, building and building until she thought she might shatter from the pressure of it.

When his fingers moved with slow, deliberate intent, when his mouth returned to hers to swallow her cries, it was too much.

She broke apart, trembling and breathless, crying out his name like a prayer torn from her soul. Her heart thundered against her ribs. Her limbs felt boneless. And yet, still, she reached for him.

“I need you,” she murmured, her voice barely a whisper against his throat. “Please.”

“I want to make you mine, Verity. In every way that I can,” he whispered almost brokenly.

She opened her eyes for just a moment, long enough for their gazes to lock. “Then do it.”

*

Her words— Then do it —were his undoing.

He had never heard anything more erotic in his life.

Not simply because of what she said, but because of how she said it—low, breathless, full of aching want.

She was not shy, not uncertain. Despite her relatively limited experience, she was bold in her passion.

Far more so than he had expected. Desperate for him, as he was for her.

And it shattered something inside him.

With a groan torn straight from his chest, he fitted himself between her thighs, guiding the head of his cock through the heat of her slick folds.

She was already trembling, still swollen from the peak he’d given her moments before, and when he pressed the thick crest against her entrance, her hands clenched around his biceps.

“Please, Colin…”

That single word, repeated on a sigh of need, had him clenching his jaw so tightly it ached. He did not want to rush it—had told her as much. But God help him, he could not hold back another second.

He sank into her with one long, slow thrust.

She was hot and tight, her body yielding inch by inch, the sensation so exquisite he nearly lost himself before he was fully sheathed. He watched her face as he entered her—watched her eyes widen, her lips part in a soundless gasp, her back arch as she pulled him deeper.

“Verity…” he groaned, barely more than a whisper. “You feel like heaven.”

She clutched at him, her legs winding around his hips to pull him even closer, as if she could not bear a single inch between them. And neither could he.

Once fully seated, he stilled, trembling with the effort it took not to rush headlong to that sweet, sweet end. She was so tight. So achingly perfect. He needed just a moment to commit it all to memory, to lock every detail into his mind so that he’d never forget the beauty of that moment.

But then she shifted beneath him, a slow grind of her hips, and all thought was obliterated.

He began to move, slow at first—deep, controlled strokes that left them both gasping.

She met him thrust for thrust, her hands roaming over his back, her lips brushing against his shoulder, his throat, wherever she could reach.

Her nails raked down his spine when he angled his hips just so and drove deeper, wringing a cry from her throat that went straight to his core.

“You’re mine,” he rasped, each word punctuated by a thrust. “You’ve always been mine.”

“Yes,” she whispered. “And you’re mine.”

Her words undid him. He pressed her wrists to the bed above her head, interlacing their fingers, and drove into her harder, faster. Her cries grew louder, wilder, her head tossing back and forth against the pillows, her body writhing beneath his with abandon.

He kissed her—hard, possessive—as he moved within her, their bodies slick with sweat, the sounds of their coupling loud in the quiet chamber. Her body clung to him, dragged him deeper with every thrust, until she was trembling again.

“I can’t—” she gasped.

“Yes, you can,” he growled, never letting up. “Give it to me, Verity. Let me feel your pleasure.”

Her body tightened around him in an instant, a cry breaking from her lips that was almost a sob.

She shattered beneath him, her pleasure rippling through her with such force that it pulled him under with her.

With a hoarse shout, he followed, burying himself deep and spilling into her in long, shaking pulses.

He collapsed against her, careful not to crush her, pressing his forehead to hers as they both struggled to breathe.

Her hands stroked his back, gentle now, soothing. And he knew, without question, that nothing would ever part them again.

Not time. Not memory. Not even death. If he had his way, they would be bound through eternity—body, heart, and soul.

And their night, their life together, had only just begun.