Page 54 of The Duke is Wicked
His hands roamed down her arms, capturing her wrists. “When you do, I find I’m always extremely charitable.”
She sighed, looking utterly dissatisfied.
“Maybe I want more from you. Your mind, not your body.” Laughing softly, he shook his head. Who was he kidding? He wanted her so badly he trembled with the force of it. “There’s time, the rest of the night, for me to pleasure you.”
One side of her mouth kicked up. “I suppose.”
After all, during the begging incident, he’d made her come twice before finally sliding inside her. To his mind, it had been excruciatingandextraordinary.
He brought her wrist to his lips and pressed a soft kiss over her flickering pulse. “You, my darling Temple, are a dreadful loser.” Tugging her to her feet, he linked fingers and escorted her across the room. “Call your dog, madam.”
Halting in the dungeon’s entrance, she gazed up at him in question, her face so lovely in the dim gaslight.
She was too young, too bright, too wonderful for him, but he was taking her anyway.
“A moonlight walk along that silly old moat you love so much. I’ll tell you a spot of history I uncovered about its creation.”
“Oh,” she breathed, as pleased as if he’d offered her a diamond tiara, which he’d had his solicitor send from London last week. It was the oldest piece in the Tremont family, circa 1550 or thereabouts. The age of the thing alone might convince her to marry him.
“Hep,” she called and slapped her thigh. The pup yawned, shook his bottom, scrambled to his feet and trotted to them.
Joining arms, they climbed the stairs, the dog trailing behind, like a family. For an instant, Sebastian was breathless with hope.
Soon, he thought,I’ll ask again.Soon.
But he worried how his independent, cantankerous hellion would react when he did.
* * *
Delaney woke in a panic, calculating dates in her mind.
When was the last…?
Calendar. She needed a calendar.
Wiggling from beneath the arm Sebastian had thrown across her waist, she slid from his bed with a calm capture of breath. A ticking mantel clock and a crackling hearthfire, the only sounds filling the night. Grabbing the Soul Catcher from the bedside table, she tiptoed across the room, perched on the chaise lounge and dropped her head to her hands, delaying entering her attic, which, after leaving Sebastian’s moonlit bedroom, would be gloomy indeed.
She glanced back, hesitant, even for a moment, to abandon him.
The images hit her like punches. Sebastian’s cunning smile across a chessboard, the dreamy look in his eyes when he surrendered to passion, the way his mouth dipped on the right side when he held back laughter. His new spectacles, which made her feel practically faint every time he wore them. The tick in his jaw that appeared when he was vexed. The scars on his body she’d traced with her fingers until she could locate them in the pitch-black.
His kindness. His arrogance. His uncertainty. About her and life.
The man who woke from nightmares, lungs churning, hand reaching to clasp hers to bring him back to life.
She loved every wondrous facet—the lost boy shivering by a fountain most of all.
Drawing a shaky breath, Delaney stepped into her dimly-lit attic, found a calendar on a high shelf and flipped back and forth between the pages, counting days in her mind. May, June, May, June. Eight weeks since she’d arrived in Oxfordshire. Six since she and Sebastian had started—
Six.Oh.
As Piper had instructed her to do, Delaney focused on an element of Sebastian’s bedroom—the charred edge of the Aubusson carpet, a bequest from one of his less controlled moments—to bring herself back. The room was unchanged when she returned, flushed with moonlight and a duke’s faint breaths. Sliding to the floor, she pressed her hand to her belly, imagining a baby,theirbaby, growing inside of her.
Although Sebastian had been careful—to the point of insult—staying inside her only the one time, theirfirsttime, she’d known pregnancy was possible. She spun the Soul Catcher in her hand, a golden glitter sprinkling the walls.
A dilemma. Because she didn’t want to be a duchess, andhedidn’t want to be a father.
She’d overheard Sebastian speaking to Julian about Lucien’s apparent talent and detected the raw dread in his voice. He wasn’t taking such strict precautions when they made love due to a deep attachment. His withdrawal created distance during an intimate act. She was bereft, each time, alone as he gained his release apart from her.