Page 13 of The Duke of Swords (The Highwaymen #4)

RUTCHESTER WOKE UP to find her perched over him in his bed. She was there, nervous, sitting up, staring down at him with wide eyes, and he opened his eyes to the sight of her there.

It had been a bad decision to allow her to sleep here with him in his bed, of course, but it had been so very nice that he hadn’t had the strength not to indulge. He hadn’t slept in the same bed with anyone in some time.

A year or two ago, he’d had to share a bed with Arthford at an inn while they were traveling once, and he’d apparently wrapped his body around the other man’s in the night.

Arthford had woken and pushed him off, swearing at him, and then Rutchester had broken a window in the inn, because he’d been ashamed of himself and couldn’t seem to stop the destructive power that exploded through his fists.

It was only…

It was nice, having someone to sleep with.

She was all softness and roundedness—round hips, a round arse, her very round little breasts—and all of that was very nice to sleep curled around.

Lord, but he liked her.

Why couldn’t she simply dislike him, as would only make sense? Why did she have to be so wrongheaded about him? It made everything so very confusing and horrible.

He should be horrible to her, he thought. He should be gruff now, make her think that he hated her. It would be for her own good.

But he didn’t have it in him to hurt her worse than she’d already been hurt. They’d be in London tonight for the evening meal. He’d take her to stay with Nothshire and his duchess—

No, with Dunrose and his, for they didn’t have any children, and Nothshire and his wife had one and another on the way. They were busy enough without having another burden.

Dunrose and his duchess would see to her.

He’d stay with Nothshire and leave her with Dunrose. If she simply was away from him, it would be good for her. She could think more clearly about what had occurred if she wasn’t near him all the time. She’d eventually come around to disliking him, he was certain of that.

So, what did it matter if he was kind to her now? If he was affectionate with her? If he wanted to run his hands over all those soft, rounded parts of her?

He sighed, reaching up to cup her cheek with one hand. “Good morning. Aren’t you pretty in my bed?”

Her breath caught in her throat. “Am I prettier in your bed than elsewhere?”

“Definitely,” he said, smiling up at her.

“Because I’m yours here?”

He groaned. But he tugged her down against him, so that she collided with his chest. “Mine,” he agreed, and then he kissed her.

She opened her mouth to him, a little shiver going through her body. She slid her hands into his hair, cupping his face, moving her tongue against his, making little tiny noises in the back of her throat.

He rolled over, rolled onto her.

She peered up at him, blinking her pretty lashes, gasping.

He should move off of her. He should stop all of this.

“Do you want me?” she breathed.

“Obviously,” he said. “Always.”

She sucked in a sharp breath, letting out another shiver. His saying that had pleased her. “W-well… I do, too. Want you, I mean.”

“Do you?” He rocked back onto his knees. Now he was kneeling between her spread thighs, because she’d somehow parted them for him when he’d rolled onto her. He looked down at her like that, all spread out for him, ready for him, and his cock jumped.

This… he sometimes fantasized about women wanting him. All men did. But he had long ago dismissed the entire idea as nothing more than that. A fantasy. Women didn’t really even like it, he didn’t think.

Even if they thought they did, it was more about simply enjoying pleasing someone, someone they liked for other reasons. How could a woman…?

But of course they must sort of like it, mustn’t they?

All animals had some drive for it. Without some desire, there would never be any young.

He lifted the skirts of her nightdress, and she wasn’t wearing anything underneath that, nothing at all.

His cock jumped again. He liked the look of her, but then, he always had.

This little cunny of hers, so tidy and tiny and tucked away primly under the little thatch of her dark curls, it was impossibly lovely and impossibly, well, filthy in some other way.

How it could be both, pretty and primordial, all at the same time, he didn’t know, but it was.

He was gentle as he probed it, noting how small it seemed when his thick, burly fingers rubbed it, liking that, too, for some (probably wretched) reason, the juxtaposition of it—her small, him large, her delicate, him sturdy.

But he found the evidence of what he wanted there when she was slick against his probing fingers.

Maybe she did want him.

Maybe she would like this tiny little hole of hers, this one, that was weeping her juices all over his fingers, stretched around his thick member, penetrated and stuffed full of him, maybe she’d like it, too.

He huffed.

“Mmm,” she sighed, reaching down and moving his fingers, pulling them up from her opening to the top of her sex, where there was a little protrusion, a nub.

Yes, he remembered this little nub before, from after he’d come to her straight from Fateux.

He remembered the way she’d slicked her own fingers over it, the way he’d tried to copy her movement, the noises she’d made when he got it right.

He even might remember that it had a name.

He had taken an anatomy class once, after all.

The name of it was evading him. He passed his thumb over it.

She made a very lovely noise, a noise that made his bollocks tight.

He made a noise back and kept touching her there.

Clitoris.

Yes, that was right. Except he’d never gone to classes at university, spending too much time out drinking, numbing himself, and his father had paid off his anatomy professor to overlook the fact that Rutchester knew next-to-nothing about human anatomy.

The professor had managed to even make the discussion of female reproductive parts dull as dust. It was amazing Rutchester did remember the word.

He kept at her little clitoris with one hand, noting that it was getting bigger and plumper the more he toyed with it, and freed himself from his small clothes with his other hand. He gave his prick several little strokes and then tried to line himself up with her tiny, lovely, filthy little hole.

It didn’t seem to work in this position though.

He took her by the hips and pulled her up over his legs. He pushed into her, and she felt like sinking into warm, silky bliss. She cried out. He grunted. He put his thumb back on her plump little clitoris.

She cried out again.

“Good,” he muttered. “Be mine, then, in my bed, hmm? Take me right here and let me touch you?”

“Please,” she breathed. Her eyes were squeezed shut and her lips were parted. She was entirely at his mercy like this, and she didn’t look even a little bit displeased about that notion.

He started to fuck her.

It took him a minute, but he eventually found a way to rub her clitoris in the same rhythm as his strokes within her. Well, the opposite rhythm, actually. He stroked her as he pulled out of her and then moved his thumb and slammed deep, deep into her, and then did it again, and again, and again.

Until she was shuddering and panting and begging him, every other word out of her mouth, “Please” and “More” and “Almost.”

He wanted her to come.

He almost came ten times himself.

He had to stop thrusting in her each time, and he kept faltering his movement on her clitoris every time, too, but he would find that rhythm again, giving himself enough of a break to wait.

He wanted it to happen while he was in her.

He wanted to feel that. He wanted her speared and stuck on his thick, hard cock while she had her release and he wanted to stare into that sweet little cunny of hers while it happened, while he made it happen.

If she came, it was different, that was what he told himself.

Not in so many words, not really, because he was too aroused for that kind of nuanced thought. But if she came, if he made her come, then…

Well, the back part of his brain knew this was meaningless, because he’d been forced to orgasm while he was being raped. He knew it didn’t matter.

He also knew that it was better the times he came than the times he didn’t.

If a person was going to force himself on you, it was nicer if you had a bit of compensatory pleasure along with being used for theirs.

And he knew the times he came were worse than the times he didn’t, because he wondered if they meant he liked it or that he had somehow, internally, consented.

She told me she wanted me, he thought as he jammed himself in and out of the perfect tight wetness of her.

Of course, she was in no position to know what she wanted, and he knew that, too.

This was wrong, so fucking wrong.

He nearly crested thinking that. Why was it so more erotic when it was wrong? Damnation.

“Almost, almost, almost,” Rae was panting. “Please.”

“Come for me,” he said to her. “Come on my hard prick.”

“Almost,” she moaned, her voice breaking.

“Come for me and be even prettier,” he said.

She cried out. “Will I be prettier if I come?”

“Yes,” he said.

“And yours? I’ll be yours?”

“You are mine,” he said.

And that was when she came, an avalanche of clenches all around his sensitive member and he very nearly came too, but he had one last little presence of mind to not do that— cannot get her with child —and pulled himself free and spattered her with his release, spattered her spread thighs and the curls of her and her hips—dear God, there was a lot of it.

Fuck.

He glared down at her body, decorated with the splashes of white liquid that had just come out of him, and he wondered why things always seemed to be such marvelous ideas when you were riding the edge of an orgasm, and then, when you had already come, only made you feel ashamed of your fucking self.