Page 9 of Tantalizing the Duke
She imagined his hand bunching in her skirts, dragging them upward until the cool air kissed her thighs, higher still. In her fantasy, his fingers replaced hers, skilled and knowing. He touched her exactly as she needed to be touched, as if he had mapped her body in his dreams just as she had mapped his.
She spoke to the moonlit room, her voice broken by soft gasps as she neared her peak. “I’ve always wanted you. From the first moment I saw you. So stern, so proper. I wanted to be the one to make you lose control. To make you forget yourself. To make you mine.”
The fantasy Dainsfield seemed to hear her, his movements growing more urgent, less controlled. His fingers worked magic between her thighs while his lips claimed her neck, her collarbone, the sensitive spot just below her ear that made her knees weak.
“You are mine,” he growled against her skin. “Say it.”
Milly gasped, her body tensing as the pleasure built to an almost unbearable crescendo. “I’m yours, Dainsfield. Only yours.”
Her release crashed through her like a wave breaking against rocks, powerful and inevitable. Her back arched sharply off the bed, her free hand clapping over her mouth to stifle the cry that threatened to escape. Still, his name slipped through her fingers, a desperate, breathless sound in the quiet room. “Dainsfield!”
For long moments afterward, she lay trembling, her body pulsing with aftershocks, her breath coming in ragged gasps. Slowly, the fantasy receded, leaving her alone in her modest bedchamber, the moonlight her only witness.
As her breathing steadied and her heartbeat slowed, Milly drew her hand from beneath her nightgown and stared up at the canopy above her. A curious emptiness settled in her chest, a hollow ache that pleasure had temporarily filled but could not ultimately satisfy.
The truth she had been avoiding for so long lay bare before her now, impossible to deny: when Dainsfield was present, no other man could compare. Not the skilled lovers of her past, not the eager bucks of her present. None of them made her heart race with a single glance. None of them occupied her thoughts from waking until sleep claimed her.
And worse, she must marry one of them.
She turned onto her side, drawing her knees up toward her chest. The realization was both terrifying and exhilarating. Terrifying, because Dainsfield had only ever treated her with the distant courtesy one might offer a friend’s sister. Exhilarating, because sometimes—just sometimes—she glimpsed something else in his eyes, something that made her wonder if proper, controlled Dainsfield harbored improper, uncontrolled thoughts of his own.
“Fool,” she whispered to herself, but there was no heat in the admonishment. Only a weary acceptance as sleep finally began to claim her. Tomorrow would bring a new day, and bring her one day closer to Wednesday, when perhaps, just perhaps, she’d discover if the fire she had imagined in him truly existed.
CHAPTER FIVE
Dainsfield paced the length of the study in his town house like a caged animal, his heels pressing into the thick carpet with each measured step. The ledgers from a potential future speculation lay open on his desk, columns of numbers awaiting his attention, while a stack of correspondence sat nearby, demanding responses he had neither the time nor inclination to provide. His mind, usually as ordered as the books Abingdon’s wife, Dinah, still administered at the club, refused to focus on business matters tonight. Instead, it circled endlessly around a woman with sparkling eyes and a laugh that haunted his dreams.
A fire crackled in the hearth, casting elongated shadows across the book-lined walls. Crystal decanters gleamed on the sideboard, the amber liquid within catching the firelight. It was a room built for contemplation and business, not for the turmoil currently twisting through his gut.
“This is foolishness,” he muttered to the empty room, his deep voice swallowed by the high ceiling. “Absolute madness.”
How had this happened? He’d yet to tup Milly and all he could think about was her upcoming marriage… both of them. The one she feared and the one he hoped to arrange. And somehow his own name kept creeping into the list of suitable husbands.
He wasn’t a suitable husband. For any woman. He wasn’t charming and personable, and was perfectly happy going to bed alone at night. Of course, with a woman like Milly awaiting him, he’d likely be even happier in bed each night.
But there were no women like Milly. One might find equally beautiful brown hair, and similarly bright eyes, and all women had the requisite breasts and cunny to satisfy a man, but no one had her spark for life. The way she enjoyed every moment was a pleasure to behold. Whenever he noticed her at a cyprian party, he couldn’t stop watching her. Often one saw a woman pretending to enjoy the attentions of a man, but there was no pretense in Milly. She loved life, and loved sharing her body.
If she were his woman, they’d never leave the bed.
That was his biggest objection to marriage at the moment. He had no time for a wife. Which translated to him not desiring a wife enough to make the time. He was getting better about not adding to his duties. The speculations he agreed to were ones that required his money, not his time. And he entrusted more work to his secretary and the stewards who ran his properties. Also, he was learning to trust more that the work would be done to his standard.
The clock on the mantel chimed the hour, each resonant toll a reminder that Miss Nichols would arrive at any moment. Dainsfield moved to the mirror above the fireplace, straightening his already impeccable cravat. His reflection showed a man in his prime—tall, broad-shouldered, with features that many called handsome, though rarely to his face. Few dared such familiar observations of the man known throughout London for his reserved demeanor and fierce scowl.
One night with Milly. He’d longed for this often in the past five years. One night to get her out of his system, then he could focus on finding her a husband.
Even as he made this vow, a knock at the door announced her arrival, and Dainsfield felt his resolve waver like a candle flame in a draft.
Milly’s entire body heated and her heart fluttered when she saw Dainsfield standing in his drawing room waiting for her. There was an uncharacteristic energy in the man, a tension that played at being eagerness, as if the final hour of the hunt were upon him and he’d cornered his prey at last. They shared that eagerness, she knew, and the momentary trappings of his status could not have mattered less to her than they did now. So Milly moved with smiling purpose to his side and reached out to run a fingertip along the fine fabric of his coat.
He met her advance with a silence so brooding it almost seemed calculated, but she refused to let his stoicism unnerve her. Instead, she drew a line along his chest with her hand, pressing close enough to catch the faint, enticing scent of him. “Tell me,” she asked with a playful pout, “will you kiss me, or is that against the rules?”
A shadow of a smile touched his lips, vanishing before it took full shape. “Rules are for games. I leave them at Sutcliffe’s.”
“I know of a kissing game…”
His gaze was focused on her lips. “Kissing implies affection.”
“Everyone knows the Duke of Dainsfield holds no one in his affections.” Milly laughed lightly. She let her lips curve upward, and dragged her tongue across the bottom one. She suddenly needed his kiss. “Affection isn’t necessary to enjoy a kiss. Satisfaction is what I prefer.”