Page 105 of How to Love a Duke in Ten Days

And so he could not have her. For the sake of his future sanity. For his legacy. For all that was holy. He. Could. Not—

Someone knocked on his wife’s door to the hall.

Forsythe?

Unable to stop himself, he tilted his ear to the door.

“I’m told you’ve retired for the night, Your Grace,” Constance, her lady’s maid, called into the room. “Would you like me to dress you for bed?”

“No, thank you. I’ve done it myself and am brushing out my hair. I’ll bid you good night now.”

“Pleasant dreams, Your Grace.”

“You too, Constance.”

A soft humming reached him through the door, lilting, preoccupied, and a bit melancholy.

God’s blood, what her voice did to him.

Were he not in such a state, he would have entered her rooms and teased her for spoiling the servants. He’d watch her brush her hair, perhaps relieving her of the implement and doing it himself. How intimate it would be, to run his hands over the crackling strands until they gleamed the color of dark, ripe cherries. He’d sweep the hair over one shoulder and kiss her neck, the downy hollow behind her ear, the places he knew flared chill bumps over her entire body. The collar of her prim nightgown would give as he patiently unbuttoned it, sliding down the creamy silk of her shoulder until he could reach inside to palm her heavy breast.

Her red hair would tangle with his fingers as he toyed with her nipple, simultaneously nibbling at her ear.

Falt Ruadh.Someday that hair would curtain his hips.

He bit his lip hard enough to bleed.

Not tonight.

Eight days.Seven tomorrow. Devil take him, he might die before then. Die of blood loss to his head.

He drew his hand down his ruined face, pausing when a distinctive scent roused his senses and infused his veins with raw fire.

There. On his fingers, the faint essence of her sex still lingered. The proof of her pleasure. Her desire. Her capitulation to his need.

Tonight in the dark, a part of himhadentered her, if only for the briefest of blissful moments… and she’d drenched him with her sweetest release.

At once, his cock was no longer in his trousers. He dipped the finger into his mouth, then another, searching for the trace of her flavor. Leaving moisture on his fingers, he brought them down to his pulsing sex, spreading what he could over the steely length of him.

He wanted this to be her hand. Soft and small where his was large and rough.

Or her mouth. Hot and wet and welcoming.

Oh, the things he could do to that mouth.

Safe on the other side of the door, his wife began to hum a different tune. Something husky and foreign. Persian maybe. The vibrations of her voice traveled through his blood until he could feel his body tremble with an answering rhythm.

Unbidden, his hips curled forward, his hand drew over the blunt crown and down the length of his shaft.

He’d wanted to do this while his head was buried between her trembling thighs. To take himself in hand while he reveled in the scent and taste and heat of her.

Remembering what he’d saved from the veranda, he reached into the crease of his jacket beneath his arm and pulled out her undergarment. White linen bedecked in tiny pink and green bows.

He brought it to his nose, drew in a breath, and found the palest hint of her distinct female musk.

God.His mouth flooded at the memory of the taste of her. Had there ever been a woman so sweet? Had there ever been a sex so perfectly formed?

He ached to strip her bare in the afternoon. To throw open the draperies and spread her wide, letting the sun glisten between her parted thighs, illuminating each and every soft, secret, hidden part of her.