Page 3 of Kiss the Duke Goodbye (The Troublesome Trio #3)

CHAPTER 3

WHERE A DUKE ENTERS ANOTHER WORLD

H e’d never negotiated with a woman to secure an assignation.

One benefit of the title, he supposed.

Nevertheless, Clarissa Marlowe, standing in the doorway of her charming cottage, a gown the hue of week-old red roses swimming down her slender body, her expression bold and scared witless at the same time, had done something to him. A weak-kneed something.

A violent twist to his heart—when he’d scurried to Clerkenwell for twists to be done to his cock.

Desiring to protect as urgently as he desired to seduce was a rather novel sensation.

And, ah, hell, did he want her.

Aching, blinding need. Groundswells of yearning he hadn’t confronted in this lifetime.

Knox thought it rather generous that he’d offered to delay taking her to bed when he’d dreamed of that blessedly divine event for months . Getting a glimpse of her pleasure, in any manner, would be enough for now. He hoped.

When he stepped between her legs, spreading them as much as her skirt allowed, she welcomed him by parting her lips beneath his. He tilted her head just so, wanting this to last for eons, a piece of the puzzle he’d often hurried through. She was quite the best kisser, amazing when he suspected she’d not had much opportunity to practice.

Some things, he guessed, merely were .

She’d better not have learned from that dolt Clarence.

Fearlessly, she circled her tongue around his, urging him into her rhythm—a dance, a race, an age-old battle. She tasted of tea and the faint hint of cinnamon, and he was lost. They fell into a sensual abyss, sending the ground shifting beneath his feet. He groaned and cradled her jaw, possessing, seeking all she would give. Her breasts were a plump delight against his chest, her hands resting on his shoulders, one rising to seek out the hair at the nape of his neck. To coil the strands and scrape his scalp. Her breath streaked down his throat, her sighs mixing with the slight rise of her body to reach him.

How would it be , he marveled, when she was beneath him, astride him, gazing over her shoulder as he pleasured her from behind?

He struggled to contain his enthusiasm at the visions.

Impatient, he lifted her exquisite gown and thin chemise—a shocking surprise, the frock, when she’d answered her door looking like a goddess—in fistfuls until he had more clearance to settle between her legs. He desperately longed to nestle his cock against her supple folds while making her cry out in ecstasy.

When he’d promised an introduction, he meant a thorough one.

The kiss got away from him, as the impromptu match in her shop had, and he forgot his place, his plan. His fingers tunneled through her hair, pins slipping to the floor, her chignon tumbling free, before he remembered he was taking this slowly.

She flinched, putting space between them, reaching for her disheveled twist. “ Knox.”

He tipped her chin until her gaze met his. Her eyes were a dewy, smoky gray, inviting him to ruin her. To ruin himself. “There you go, love. At last, my name on your delicious lips.”

She let a streaking sigh whisper free, her arms falling to her side. “Is this play?”

He hesitated, understanding the precipice he stood upon. A gaping, thunderous next step loomed before them. She had no idea how much her awakening would change her. How much inducing her awakening could change him . “No, love, it isn’t play. Not the kind I had in mind, in any case. Although it’s amazingly perfect this marvelous, astounding kiss, if that’s all we ever do.”

“If I agree, play is as far as it goes this day?” She patted her chest, drawing his eyes to the breasts rounding out her bodice most pleasingly. He couldn’t wait to tease her pert nipples until she was breathless with need, should he be allowed the honor. “The rest will truly be my choice?”

He shoved aside his brief irritation that she would think she didn’t have sovereignty over their rendezvous. Over her decision or her body. Then he recalled the restrictions placed on women in their world. They didn’t choose their husbands or manage their own finances. They couldn’t vote or voice opinions without being ostracized. Clarissa Marlowe was as independent as any chit he’d ever come across—and he’d best remember this if he wanted to keep her for even one second.

Pressing his lips tenderly to hers, he curled his hand around her waist and brought her against him. “I’m here because I’m drawn to you more than I’ve been drawn to any woman. Because I have not, since I stumbled into your shop with Damien while he sought out the artist he’d soon marry, been able to expunge you from my mind. There aren’t any nefarious motives involved aside from my remarkable need for you. I want you gasping, calling my name while your mind blurs and your body melts. I want your juices to coat my skin, your taste my throat. I want pleasure for you, more than you’ve ever dreamed to experience, by my hand. But I would also like to know what’s in your mind, in your heart. The passions that make you, you . I can’t promise not to hurt you or hurt myself. I’m only doing what I’ve been unable to stop myself from doing.”

He kissed his way to her ear and whispered softly, “Buying bonnet upon bonnet was only a way to see you . My time before I have to—”

He halted, frowning, the curse riding the back of his throat.

Before he’d be forced to marry for money, not love.

Clarissa’s smile softened, the heart he wanted a glimpse into opening to him. She took his hand and pressed a kiss to his palm. And he tumbled. Where, exactly, he wasn’t about to examine. “Let’s play, you arrogant cur. I’m ready to learn and teach.”

Agreeing, he kissed her.

Until she began to warm to him again. Until she pressed her body to his in invitation and sighed deeply, asking for more without saying a word.

Hooking his arm around her hips, he brought her bottom to the edge of the desk, releasing the skirt he still clutched about her waist. It was simple maths after that. She wore no petticoat, and her drawers were dispensed with swiftly, leaving her core beautifully bare to him, although he didn’t look. Not yet. As her scent rose to tease him, he untied her garters with one hand, aware the deft move showed years of practice. Leaving the ribbons dangling against her creamy thighs, he went to his knees to roll her silken stockings down her legs. She had lovely ankles and beautiful, slim feet. He hoped he could hide the fact that his hands had begun to shake, his cock hardening to the point of pain against his trouser’s bone buttons.

This level of hunger wasn’t part of the games he’d played before.

When he finally gazed at her from his crouched position, his hands full of skin-warmed silk, he found her smoky eyes wide, her moist lips parted. Sighing, he drew his fingertip along her calf and over her knee, doing a languid circle on the inside of her thigh. His breath shot out in a rush. Her quim was glistening, a pale pink near the color of a conch shell situated right before him from her position seated on the desk. Her hair was a trace darker than the flaxen tresses upon her head. A glorious thatch he hoped to explore with his lips and tongue. Why that particular subject fascinated him in the darkness of his bedchamber, his rigid shaft in his hand, Knox couldn’t say.

He only knew he’d wondered at least a thousand times about this very thing. As well as the shade of her nipples. Soon , he thought to himself. Soon .

Continuing higher, he reached the crease where her leg met her hip. She didn’t try to stop him, merely watched with an intriguingly enigmatic expression. The only indication of her mounting arousal were her shallow breaths and the fingers curved around the desk’s edge until her knuckles had whitened.

He leaned to kiss her knee, trailing his mouth along her thigh. Her skin was as soft as the stockings he held. Her intimate fragrance was doing wondrous things to his heartbeat, the thump of blood pulsing through his veins. He’d never been lightheaded before, the beauty of the act rendering him speechless.

Pushing past the unfamiliar feeling of trepidation, he cupped her bottom, and pulled her against his mouth, slicking his tongue across her folds. Her stockings tumbled to the floor. In the most erotic move in his memory, she arched into the contact, offering herself to him, bumping her pelvis against his cheek.

“ Touch me ,” she murmured thickly, sending his arousal careening so high he was puzzled at being able to remain on his feet. The punch of pleasure had him groaning against her, flicking his tongue across the knot of nerves topping her sex. In reply to the vibration, she tunneled her hands through his hair and whimpered. Not a shout…merely a raw, unbidden whimper .

He’d never heard a sound as primally blissful.

The rest of the campaign to bring her to orgasm was a blur. His chest hitching, his heartbeat pulsing in his ears, he endeavored to memorize every crease, curl, and fold. Every delicate valley and exquisite ridge. She tasted of ambrosia, nectar of the gods. Go gently, Knox , he advised himself. However, his mouth was intent, tongue seeking, lips molding around her while her juices flowed, both of them too committed to pleasure to dally.

He longed to sample when instead he feasted.

The sounds echoing about the parlor were comprised of her coarse demands and his responding murmurs of approval. His own skin was moist, his shirt sticking to his back. He wanted the garments on both of them gone . A considerable part of him wished he’d never offered to play. Fucking idiot. When he wanted to shove her back, wrap her slender legs around his waist, and sink his hard length inside her. Pump and grind until neither of them could walk. For days.

Knowing he’d about reached his limit, his cock near to bursting, he trailed his fingers along her silken folds and teased at her entrance. While she emitted these husky little sounds again, he worked one finger, then two, into her sleek channel. She slumped to her elbows, her head falling back, the crown nearly touching the desk.

“ Knox ,” was all she whispered in a gravelly voice.

Maddened, his lips closed around the rigid nub controlling her release as his fingers brought her to a frenzy. He grasped her hip with his free hand to hold her in place, wringing every bit of pleasure from the moment. He wasn’t especially proud of the fact that he knew he could make her come in seconds, maybe a minute. Nor was he proud of the fact that she’d almost made him spend in his drawers like a wee lad.

When he fucked her the first time, his life would be complete.

Of course, Clarissa worsened his arousal by looping her slender leg over his shoulder, bringing him in and under her, his fingers driving, his tongue and lips consuming. There were no times before her, before this . The past vanished.

His mind was an absolute blank aside from her.

He’d never been torn apart by a female before.

Her fingers tightened in his hair as her hips lifted. She shuddered, quivers racing along her arms and legs. He looked up in time to catch the bowing of her body, her hand grasping the desk, her knuckles as pale as the snow falling outside. Her cries rippled through the air, charging the space until her heat was greater than the blaze radiating from the hearthfire.

At the last, she shoved him away with a gasp, sliding off the desk, and to her knees before him, her skirts fluttering about before settling in a crumpled puddle at her feet. Stunned, she palmed the floor with one hand, her body shaking. Her hair was a shroud hanging over her face and past her shoulders. Her chest rose on staggered gasps, the only noise in the room aside from the splintering wood in the grate.

Knox started to apologize but words were lost to him. Perhaps he’d been too rough. Too hasty, using everything he’d learned when a minute percentage would have sufficed for an introductory session. Truthfully, once he’d gotten a look at her, a goddess spilled across the desk, ivory hair and glistening skin, what choice had he had? Was it his fault he’d raced outside his normal, controlled parameters in pursuit of pleasure?

When he longed to do things to this woman he’d never dared do with another. Secret fantasies involving cravats, bedposts, blindfolds, and seduction. Cursing softly, he shook himself free of his carnal absorption. Bloody hell , he decided, he’d been too energetic with an inexperienced partner. He would tread more carefully next time.

If his gorgeous milliner consented to another rendezvous after this.

Clarissa glanced through the dense, flaxen cloak. Her eyes were the color of pewter, the lids hooded in half-arousal. She licked her lips, her purr one of utter delight. “Your turn, Your Grace.”

Knox frowned in confusion as his cock roared to life, straining against his trouser close. Staggered, he rocked back on his heels. “But, you…” Gesturing inanely, he scrubbed a bead of sweat from his temple. “You were, I was too, that is—”

“ Shh .” She crawled to him on her hands and knees, a bloody dream if there ever was one. “You were too everything . And it’s been the most extraordinary afternoon of my recollection.” Halting before him, she pressed her mouth to his, her lips open, pulling him into a kiss that had him palming the floor to steady himself. “So, that’s what I taste like,” she whispered and drew back enough to stare into his eyes.

Her smile was feral, the sated flush staining her cheeks telling a lewd story.

His heart caught, his groan streaking free. He hadn’t hurt her. He’d shown her the untamed man, not the guarded duke, and she’d liked it. Liked him .

“Where have you been all my life, Clarissa Marlowe?”

She ran her tongue over her teeth, toying with him. “At the Petal and Plume on Bond Street, Your Grace. I started assisting in the shop when I was seven, in fact.”

He frowned, truly puzzled, and so aroused, that crouching in this position was fast becoming an impossibility. He flexed his fingers, the piquant aroma of her drifting past his nose. It was a crude gesture, but she caught his meaning. “I didn’t hurt you?”

She laughed and trailed her knuckle down his waistcoat, circling each button. “I have a device. Wood covered in boiled leather. The same kind used to make armor. It readied me, I suppose, for this. I found a shop in Shoreditch that sells unique items.”

He about swallowed his tongue. “ Device ?”

Her gaze lowered to his crotch and the cock straining for release. “It was advertised as a gadget resembling the virile male member. I believe, from further study, it’s not a bad replica. Your fingers felt leagues better, of course. And your skilled tongue, heaven . Glorious compared to chilled leather. However, an unattached woman does what she must to endure.”

As images assaulted him, Knox misplaced every thought in his mind. Every. Last. One.

Clarissa took advantage of his stupefaction by seizing his hand and drawing him to his feet. He followed her blindly to the armchair, then let her push him into it. Going to her knees before him, she worked the buttons on his trousers with the efficiency of a woman who knew her way around fasteners and fabric. He was stiff as stone, his cock easily freed through the opening in his drawers and his now gaping trousers. His shaft stood at attention, embarrassingly so, surrounded by a dense thicket of dark hair.

Her lips formed a silent, amazed O. “My word , my device pales in comparison, Your Grace.”

“Two things,” he growled, drawing her attention from his aching cock to his face. “Quit talking about that goddamned toy of yours, or I’m going to arrive in three seconds. And, if you call me ‘Your Grace’ once more, I’ll storm out of here and stomp home through this snowstorm with the hardest rod in England.”

Her grin was utterly mischievous. “I like speedy arrivals myself,” she whispered and wrapped her hand around him. “Let’s see, shall we?”

Maybe he would last a minute, he decided and dropped his head back as she began to stroke. Either he quit gazing at Clarissa crouched before him or he spilled his seed, end of story. It was the way she stared that was undoing him. His member was on the large side, as some had commented over the years—yet he’d never had a woman study him with such frank fascination and absolutely no fright.

Her eager countenance was more than enough to send him over the edge.

Her touch was ardent but inexperienced. Halting, at first. However, she was learning, quicker than he wished her to. Her thumb swept his bulbous head, and she noted the groan he couldn’t contain because she did it again. And again. He gripped the arms of the chair to keep himself from guiding her into a rhythm that would only make him come that much sooner.

Also, this would wrestle control from her, a deed he didn’t wish to do.

With his body tensed like a bow, she lingered, tracing the veins on the underside of his cock, her hot breath striking him and making him tremble.

When she took him into her mouth, Knox had no will to halt her. No wish to. Part of the excitement was her enjoyment. She wanted this. An awakening she hadn’t coyly hidden from him. His adorable milliner didn’t pretend to be anything but as captivated by him as he was by her. A first.

“Tell me what you like,” she murmured, the words vibrating along his shaft and into the core of him.

His eyelids fluttered as his ragged moan rang through the parlor. “ You. Only you.”

It didn’t matter what she did, he was so entranced. He’d been lost long ago. She licked, pausing to suckle his head, her fingers tracing light circles at his base. Then, she drew him deeply between her lips. Helpless, overcome, his hand left the chair to sink into her tangled tresses. He kept himself from leading her. This was more about hanging on another second, another agonizingly wondrous moment. The throbbing in his belly signaled his impending release, the quiver working its way up his spine meaning he had little time left.

“Soon, love,” he gasped, his fingertips pressing into her scalp. “Soon.”

She didn’t sit back or slow down. Oh, no , she became more intent on her mission.

When she began to hum, her tongue wrapping around his shaft, he forgot all sense of decorum and cried out, his hips rising. The orgasm ripped through him, dimming his vision, and taking his breath. He removed himself from her care with only seconds to spare, shooting his seed across the linen shirt wadded around his belly as fierce sensations conquered him. In the end, when she blew a breath of air across his bullocks, he suspected he’d entered heaven.

Slumping back, he tossed his arm across his eyes in submission. Whatever stunned expression sat on his face, she didn’t need to see.

A panting, erotic display of a man at his weakest. They hadn’t thought to extinguish so much as one lamp.

It was, though he’d never admit it, the quickest he’d ever come from a bout of oral consideration in all his days.

Seconds ticked by on a clock somewhere in the room. The wind slapped the panes in a howling roar. The hearthfire crackled, wood shifting in the grate. He drew a lungful of the stimulating flavor of them . As reason returned, Knox heard Clarissa arranging her clothing, her breathing slowing to match his. She’d been excited, too, to the point of noticeability. In his experience, not many women liked this part of the act, while most men loved it.

Clarissa Marlowe was unique in ways he’d not imagined. He only had to figure out what to do about her.

When he heard a hinge squeak, Knox lifted his arm to find Clarissa in the doorway, a bemused smile curving her lips. Hair wild, cheeks rosy, gown ruined, she looked spectacularly undone. Yet, in control of her faculties, which made one of them.

No one should be in such capable management of their body and mind after this .

“I fear you may be here longer than you’d planned. The snow is already knee-high and falling faster. The streets are impossible to navigate, from what I can tell.”

He merely grunted, exhausted to his bones, and still thinking about how quickly he’d come. Her talent was humbling.

Hiding her amusement without success, she tipped her shoulder to the back of the cottage and gave a lazy shrug. “I’m going to gather foodstuff. I’ll be back. Don’t get up.” Then, impossibly, daringly, fucking brilliantly, she laughed. “I find the afternoon’s activities have made me simply ravenous.”