Page 15 of The Cursed Duke (Wayward Dukes' Alliance #19)

July 30, 1816

Fitzroy House

Manchester Square

Mayfair, England

Giles worked to regulate his breathing, but it was nearly an impossible task. “Sweeting, we are needed downstairs in moments.” It had been a year since they’d wed, so he and his wife had decided to throw a ball to mark their first anniversary and celebrate.

Except they had both been distracted by passion while finishing their toilettes.

In fact, Hannah was on her knees in her fancy red gown decorated with lace and spangles working his shaft and stones over as she enjoyed doing occasionally as a treat, for over the course of the last year, she’d acquired quite the talent for bedeviling him in this way.

In response, she squeezed his stones, which rested in the hand she wasn’t stroking up and down his hardened shaft. Acute sensation shot through his body to center in his length. “They can wait,” she said, and the warmth of her breath skated over the wet head of his member to provide an odd cooling sensation. Then she glanced up from her work and met his gaze. The blonde strands in her blonde-brown upswept hair glimmered in the candlelight. “We shall go once I’m finished.”

And she returned to her task, spent the next several heartbeats taking him into the heated cavern of her mouth while alternately squeezing and tugging his stones. Dear God, how much did he adore her and the confidence she’d grown into since the early days of their marriage? Yet she would drive him into insanity shortly.

“Hannah…”

His wife ignored him. And what was more, when she put a questing fingertip at the spot between his stones and his anus, she caressed the sensitive skin there, and his soul nearly left his body from the explosion of pleasure that assailed him.

There was no other way to explain it, but he had grown quite desperate and couldn’t wait, for he needed to spend. Holding her head between his hands, Giles thrust into her mouth in the hopes that the movement would take the edge off that urge. Except, that each time he did this with Hannah, it was better than the last. The glide of her lips along his engorged shaft, the way she massaged his tip each time she swallowed, the feel of the tip of her tongue on the underside of his length all worked together to see him expire right there in their shared suite.

“Damn it, woman, let me fuck you.” A couple of months after they’d wed, he asked her if he should stop using vulgarities, especially when they were intimate, but she’d surprised him and said the scandalous nature of such talk made her even more willing to couple with him.

She pulled off his member with a slight pop. “Not right now. There’s no time and I don’t want the mess. Nor do I want my gown wrinkled, for you are quite energetic when we come together.”

Though he gave her a quick grin, his hold on control was shattering. They were seconds away from chaos. “Do you wish to swallow, then? I can’t wait.”

Her kiss-swollen lips curved into a proud smile. “Again no, for we both know you won’t shoot it all of it down my throat.” She licked the weeping head of his shaft, and his eyes crossed from the effort of holding back. “I don’t want the front of my gown ruined or your seed in my hair, for this will be the first society function we’ve hosted together. Don’t make me appear as if I were a lightskirt.”

That integrity and quiet strength in how she stood up to him never failed to make him even more randy but proud at the same time. Yet his adorable wife continued fondling his bits, and as she touched the tip of her tongue to her bottom lip, it was the beginning of the end.

With a growl of warning, he lost control. Turning to the side with a cry, he took the handkerchief she handed him—for she knew him quite well—and he quickly and violently came into the fabric. How did she manage to arouse him so quickly and so intensely? But then, she had always had that power since that first meeting when he’d stolen her innocence. As his shaft pulsed and pumped, he did his best to contain the mess while Hannah rose to her feet.

Flashing him a grin, she smoothed her hands down the front of her elaborate gown. “You never can last long when we do this, can you?”

“Not where you’re concerned.” Both pride and annoyance twisted down his spine, but Giles moved to the washstand to clean himself then put himself back to rights. When he came out from behind the silken privacy screen, his wife was checking her face in an ivory handled mirror. “I wish we didn’t have this ball tonight, for now I’m full of unreleased energy.”

She shot him a glance that roiled with wicked promise as she drew on her opera-length gloves. “Behave prettily tonight and you will be well rewarded later.”

“Vixen.” How much did he love her? Of course, she might have been corrupted by his influence, not that either of them minded. “It has been quite the year, hasn’t it? I am still surprised we’ve reached our first anniversary.”

Over the course of the last twelve months, they’d had a few obstacles thrown into their paths. He’d lost his mother just after Boxing Day to the disease that took her mind. But before she’d died, she and Hannah had become fast friends. Not long after that, his wife had suffered a miscarriage. Perhaps it had been brought on by grief or the pressures of being a new duchess, no one could say, but following that, his mind hadn’t been in a stable place. He’d returned to London without Hannah, for he’d needed time alone and to think, but peace hadn’t come because she was the one who made it for him.

By Easter, he’d missed her desperately, so he’d asked one of his clubmates to go fetch her for him since he couldn’t get away from his responsibilities with parliament. Of course, he’d asked with the caveat that if the man touched her, Giles would kill him.

Once she joined him, Hannah had given him quite the dressing down, essentially told him that if he ever left her again for any reason, she would give him the flogging of his life and then make him wish he’d never gone away to begin with, that they were a team and would meet whatever life gave them.

Together.

They’d been inseparable ever since.

As she closed the distance between them, sadness shadowed her eyes, and such hadn’t been there when they’d married. “I wouldn’t trade what we have for anything.” She laid a palm on his chest. “You know this.”

“I do.” There had been rough patches and times when they hadn’t gotten along until one of them compromised, but they’d learned how to talk with each other and invite each other deeper into their separate lives so their joined one would be strengthened.

Just as she’d wanted.

Through it all there were horses, and glorious rides, and a stable full of cats. Hell, they even had two housecats in the London townhouse, and those felines were probably even now mingling with the guests in the ballroom downstairs.

And there were nights—and days—full of wicked, wicked, pleasurable things and new ways of sharing physical affection with each other that it was a wonder all gossip in London didn’t always center around them.

In short, she’d turned his world on its head, and he was still in awe of her. “Shall we go down, then?”

“Of course.” She rested the gloved fingers of one hand on his sleeve. “While I am thrilled about this ball as well as seeing my family again, I yearn for the stillness that will follow, when we can be alone once more.”

“Why?” He chuckled at her look that branded him a nodcock. “I know why, of course.” For his wife had acquired quite an affinity for sex, and in that enthusiasm, he’d found a second wind for his own existence. “I mean why tonight? We come together all the time. I try not to neglect you in that way.”

“You don’t, Giles. Never think that.” She tugged him to the door. “There is but one thing I’d like to commemorate this anniversary with.”

“Oh?” He opened the door to the corridor and ushered her out of the room. “I thought you liked the new ruby parure I gave you this morning.”

“I adore it, of course, and am wearing a few pieces tonight as you can see, but this will be something we can both enjoy.”

By that time, they descended the stairs. “What is it?”

She turned her head to meet his gaze. “Put a babe in my belly. It’s time, don’t you think? We have both grieved enough after losing the first one.”

“I…” He nearly missed two treads. When he corrected himself, he paused them both on the second-floor landing where some of the guests could be seen in the hall below. “Truly?”

“Yes.”

“You don’t think our ill luck was due to my being cursed?” It was a constant worry.

“I do not. It is simply life.” When she nodded, there was such joy in her expression he wanted to ask her to teach him how to find his own. After the miscarriage, they’d thought she’d been increasing a couple of times, but it wasn’t to be. “Starting tonight, no matter how long it takes, help me to fall pregnant, Giles. I want to give you that heir. It will be my greatest gift to you.”

To his horror, moisture welled in his eyes, for he wasn’t aware of how much he’d wanted a child until this moment. “As if that will be a hardship. I do adore putting you through your paces, but that won’t be your greatest gift.”

“No?” A bit of confusion lined her face.

“No.” He shook his head. “Giving me a chance, loving me as I am was that gift. It has completely transformed me. I can never thank you enough.”

“Such gammon.” But they both shared a laugh. “There is no man I would have instead than the one I made up in my imagination, because, to me, he is perfect.”

With the tears still welling in his eyes, Giles swept her into his arms, and because he could, and it was duke’s prerogative after all, he kissed her soundly.

To applause from the gathered guests downstairs.

Then he grinned as he pulled away. “Let us greet our guests so I can have a dance with my wife.” With his lips to the shell of her ear, he whispered, “And later, I will fuck my wife with such vigor and intent that our wishes for a child will have no choice but to materialize.”

When a blush appeared on her cheeks, he led them down the staircase. Never in his wildest dreams did he think he would take a wife after the pain of his past, but now, he couldn’t imagine his life without her.

Fate was a fickle mistress, apparently, but she did prove results. That was good enough for him.