Page 32 of My Secret Duke

A servant led the way along a corridor, and Olivia and Ivo followed. From the brief conversation he had had with the man, it seemed that this had all been arranged. Candles flickered in sconces as they passed closed doors, the murmur of sound behind them. Olivia felt a little shaky, but she wasn’t about to turn back. When Roberta had joined her, she had been prepared to call everything off. She would not allow her sister to be placed in peril. But now that problem seemed to have been resolved.

“Have you been here before?” she asked Ivo abruptly, the thought just occurring to her that he seemed to know his way around this place rather well.

“I have. Not recently,” he added, glancing down at her. “Don’t worry, you’ll be quite safe. Even if anyone recognized you, no one here would dare to gossip about the other guests. They all have their secrets.”

“The couple who were kissing…?”

“An unhappy gentleman who has found pleasure elsewhere. And if you are feeling sorry for his wife, she was there too, with her lover.”

Olivia wasn’t sure what to say about that. She knew such things happened, she wasn’t a na?ve fool, but to see it firsthand… No wonder Gabriel had had doubts. She was surprised he had allowed her out of the house, and at the same time, she was very glad he had.

The servant paused outside a door and opened it with a bow. “If you require anything else, sir, please ring for me,” he said.

Ivo pressed some coins into his hand, and a moment later, they were alone.

It was a bedchamber, with the addition of a table set for two. A lantern softened the corners of the room and gave everything a golden glow. Olivia pretended to survey the food arranged on a platter, and the decanter of wine with two glasses. But in fact, all of her senses were fixed on the bed.

It was large enough for two, with comfortable-looking bolsters and a quilt sewn of green cloth with fantastical-looking creatures on it.

“Olivia…”

He had come up behind her without her hearing, and she jumped. She heard him sigh.

“Sweetheart, we don’t have to do anything. We can eat our meal and drink our wine, and then we can leave.”

She turned to face him. He had taken off his mask, and she could see him properly now. Ivo, her friend, who she knew would keep her safe. It felt at last as if they had gotten beyond the shoals of the past and were now sailing out into new waters. She reached up to touch his jaw, feeling the cleanly shaven skin. Her heart began to beat that tempo she recognized.

Desire. Need.

“I don’t want to leave,” she said. “I want to be with you for this night.”

He smiled, but his eyes were serious. “You make it sound as if we will never see each other again.”

She didn’t think that was true, but Olivia knew her future and his were unlikely to head in the same direction. They would cross paths sometimes, only to part again. She told herself she was practical enough to accept that truth, no matter how much it hurt.

When she didn’t answer, he carefully lifted the mask from her face and set it aside. She knew she wasn’t naked, not yet, but she felt naked as his gaze roamed over her features. “You are so beautiful,” he whispered. “I thought so from the first moment I saw you.”

“Ivo,” she breathed. “Kiss me, please.”

His responding chuckle was rough, and then he bent, and his lips captured hers. The kiss was tentative at first but soon became passionate. Olivia felt her blood heating, her skin prickling within the confinement of her clothing. She was still wearing her cloak, and now she stepped back and undid the tie at her throat, so that the garment pooled at her feet.

Ivo’s eyes widened at her gown’s daring neckline. He groaned. He reached out to trail a finger across the swell of her breasts, before he lowered his lips to her throat, her collarbone. “May I?” he said, reaching around to the fastenings at the back of her gown.

She turned for him, and felt him unhooking and unbuttoning her, and then the sag of the loosened bodice against her skin. Her breasts ached, the tips drawn up into hard little points, and when he reached to cup her in his warm hands, she felt lightheaded.

His warm breath nuzzling against the curve of her shoulder made her shiver, before he turned her and looked where he had touched. His gaze darkened. “Even more beautiful than I thought,” he said. Olivia closed her eyes as he leaned in and his mouth closed on the tip of one breast, rolling her nipple with his tongue. Her head fell back, and she gasped.

Every lingering worry left her, and all she could do was revel in these new sensations. This was Ivo, her Ivo.

“I want to see you too,” she managed.

He lifted his head and smiled. “Your wish is my command,” he said.

A moment later, Olivia was seated on the bed, while Ivo stood before her, removing his clothing, slowly and deliberately. It was as if he was seducing her, and she certainly felt seduced. The longing for him increased with every garment tossed aside, and when he stripped off his shirt, her gaze drank him in as if she was dying of thirst. The broad sweep of his shoulders and the smooth planes of his chest, with a trail of hair darker than she had expected running down over his flat belly. He paused, resting his hands on his pantaloons.

“Ivo,” she whispered, and stood up. She had been holding her bodice up over her nakedness, but now it fell again, as she reached out to touch. His skin was warm, smooth apart from the hair, and she leaned in and kissed him.

The next moment, he was lifting her up into his arms, and she cried out in surprise, but then he was seated on the bed, and she was on his knee. The sensation of their bare skin pressed together was beyond words. She wanted this every day and every night. She ached to have him in her bed, in her life, forever.

Before she could begin to remind herself that such a wish could never be, he was kissing her again. Long, drugging kisses that made her body long for his hands, his mouth, and more. He pulled the pins from her hair, and it tumbled about them. He curled it in his hands and held her face at the exact angle for his mouth to take full advantage of hers. At the same time, her hands were on him, clasping his shoulders, caressing his skin, eagerly reaching down to where he was still clothed.

He was hard, and Olivia knew enough to understand it was because he wanted her as a man wanted a woman. When she ran her hand over the bulge beneath the cloth, he groaned and tipped his head back. “Olivia.” His voice was deep and urgent. “If you have changed your mind, then tell me now.”

She smiled. “Ivo, this is a dare. I never walk away from a dare, you know that.”

He was looking at her now, returning her smile, but there was a question in his eyes. Did he want to hear how much she ached for him, how the place between her thighs was damp and hot and ready for him? She wanted to say those things, but she was suddenly uncertain. This moment between them felt more than physical. Her heart was engaged.

She loved him. And if she hadn’t known it or wanted to admit it before, then she did so now.

Olivia reached to encircle her arms about his neck, pulling him down for more kisses. They fell onto the bed, facing each other, and the kiss went on. There was a sense of urgency inside her, a need that could no longer be denied.

“Should I take off my—” she began, but he was before her.

“Let me.” He crawled down and knelt at her feet, removing her slippers and then reaching to lift her skirt so that he could untie her stockings. He smoothed his hands over her knees and calves as he rolled them down, and then he cupped her ankles. Ivo looked up at her, and there was something in his face, in his eyes, that made her think that this moment was more than physical for him too.

Still watching her, he ran his hands up her legs again to her thighs, and then he ducked under her skirts, and she felt his hot breath between them. She must have cried out in surprise, arching toward him, but it was so good. She could hardly bear it. And then his tongue was lapping at her, and even his teeth, gently, and oh God, it was too much.

Her body gathered itself, and suddenly, she was soaring.

When she was able to open her eyes again, he was still kneeling before her, watching her with an arrogant grin. Slowly, he began to unfasten his pantaloons, shoving them down over his slim hips, down over his muscular thighs. He wasn’t wearing anything under them, which confused her briefly because she knew gentlemen wore underwear, but then she forgot all that when she saw him in his full, manly glory.

His arrogant smile had faded as he watched her eyes widen. “Olivia,” he began, as if he was going to suggest they stop now, and she couldn’t have that. She pushed herself up and reached for him, wrapping her hand around the thick heat.

Ivo groaned, and when she began to stroke him, he said in a muffled voice, “I’ll spill if you do that.”

Olivia stretched up to plant a kiss on his jaw, and then another, and then he was rolling her over on the bed, their bodies tangled in her skirts, and the ache inside her was growing again.

He was on top of her, taking his weight with his knees and elbows, but she felt his presence in a way that she never had before. He nuzzled against her throat, murmuring words she couldn’t understand, all of her attention focused on his hand, now stroking between her thighs, causing them to fall open, and then she felt him pressing for entry.

“Sweetheart… want you… so much…”

For a moment, she thought he said he loved her, but she must have been mistaken, and even if he had… She reminded herself feverishly that people said things at the height of their emotion; it didn’t mean they were serious.

Olivia arched against him, feeling the burn of his body easing into hers, the brief discomfort, before his fingers teased her into ecstasy. And then he was rocking against her, and she grasped his back, holding him to her, never wanting this to end.

Far away, a church bell rang, and she closed her eyes and imagined flying high over the city. She and Ivo, together.