Page 136 of How to Love a Duke in Ten Days

“I was—you were—inside of me.”

His breath stopped. His heart stuttered, stalled, and then started again, pounding against the cage of his ribs. And still, he answered her with complete honesty. “Yes.”

She stepped closer. “I was on top of you?”

He held up his hand. “Don’t.”

Her composure flickered, unveiling a hurt.

“Alexandra,” he rushed around a hoarse throat. “If you come any closer—” Bloody hell, that sounded like a threat.“I mean… You don’t have to do this. I told you I wouldn’t touch you.”

“I know.” She stopped right in front of him, her breasts inches from his mouth. Her knees almost touching his. It was torment. Torture. It was pure, spike-riddled hell. But he kept his word, bunching his fists in the sheets.

“I want you, Piers.”

His mouth watered, his muscles gathered, and his cock gave an insistent jerk against his thigh.

A wayward strand of hair fluttered over her face, and he yearned to tuck it away, to stroke the downy softness of her cheek. “Are you sure? You have to be sure.”

“I wasn’t,” she answered, her eyes shy and gilded with so many things, not the least of which was sex. “Not until I came in here and saw you… like that.”

He swallowed a flare of embarrassment at being caught in such an honest moment of need.

It was her fingers that smoothed his errant hair back from his forehead, her touch cool on his lust-fevered skin. “All I know from before you is…” She searched for words, her eyes drifting from side to side. “Wasforceful and fast.”

Some of the heat wilted out of him, replaced by a well of sorrow and anger. He thought he’d wanted to know what happened to her and how.

How wrong he’d been. The mere mention of it slayed him.

“But you were… slow, just now,” she continued. “Deliberate.” She bent to him, sliding her hand down his arm until she captured his wrist.

Mesmerized, and frankly petrified, Piers remained mute, his lids peeled wide as she guided his hand to the soft mahogany hair between her legs. She pressed his fingers there, and they easily slid between the plump folds, encountering warm, wet silk.

They each gasped, sharing a shudder of disbelief at the sparks that ignited between them.

“I want you to be the last man inside of me.” Guiding his wrist, she rolled his finger over the bud hidden between her closed folds, her gaze turning as liquid as her desire. “I want it to be you. My husband…”

He’d heard enough.

Piers lifted himself, reached for her, and dragged her down over him. This he could do. This he would do, what he’d promised from the beginning. Replace the memory of another man with nothing but soul-shattering bliss.

Alexandra didn’t realize what it had taken from her to offer this, to request it, until he’d taken the mantle of seducer from her shoulders.

Redmayne remained seated and kept the sheet over his hips as he guided her legs to split over him.

They sat like that, sharing breaths of disbelief, his eyes searching hers as though looking for a reason not to.

He found none, because she gave none.

Alexandra steadied herself on his strong shoulders as he anchored one arm behind her, wrapping her legs around him. She liked this, being above him. Looking down at the scarred and primal beast pinned beneath her. There was power here, potent and feminine. One that caused a tremor in his limbs and unfocused his gaze as though the sight of her inebriated him.

When he fused their lips, her very grip on reality shifted beneath her. Other parts of them merged, as well. Their hearts. Their souls. Perhaps their destinies.

It was she who tangled her tongue with his, tasting him, stroking in wet circles. Penetrating him.

With a low, primal growl, his hands went to work.

Though his kiss grew in ferocity, his fingers stroked herleisurely, reacquainting himself with the warm folds of her sex, spreading the wet desire he found there to the hard pearl throbbing above it. He oh-so-gently pressed the hood between his forefinger and thumb, rubbing at it with such slippery skill, a shower of sparks exploded behind her eyelids.