Page 14 of Promised to the Worst Duke in England (Disreputable Dukes of Club Damnation #2)

June 29, 1815

Imogen woke before dawn in an unfamiliar room with her husband on his side with an arm about her waist. The most delicious sensations sailed through her body, for he was kissing her nape and running his hand up and down her side.

And why was she clad only in her shift? Then memories drifted into her brain. At some point during the night—had they truly been so exhausted that they’d skipped tea and dinner?—when her tears had been spent, she and Alan had removed some of their clothes merely to make sleeping more comfortable.

But those kisses were slowly lighting fires throughout her blood.

“Alan?”

“I’m glad you woke. I thought you might have been too spent after your tears to do anything else this night.” Clearly, he’d become nude at some point, for his insistent and quite aroused length rested along the curve of her arse.

At least he was consistent. “Truth to tell, I’m still a bit tense.”

“Mmm.” He moved a hand to her breast where he strummed his fingers over the already hardened nubbin leaving wonderful flutters dancing through her lower belly. “Then let me help relieve the tension.”

Not that she was averse to his brand of stress relief. “How?”

“Need you even ask?” He nibbled her earlobe. “Also, with a toy to aide your pleasure.”

“Oh?” Her heartbeat accelerated. “Like the one you used on me the other day?”

“A bit, yes.” As if he had all the time in the world, he fondled her breast, rolled the sensitive nipple, and when she bit back a moan, he chuckled. “Shall we continue?”

The sensations softly pulsing through her body only enhanced the ever-present need for him. “Yes, but tell me this first. How can you want me after what I told you yesterday afternoon?”

“What do you mean?” When he peered over her shoulder at her, she met his gaze in the darkness.

“I killed a man, Alan. Doesn’t that change your opinion of me?”

“It does not, for you did nothing wrong. It was in self-defense, which is infinitely better than the crimes of my past.” After a series of nips and nibbles to the side of her throat, he easily encouraged her to recline onto her belly.

Would now be the time he shared his past with her?

“Truth be told, I’m a murderess, though.”

He drew up the hem of her shift. Relatively cool air from the room wafted over her bared arse, and the contrast of that against the heat in her blood was quite the rush. “And I have taken the lives of a couple of men in my existence as well, the last one being my fiancée’s lover.”

Ah, so that was why he’d taken grave exception to the possibility of her meeting a lover in the orchard. The pieces of his puzzle were slowly falling into place.

“Tell me.” Even in a whispered tone, the demand seemed loud in the silence of the turret room. She should have recoiled knowing he’d killed someone and didn’t show an ounce of remorse, but oddly, she felt a kinship with him. One that didn’t require a reason why.

“Not tonight.”

“Sometimes I think we are all as ill as our secrets, but telling you mine earlier did bring me a bit of comfort, of relief.” She found his gaze in the gloom. “Let me do the same for you.”

“I will, and soon, but not now. I am not in the correct mindset.” Briefly, he turned away from her, but when he returned to her side, he pressed a kiss into her temple while holding up a piece of shiny mahogany wood covered tightly with the same supple, clinging soft leather the other dildo had featured. “Right now, I want to soothe your lingering fears and perhaps ignite your soul.”

She frowned at the piece in his hand. “Another diletto?” A trace of disappointment went through her, for she’d hoped that he would have employed some sort of restraint on her this time.

“Indeed, but see how this one is different?” It was short and slim and slightly twisted, made of highly smoothed and polished wood. “Designed this way to easily slip into the anus without harsh pushing or causing undue discomfort.” As he spoke, he glided the rounded head along her arse cheeks, leaving gooseflesh behind. “It’s said when a woman has intercourse while one of these is inside her, it enhances pleasure during spending.”

Though cold trepidation moved through her excitement buzzed at the base of her spine. “You intend to use that on me now?”

“I do. Are you game?”

It was a large request, and some in society might consider it depraved or perhaps evil, but to her, it was merely another way of coping with personal nightmares that never quite died. “Will it hurt?”

“No, but there might be a bit of initial discomfort.”

“Have you experienced it before?”

“I have.” Again, he drew the head over her buttocks. “Shall we continue?”

Was participating in such a thing going down a path that would lead her to the devil as society thought, or was it simply a natural part of being married to Averly? Did it matter as long as they both enjoyed the exercise and stimulant, as well as each other? Then she nodded. “Yes. Be gentle.”

“Of course I won’t do anything that will permanently damage you, duchess. Where is the fun in that?” As he spoke, he encouraged her legs to part slightly. “Don’t tense. You’ll want to, for this will feel foreign at first.”

Then he spread her buttocks with one hand, and nerves fluttered in her belly. Seconds later, the head of the slim diletto was at her dark entrance. She gasped, for that initial contact with her puckered skin was a surprise.

“Shh. Relax, Imogen. I promise I won’t hurt you. If at any time you wish it out, I’ll remove it.”

Somewhat comforted by his soothing tones but at the same time aroused by the touch of his hands on her arse, she lie still on the bed, pressing her face into the pillow lest she scream by accident. Of course, she tensed the second he eased the toy’s head into her dark passage, but he continued to murmur words of encouragement to her while working the dildo in and out of that part of her.

“If this should prove something you welcome during our play, we can experiment with longer or thicker dilettos.” After several moments of feeling wildly uncomfortable, her muscles relaxed enough that she could feel the intrusion without the apprehension.

“Don’t rush my fences, Averly.” She wriggled her bottom, and truly, it wasn’t that horrible.

“How does it feel inside you?” The duke continued to caress her buttocks and hips, no doubt in an effort to make her be at ease. Then he rolled her over onto her back and stared down into her face.

“Different.” Especially now that she was on her back. “I’m not exactly anxious, but I am anticipating what coupling will be like with this inside me.”

“Good.” His eyes glittered in the darkness. “You should feel full and quite fulfilled. Sensations will be doubled. As for me, since your vagina passage will be tighter, those sensations will tease me as I move in you, and the feel of the diletto inside you will scrape along my shaft to enhance everything.” A trace of excitement threaded through his low voice. “It is but one way I can control my partner’s pleasure and ensure she will thoroughly enjoy herself.”

Jealousy stabbed through her chest for all those other women he’d been with over the course of his life… when he should have married her. But then she tempered her reaction. She was wed to him now, and that was all that mattered. “Does this work on men as well?”

“Yes.” Had his eyes darkened? It was difficult to tell in the gloom. “But if you want to do that to me, it will need to wait.”

“Why?”

“I want control over you tonight. In fact, I need it.” That emotion graveled his voice as he settled between her spread thighs.

She frowned and planted her palms against his chest to temporarily hold him off. “Tell me why.”

“Because in this world where my life is oftentimes not my own, I want to control the outcome of something.” When he leaned over her, he teased one of her nipples with his tongue until it hardened once more. “I want to make certain someone else is satisfied even if I might not be in this existence.”

“Oh.” Something about that admission tugged at her heart, and a tiny piece of it went into his keeping. Each time Imogen moved, shivers went through her lower belly due to that diletto embedded in her back side. She slipped a hand around to his nape, brought him down over her body. With her other hand, she caressed her fingers along his hard, hot length, and when she finally took him in hand, he hissed out a warning. “Why are you not fulfilled, Alan? Do you wish for me to pleasure you before we do this?”

“My discontent has nothing to do with what you and I get up to between the sheets,” he said before claiming her lips in a brief kiss. “However, it has to do with everything else, beyond you marrying me.”

“Let me help,” she urged in a whisper as she stroked her hand up and down his engorged shaft. “Talk to me like I did you yesterday afternoon. Entrust your horrors to me so that you might find peace and perhaps eventually happiness.”

“Not tonight, and I’m not certain I know how to share something like that, for it will lead me down the path of remembering how I lost my sister,” he said in a broken whisper before he kissed her with conviction this time and with such intensity that she had trouble remembering what they were talking about.

She squeezed his stones, edged a fingertip to the stretch of sensitive skin just behind them. When he gasped, she grinned then peppered the underside of his jaw with nips and kisses. “Don’t let such a thing continue to dissolve your soul like a cancer.”

“Why do you care?” Emotion graveled his voice. He removed her hand from his privates to pin it to the pillows above her head.

“Whether you wish to believe it or not, I’m convinced you are worthy of having good things in your life. You deserve to be happy.” She gasped when he pinned her other hand above her head too, and between her wrists being restrained and the dildo up her arse, her core already trembled with need. Even more so when he aligned the head of his member with her opening.

“You must be blind or na?ve, duchess, for I’m not deserving of anything.” The grin was evident in his voice even if she couldn’t see it. And he kissed her again as if he wanted to sear his very essence into her memories while at the same time, with one powerful flex of his hips, the duke thrust inside her body, impaling her so completely, that with the fullness due to the diletto, it was almost too much.

A moan turned into a cry of surprise tipped with pleasure, for those sensations were beyond any she’d ever experienced before. “Merciful heavens, Averly, I do believe you’re going to kill me.” With him inside her and with the dildo filling her rear entrance, just the act of breathing set off tingles of need and exquisite torture.

“Though I don’t wish you dead, I am elated that you are finding intercourse with pleasure aids that much more stimulating.” Then he began to move.

And Imogen thought she truly might pop off this mortal coil. When each new stroke, every slow, steady thrust, the sensations seemed amplified, or they were somehow bouncing off each other deep inside her body. When he released her wrists in order to give him leverage above her body, she slipped a hand around his hips to squeeze a buttock.

“Alan…”

He didn’t answer with words. Instead, he dipped his head, gave one of her nipples a light bite, grunted when she uttered a half-stifled cry. For the next few heartbeats, he treated her to slow, lazy strokes designed to tease, kept her flirting with the edge of bliss but never quite sending her over.

“Averly, please…”

“Begging, hmm?” He dipped his head, lightly glanced his lips over hers. “I rather want to hear more of that, but next time in my bed, restrained and ready for my leisure.” As he kissed her again, he slipped a hand between their bodies while pausing, his thick shaft still buried inside her channel. “For tonight, this will have to suffice.”

“Dear God.” Sensation flooded her being as he strummed his fingertips over the swollen bud at her center. She would break apart, and soon, but in no way she ever had before. Nearly gone on a great river of feeling, Imogen curled a hand at his chest, catching a few of his hairs into her fist. When he hissed in pain, she could barely spare a grin, for she was nearly swept away by the pleasure swamping her.

“Come for me, duchess.” The duke increased the friction to the slippery nubbin. “Scream so loud the travelers at the summer fair will hear you. Let me hear how much you want me.” And he continued to torment that button as if he hadn’t anything else to do in his life.

“I… I…” The simple act of breathing was beyond her. As she clung to his broad shoulders, she shattered, but it was more than that. Having the additional fullness so near to her contracting passage amplified those sensations, and she easily went over again with a loud, keening cry she hoped the servants would assume was a ghostly presence.

But the duke wasn’t done. Oh, good heavens no. Once more, he moved within her but his pacing accelerated and rhythm had changed. His hips pistoned, and with each thrust, he went deeper, drove harder until she was sure that not only would her soul catch fire, it would be split asunder.

When she opened her eyes and looked at him, concentration and pleasure mixed on his face, and it was one of the most beautiful sights she’d ever seen. Another scream left her throat as he sent her over the edge again. “Alan!” This time he came with her, and for several moments afterward, she swore she wasn’t even conscious. The ragged sound of their mingled breathing broke the quiet of the room while they writhed together, clung to one another in the darkness.

By the time Averly rolled to his side, she still hadn’t come back down to earth, for residual tremors continued to bedevil her. “I don’t believe I’ll ever be the same,” she admitted in a whisper. Unable to move much more than to flop onto her belly, she lay there and was glad for the gentle puffs of cool air that came in from the partially opened window.

“I did warn you.” But there was smug pleasure in his voice, and she hadn’t the strength to call him out on it. The mattress depressed as he left the bed. Seconds later, he was at her other side, his hands and fingers gentle as they skated over her skin. When he just as gently removed the dildo from her arse, she sighed, for it was a bit like mourning his loss from her body too.

She’d nearly drifted to sleep when he returned. Before she could protest, the duke wiped her buttocks and nether region with a cool cloth, and the simple caring in that gesture had tears prickling the backs of her eyelids. It was so nice having someone take care of her, and it hadn’t happened much since she had to defend herself against her horrible uncle that she craved it all the more. Tears slipped to her cheeks, and she softly cried into her pillow.

Eventually, Averly joined her on the bed again. Silently, he took her into his arms and simply held her against his chest, letting her cry if she wanted without offering commentary. In his embrace, she found peace and protection, everything she’d needed when she was a young lady of seventeen, everything she should have had all along, and her tears renewed.

For the first time since she’d met him, Imogen was oddly grateful for him.

“Thank you,” she whispered against the side of his throat and snuggled into him more closely.

“It is my privilege,” he whispered back then pressed a kiss to her hair. “Sleep now. There is much to do later today to prepare for the ball tomorrow.”

She breathed deeply of his fresh, crisp scent and closed her eyes. Where would they go from here? Perhaps it didn’t matter.