Page 45 of Scoundrel Take Me Away (Dukes in Disguise #3)

Lucy couldn’t believe how nervous she was. Nervous—and more excited, more heated and hungry and wanting than she’d ever been in her life.

The things she knew about Gabriel now, the layers that had peeled back, getting her closer and closer to the man he was underneath all his style and attitude, his deliberately shocking deeds and manipulative misdirection.

There was more to him, still, so many questions yet unanswered, but Lucy knew she’d been granted unprecedented access to the core of Gabriel de Vere.

It was all she’d ever wanted.

She felt like the young girl she’d once been, poring over scandal sheets to piece together his movements, trying to discern the truth of the man behind the gossip.

God. She’d always been a little obsessed with him, hadn’t she?

The realization was less humiliating here, now, in his arms, than it might have been before.

Knowing him better had only deepened the obsession to a near-madness that she was afraid might be more aptly described using a different word. One that started with an L.

Clambering up onto his enormous island of a bed, Lucy shoved all thoughts of that word out of her mind.

You cannot slip and say it in the throes of passion , she instructed herself firmly as she arranged her limbs against the pillows. For one thing, that would be the worst sort of cliché. And for another…it would hardly be fair.

Maybe it was soft of her to worry about emotional manipulation when Gabriel was the absolute king of it, but all the same, she couldn’t bear the thought of him feeling pressured to say the words in return.

Especially since the moment his memories came back, he was likely to feel the exact opposite.

Heart giving a painful thump in her chest, Lucy felt his callused palm against her cheek.

“What’s that look?” he asked, gentle and gruff. “We don’t have to do anything you don’t want. There’s no rush. We’re getting married—we have all the time in the world.”

But they didn’t. Panic shook through her, making Lucy pull him down to her too fiercely. “I want everything,” she told him, her vehemence almost embarrassing but for the way it made him thrust his hard cock against her hip, as though he couldn’t help himself.

“I think I can guess what you’re worried about,” he said, and Lucy’s breath froze in her lungs before he went on, “but there are ways to be together without the risk of producing an heir only six months after the wedding instead of nine.”

That breath shuddered out of her. A baby. Of course she should be concerned about doing anything that might leave her pregnant and alone, raising his child by herself.

Or, even worse, trapping him into a marriage he’d hate her for when he knew the truth.

“Thank you,” she whispered, forcing her body to soften against his. And when he kissed her, slow and lingering, she didn’t have to force it.

But she was guiltily aware of a place, deep inside, where a part of her thought… would it be so bad? You would have a piece of him to keep, forever.

No. She had done some things she wasn’t proud of lately, but she wasn’t that far gone.

The pause, the talking, the consideration had all introduced a new element to their lovemaking. When Gabriel swept his hands down her body, his fingers going unerringly to her nipples to tease and pluck them into throbbing need, there was a tenderness she hadn’t felt before.

Lucy gave herself up to it. To the tweaks of his clever fingers and the heat of his mouth on her breasts, to the drag of his tongue down the quivering center line of her body. He paused at the edge of her crisply curled maiden hair and looked up at her, a question in his dark eyes.

She nodded, her thighs parting to make room for his broad shoulders. “You did that before,” she confirmed, breathless and wanting. “While you made yourself spend in your hand.”

His eyes flashed obsidian fire at her words, at the image they produced. Lucy felt liquid with desire at the memory, and at the sure, deft stroke of his thumbs through her curls to part her folds.

“Did you like it?” he asked silkily, then immediately lowered his head and said, “Never mind. Don’t tell me. Let me find out for myself.”

With that, he put his tongue to her. Lucy’s head and shoulders fell back to the bed as her lower body went molten.

Though he claimed not to remember what they’d done last time, he certainly seemed to have no trouble locating all the places that made Lucy gasp and squirm and toss her head on the pillow.

Bringing his big hands to her thighs, he spread her wide and tilted her hips up to the possession of his mouth.

The lick of his tongue, a long, flat swipe from the bottom of her entrance to the straining bud of nerves at the top of her cleft, made Lucy shout. She grabbed a pillow to muffle her own cries as he, merciless, did it again. And again.

He was insatiable, an unstoppable force delving into all her secrets and leaving Lucy exposed. Wet and messy and so close to the peak she could scream. Even the near-bruising grip of his fingers on her thighs inflamed her.

It took only one more teasing twist of his tongue at her clitoris, coupled with the floaty sensation of being cradled in his hands and borne aloft on his strength, to send Lucy flying.

The pleasure squeezed her like a vise, wringing her out and making everything between them even wetter and messier than before.

It might have occurred to her to feel embarrassed of her body’s responses if Gabriel hadn’t muttered a curse against her thigh, and a heartfelt, “Perfect. That’s just right.

Now turn over for me, beautiful, there’s my girl. ”

Her body felt strange, at once leaden and weightless. He had to help her turn onto her stomach. Her thighs slid together slickly. She was barely aware as he plucked the pillow from her lax fingertips and pushed it under her hips, raising her bottom into the air.

But she became very aware of her position the moment he knelt between her legs and ran his hands up the backs of her thighs to knead at the globes of her buttocks. Lucy shook, her core still heated and pulsing. No one had ever touched her there, like that.

She held her breath, wondering what he was about to do.

“I love this view,” he sighed, massaging her bottom in slow, sensuous circles that pulled them apart the tiniest bit. “You are delectable, every part of you, my beauty.”

Lucy panted into the sheets. She didn’t know if she wanted to squeeze her thighs together or spread her legs farther. Her mind was a blur of his heated praises and dangerously seductive touches.

For a moment, she felt like she would fly to pieces, and the fear of it tensed her muscles in a way he couldn’t help but feel.

“Shh,” he gentled her. “I’ve got you.”

And he covered her with his body, his hard-muscled chest against her back, his arms framing her head. His cock was a brand against her bottom.

As she settled into the mattress, reassured by having him all around her, surrounding her and holding her close, his thick, iron-hard erection nestled between the cheeks of her arse.

Without truly intending it, Lucy’s hips lifted, testing, rubbing along the satiny steel length. Gabriel dropped his head to breathe harshly into her neck, quick, hot puffs of air that made Lucy shiver.

“Like this,” he husked in her ear, and reached between their bodies to angle his prick down, between her thighs, to thrust full length against her. He didn’t breach her, but Lucy had only a moment to mourn the loss of that thick intrusion before the glorious friction caught up with her.

He glided on the evidence of Lucy’s arousal, the domed head nudging at her nether lips then forging a path straight to her pubis. She felt her secret flesh parting around him, slickening and guiding his way. Everything was slippery and hot and easy. Lucy moaned into the mattress.

Gabriel moved against her, all around her, his muscles tensing and flexing as he worked them both toward the climax. Needing more, Lucy pressed her thighs as tight as she could, crossing her ankles and using her muscles to massage Gabriel’s pistoning cock.

He gasped when she did it, which Lucy loved.

She wanted to make him feel all the pleasure he’d given to her, and this all felt so good for her, too, and before she knew it, they were straining together, their bodies sticky with sweat and passion, everything coiling tighter and tighter until Gabriel’s hips stuttered against hers and unleashed a final volley of thrusts.

When he came, she felt it, the gush of his blistering hot spend the last sensation she needed to focus her pleasure into a single explosion so bright, it wiped out her sight for long, breathless moments after.

Or perhaps that was her lover’s tautly muscled body crushing her into the mattress.

He shifted against her with a muttered apology that sounded like he was half drunk.

Lucy made a protesting noise, but Gabriel only moved them both as far as their sides, still spooned tightly against her back.

His softening prick slipped out from between her thighs, and Lucy felt a pulse of longing, missing the closeness already.

But as she lay there, sheltered by his big body and gently rocked by the rise and fall of his breaths, Lucy thought perhaps they’d found a new sort of closeness.

She only wished she could believe it would last.

“A good first time,” he murmured into her hair. She could hear the smile in his voice. “I hope it compared favorably with your actual first time. I wish it had been mine.”

Lucy felt an odd pang. She hadn’t really considered telling him about the men she’d slept with during her travels; it hardly seemed important, with everything else that was going on. And it was her own business, anyway.