Page 51 of The Duke is Wicked
His timing was impeccable. When she shattered, crying out, shivering and clenching around him, he rose above her, taking her final guttural shout into his mouth. Adjusting himself, he slipped inside her in delicate degrees, the sharp pinprick of pain lessened by the pleasure claiming her body. Reaching over her head, he grabbed a pillow, and lifting her hips, positioned it beneath her.
Which opened up the heavens and rained delight on her.
Delaney’s hand found his shoulder, his back, nails sinking into his skin, scratching to his buttocks.
His hand at her waist tilted her hips, adjusting her leg over his thigh and moving deeper. She was lost, but so was he. His murmurs urgent, meaningless, impassioned. Taking her hand, he pressed it deep into the mattress, imprisoning her, gentle possession when there was no need.
She was his.
The pulse was back between her thighs, another round, as he’d suggested. “I can’t,” she whispered against his jaw, pulling him in for a kiss. “I feel…I’m going. Again. Soon.”
“Then do. Soon.” Mercilessly, he increased his tempo, his movement rocking the bed. His fingers trembled where they held her hand. “I want to watch you. I want you to watchme.”
So she did. Turned her head, opened her eyes, and took him in. The scent of him, of them, hard upon her. His eyes lost in amber and specks of gold. His skin moist, his breath short. The bump of their bodies, a delicious, raw catastrophe. When he bent his head and reclaimed her nipple, she fractured in his arms, having nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.
The ride was endless, her vision stinging, skin hot. Wave after wave of pleasure, with Sebastian surrounding her. The most wondrous thing she could imagine experiencing.
Grinding and stroking deeply, he moaned and thrust, sending the headboard against the wall in a steady rhythm. Prolonging her peak until it was almost painful. Then he stilled, gasping, his groan ragged, undone. Dropping his brow to her shoulder, the shudders flowed from his body to hers and back again as his weight forced her deeper into the mattress. Aroused beyond explanation, she could only follow him into the pleasurable twilight. The scrape of his teeth on her neck, his final, desperate plea as he plunged over the abyss.
When he tried to retreat, spill outside her body, she held him close, imploring him to stay, knowing he sought to protect. If this was the only time, she wanted itall.
Every untidy piece of this affair.
A treacherous place, where she, for the single, heartbreaking instant she couldn’t call it back, loved him too much.
* * *
“What are you doing?” Sebastian murmured sleepily from where he dozed by her side, his long body curled around hers, the sheets a damp tangle around them. The bed was an unholy disaster, highlighted in the moonbeam wash leaking through the hushed chamber.
She trailed her finger over his shoulder and across his chest, his salty taste clinging to her tongue, his sweet scent a tenacious tickle in her nose. “I’m counting your scars by moonlight, Your Grace.”
He hummed and pulled her close, until her cheek met the steady beat of his heart.
Moments earlier, after the second encounter—in onenight—he’d paused as they’d shuddered, seeming to consider, gazing down at her with an unfathomable expression before hauling her against his body. Pressing a fast kiss to her brow when she would’ve spoken, a wish to silence her.
He worked hard, her duke, to maintain distance in all aspects of his life.
The night had been miraculous. They’d barely finished when he’d begun again. Touching and kissing, caressing her until she was feral, her initial satiation dispelling like mist in sunlight, and bringing greater need. Greaterwant. She’d begged, gladly, before he’d consented and slid inside her with a lazy thrust that had nearly pushed her over the brink with its splendor.
Truthfully, she’d been reborn.
Now, they lay slumbering, breath returning, skin cooling. She stroked his hair, still so taken with the silken strands, wondering when she would feel herself again. She glowed, body flushed and molten. Sweet nothings and everythings blooming inside her chest. Her attic door closed. A rare instance when her mind, except for when Piper had touched her that one time, was calm.
“You’re in the attic,” she whispered against his moist skin. “I have a special area for you. Those stained glass windows I talked about coloring that particular corner brilliantly. You would be pleased, I think, were you able to see it.”
He exhaled against the crown of her head, the sound missing the joy of the previous hour. “I worry greatly for you. My life has been about protecting others, yet I don’t know how to protect you. Your gift…the way you disappear. Julian has a similar experience when he touches an object. And he’s had trouble returning to this side.”
Delaney shifted until she could see his face, those beautiful eyes unlocking secrets to his soul—if he would only share them. “I’ll join the League. For my protection and yours.”
“Of course, you will,” he said with all the arrogance of his title, his decision made.
She frowned, the dart of temper in her belly a warning sign. “Meaning?” She breathed hard through her nose. Here he was, the bounder, ruining a marvelous encounter,twoencounters, with his conceit.
Sebastian caught the sharpness in her voice and rolled until they were face-to-face. “Don’t even think it.” He took her chin and directed her gaze to his. “We’re getting married, Delaney. Do you imagine I would ruin you and not make this offer?”
It was that statement,ruin you, that brought her heart low. She shook her head and swallowed tightly. “No, I don’t. You’re an honorable man.” When his shoulders started to relax, she rushed to add, “But you’ll have to look elsewhere for a duchess. I must politely decline.”
He worked his arm from beneath her and wrenched to a sit. “Are wetrulygoing to do this? After—” He gestured to the decimated bed. Counterpane in a twist on the floor, sheet torn where she’d ripped it during her final orgasm. “Our clothes are scattered all over the house, Temple. If the servants didn’t hear me shouting when Iarrived, they heard you. One of your fourarrivals, as I recall.”