Page 14 of The Duke Says I Do (Scoundrels of Mayfair #4)

Relief flooded Portia. She sensed the precise moment that Alaric yielded. The resistance drained from his body, and his hand shaped her breast with delightful purpose.

She made an incoherent sound of pleasure, as sensation arrowed down to concentrate in that yearning space between her legs. She’d wanted him to touch her breasts forever. Thinking about his hands on her body had kept her awake or twisting in feverish dreams.

Her nipples tightened with such wicked longing that they hurt. When he plucked at a pearled peak through her clothes, she whimpered.

“You’re a devil.” The heat in his voice made the words sound more like praise than criticism. “I can’t resist you.”

She channeled her fingers through his thick, fair hair. “I’m your devil.”

A faint smile lightened his features. “You are, at that.”

His lips on hers always transported her into another world, so it took a few seconds to realize that he tackled the buttons down the front of her pelisse. It took her even longer to note that he performed the action with a smoothness that betrayed his familiarity with getting ladies out of their clothes.

She drew back from the kiss. “Goodness me, you do that well.”

With a huff of laughter, he shifted to the side to support himself on one elbow. “I have done this before, I’ll have you know.”

“There’s never been any gossip about your affairs.” Her pelisse was open as far as her waist.

“That should reassure you that I can be discreet.” He dipped his head and kissed the slope of her breasts above the gown. “I approve of the ensemble.”

A thrill rippled through her, then another as his teeth scraped across her skin. “Do that again.”

He laughed against her skin and squeezed her breast at the same time as his lips explored her décolletage.

She glanced down. “It seemed sensible to wear something that I could undo myself.” How did she manage to put two words together when he stirred such marvelous feelings?

He raised his head and studied her with a focus that was arousing. “Good for you.”

As he undid her gown down to its high waist, his hands were sure. With a shiver of anticipation, she imagined what those hands would soon do to her.

Gently, he brushed the edges of the dress aside to reveal what lay beneath. The top of her stays and her white shift. The corset pushed her breasts high against the linen. Her beaded nipples were raspberry pink through the frail covering.

When he didn’t speak, a twinge of uncertainty had her biting her lip. His features were stern. Once that had fooled her into thinking that he had no feelings. She knew better now, but the taut silence made her nervous. “Please say something.”

“Portia…” The word trailed away to nothing.

“Yes?” Her voice wavered.

When she’d pulled him into the hay, she’d brimmed with confidence. Now that he undressed her, she was less self-assured. Especially as it became clear that Alaric was adept at the sensual game, while she remained a rank beginner.

At last he looked up. The blaze in his eyes incinerated her insecurities. “You’re so beautiful.”

Joy blossomed inside her. She stretched up to kiss him in an excess of desire and gratitude. As he met her with unabashed enthusiasm, she curled her hand around his neck. He deepened the kiss and stroked the skin above her shift. Every cell in her body came alive to his caresses. He teased her, edging closer to her shift without delving beneath.

At last he slipped his fingers under the linen and cupped her naked breast.

Portia wriggled in wordless encouragement, as the ache in her nipples sharpened. Then released a muffled cry when he pinched one peak between thumb and forefinger. She dissolved into liquid heat, and her body softened as it prepared for his possession.

The sensation of his fingers on her bare breast sent her up in flames. In an instinctive plea for more, her hips jerked toward his hardness.

He loosened the drawstring, allowing her breasts to spill out. The awe on his face made her feel as beautiful as Venus. And proud of that beauty.

She spread her shaking hand over his chest, feeling his heart thunder beneath her palm. Heat radiated from him, alluring as a fire blazing in a hearth.

Alaric pressed his mouth to hers and pushed her skirts higher. The needy hollows of her body grew slick with excitement, as his hand traced her thigh under her loose drawers. In an agony of suspense, she waited for him to touch her there, in the secret place that ached for him. So many powerful urges assailed her, she wondered why she didn’t explode.

Earthy female arousal tinged the air, along with dust and hay and horses. And something musky that she guessed was male arousal. It smelled like Alaric, but it also smelled like masculine need.

When he took his hand away, she wanted to howl in disappointment. She ripped her lips from his to demand, beg, that he keep going, but he spoke first.

“Spread your legs for me, Portia.” His gruffness reflected his urgency.

She obeyed with alacrity. She was hot and wet and empty, and she needed him to fill the yearning space. He found the slit in her drawers and insinuated his hand inside. When he cupped her mound, she shuddered in surprise. And pleasure.

Over the pulse in her ears, she barely heard his choked sound of approval. Her hips rose toward that teasing hand and her fingers circled his arm.

When he lingered at a particularly sensitive place, pulses of searing desire blasted her. The crumpled froth of skirts and petticoats around her hips stopped her from seeing what he did. That just made the experience more evocative. Every sense woke to this seduction.

“Do…it.” Talking was almost impossible.

Alaric frowned, although his hand continued its unsettling explorations. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

She quivered under his touch and spread her legs wider. “It hurts to want you like this.”

Still touching her between the legs, he kissed her again, lips voracious. She sucked his tongue into her mouth and pressed up in a plea to take this further.

Portia felt pressure between her legs. With a shock, she realized that his finger was inside her. She gasped against his mouth. The sensation was strange, a little uncomfortable. Almost pleasurable, especially when she tightened around the invasion.

Alaric raised his head to watch her as he slid his finger in and out. Deeper pressure told her that he now used two fingers. Her body clung to him, as he established a steady rhythm that beat in her blood.

It wasn’t enough. She wanted him to give her everything. She attained such a pitch of craving that she didn’t care if it hurt. “I want you now.”

“You’re so tight,” he said unevenly.

“I’m ready.” With daring born of desperation, she tore at the buttons on his breeches.

His rod strained the gray buckram. It looked huge. Impossibly huge. How on earth would that fit inside her? The prospect should terrify her. But even that wasn’t enough to discourage her.

“Portia, I’m trying to do the right thing.” He sounded as if it hurt to talk.

To her frustration, he stopped touching her and caught her seeking hand. She stared up into his eyes, seeing the war that he fought with himself. That rampant flesh between his legs and the hunger she read in his expression revealed that he was as mad to have her as she was to be had. But the Galahad jaw was set like stone, and the telltale muscle flickered in his cheek.

Portia took a moment to appreciate his consideration. She couldn’t love a selfish man. But she wanted the key to the mystery that had tormented her since their first kiss. She couldn’t deny herself any longer. She couldn’t deny him.

“The right thing is for you to make love to me.” Desire roughened her voice.

“Portia…”

“Please.” Tears stung her eyes, and her voice cracked with need. She twisted her hand out of his grasp and flattened it against the bulge in his breeches. His member surged against her palm and he shuddered. Without thinking, she fitted her hand around him.

Alaric released a long, guttural groan and his hips jerked forward to further the contact. “I can’t resist you.”

“Don’t resist me.” Triumph filled her. When she angled up to kiss him, his lips tasted of surrender. “We both want this.”

She waited for him to protest in his knight-in-shining-armor way, but she’d vanquished his qualms at last. His kiss turned fierce, exciting her to the point of madness.

Through the daze of pleasure, she felt his hand moving between them. Then he slid over her, settling between her parted legs. He propped himself on his elbows and stared into her face as if it offered a compass bearing toward home in a storm. She raised her chin and managed a smile. A tad shaky, but a smile nonetheless.

“I want you, Alaric.” Sincerity deepened her voice to a husky contralto. “I want you so much.”

It was true. Despite trepidation. Despite a lifetime of chastity.

“And I want you, Portia.” His face was flushed, and his eyes were black with desire. “Bend your knees and tilt toward me.”

Excitement speared her. Without hesitation, she obeyed his orders.

Something hot and smooth nudged her. A stretching sensation had her inhaling sharply. This felt different from his fingers.

He reached down with one hand, keeping his weight off her with his other arm. She guessed he guided himself in. “Don’t hold your breath or I’ll hurt you,” he said jerkily.

With an audible puff, she released her pent-up breath. She closed her eyes and hooked her hands over his shoulders.

When he surged forward, she cried out. White-hot pain sliced her. Her hands formed talons in his shirt, as she fought the urge to weep. He sank onto her and buried his face in the curve of her neck and shoulder.

Even as she fought to overcome the agony, her body shifted and changed. Pain ebbed, replaced by a feeling of fullness. The intimacy beggared her torrid imaginings. This was so much more substantial, as if life grounded her in a connection as invincible as the planets’ orbit or the rising of the sun.

Her deathly grip eased to a caress. With every second, she became more accustomed to having him inside her. The pain became a mere memory. The present was closeness and heat, and air laden with the scent of sexual desire.

Alaric had a talent for making the rest of the world disappear. It happened when they danced. It happened when they kissed. Pinned beneath him, spread-eagled across a pile of hay redolent of sweet summer, she lay safe in a radiant bubble.

He was heavy, and he occupied every inch of her. She’d never been as close to anyone. She loved him so much, she overflowed with adoration. Her hands shifted from his shoulders to tangle in the soft curls at his nape. She settled into the hay. A soft gasp escaped, as the new position changed how he felt inside her.

Alaric tilted up on his elbows, looking concerned, looking like he cared. Portia reminded herself not to succumb to romantic dreams, even if an unwise woman might mistake the glow in his eyes for love.

“Are you all right?”

She summoned another smile. “Yes, I’m wonderful.”

Portia loved being connected to Alaric. She loved the raw physicality of this experience.

He smiled back. “You are indeed.” Before she could bask in the compliment, he frowned again. “I’m sorry I hurt you.”

“I don’t mind.” She touched his cheek, feeling whiskers under her fingers. “I’m so glad we got to do this.”

He adopted a knowing air. “We’re not done yet. Not by a long chalk.”

Her eyes rounded with astonishment. “But you’ve…”

Pushed inside me. Taken my virginity. Claimed me as yours.

“There’s more.”

More? The mind boggled. She frowned. “Will it hurt?”

“I hope not. Shall we see?”

She stretched out and curled her toes in exquisite anticipation. The movement awoke a flutter deep inside her. Akin to when he touched between her legs with such combustible effect.

What he’d done so far fitted with Juliet’s description of the marital act. While the actual deed was richer and more complicated, at least she understood the path she was on. Now she wasn’t nearly so sure.

“Yes, please.” She lifted her knees again and curled her arms around his back. She loved that she could touch him as much as she wanted.

Upon a faint laugh, he kissed her. Despite his light tone, his kiss was long and intense. Portia surrendered with wholehearted passion. She couldn’t confess her love. Not in words, at least. But when they kissed like this, her heart declared how precious he was.

The ardent kiss distracted her, so when he moved, he caught her unawares.

Instinctively, she went taut to keep him where he was. A muttered protest escaped her, and she bumped her hips up.

As he lifted his head, his groan was heartfelt. “Do that again.”

“Do what?”

“Squeeze me tight.”

This time, she did it on purpose. Rapture washed over his features. “Yes,” he purred.

He shifted again. Still away.

Her nails dug into his nape. “Don’t go.”

“This is part of the more.”

“Oh,” she said, then “oh” again in a different tone altogether as he pulled back. She felt every inch of withdrawal. She dug her fingers into his back, where his muscles clenched and released through his shirt.

Without quite leaving her body, he thrust forward. There was no pain, only the intoxicating sensation of her body adjusting to him. Portia sighed with enjoyment when he went deeper. The next time, she knew what to expect. She’d seen animals mate. How stupid she was not to understand that humans were animals, too.

Alaric established a rhythm as relentless as waves rushing up a beach. Flickers of pleasure ignited to become torment. Every nerve in her body awoke to what he did. She moaned and bowed up to take more. Heat and hunger surged higher and higher.

She strained for something that remained just out of reach. Her next moan verged on a sob. “Alaric…”

“Come for me,” he crooned.

She didn’t know what he meant. She bit her lip hard as the beckoning became red-hot demand. Still, he kept up that steady movement, taking her further with each plunge until she felt likely to shred into a thousand pieces.

His breath was ragged, and his skin turned into a furnace as she writhed beneath him. Under her hands, his back was hard like granite. Warm, living granite.

He shifted his weight onto one arm and slipped his hand between her legs to seek that hidden place that gave her such a frisson. Tension coalesced into a searing blast of light and heat.

Suddenly Portia soared free through the storm. The experience transcended anything that she’d ever known. Ecstasy crashed through her like lightning. The world turned gold and bright. She cried out and pressed closer to Alaric as molten fire coursed through her.

His rhythm faltered and turned choppy. His breath emerged in audible gasps. With a guttural groan, he wrenched out of her arms and slumped face down in the hay.

The abrupt end pierced her pleasure like a slap. She opened shocked eyes to watch him. He jerked in what looked like pain and groaned again.

“Alaric, are you all right?” The words scraped over a throat sore after her cries of pleasure.

He lay unmoving, face buried in his folded arms. It was difficult to brush aside the mists of pleasure, but she was worried. Forcing a body as loose as wet string to move, she rose on her elbows and turned her head to study him.

It seemed to take him a year to answer, but finally he turned onto his back with a heavy sigh. He still breathed with great gusts, as if he starved for air. His eyes remained shut.

She couldn’t help glancing down to his gaping breeches, but the loose shirt preserved his modesty. “What is it?” she asked, disquiet knotting her stomach.

“I promised I’d save you from a baby,” he muttered. He looked as far from the elegant Duke of Granville as it was possible to be. His face was drawn, and his hair was disheveled. His golden whiskers caught the lamplight.

“Yes,” she said. Then after a pause, “Thank you.”

His lips twitched and to her relief, he looked more familiar. “You’re welcome.”

Another silence fell. Portia hadn’t expected to feel awkward after that breathtaking intimacy. But she wasn’t sure how to handle this taciturn man who had been such a superb lover.

At last, Alaric glanced over and took her arm. “How are you?”

“I’m fine,” she said in a flat voice.

“Good.”

She didn’t understand the look that he directed at her. But then, she didn’t understand most of what had happened since he’d so unceremoniously broken away.

With growing surprise, she realized that he felt awkward, too. That made her feel less inadequate. She was terrified that his strange reaction was rooted in dissatisfaction. Just because she’d entered the gates of heaven didn’t mean that he’d experienced a similar epiphany.

Her shaking hand tugged up her shift. In the heat of passion, she’d reveled in his pleasure in her body. But lying here while her lover turned away, she couldn’t help but feel a bit cheap.

Too little, too late, she couldn’t avoid acknowledging.

“Can you bear to kiss me, do you think?” he asked in a diffident voice.

That sounded more promising. “Do you want me to?”

The dark gold brows lowered in displeasure. She was – almost – sure he was displeased with himself and not with her. His words confirmed that suspicion. “I’m sorry, my darling. I’m acting like a blasted idiot. You were such a wonder in my arms, I nearly stayed too long.”

Calling her a wonder mollified hurt feelings. The “my darling” was even better. He’d never used the endearment before. He didn’t have to tell her that he wasn’t given to insincere pronouncements. While calling her his darling didn’t mean that he loved her, it indicated an affection that she’d started to doubt.

Even better, he sounded like himself now. Like the kind man she knew.

“I was worried that I’d done something wrong,” she admitted in a shaky voice. Crazy to feel like weeping, after the most sublime experience of her life.

But she discovered that giving her body to a man pierced her deepest emotions and left her vulnerable in ways she’d never been vulnerable before.

Through hazy vision, Portia saw his face scrunch into a grimace of self-disgust. His grip on her arm changed to a caress. “You did everything right. You did so much right, you damn near broke my heart. Mere mortals aren’t made to dwell in paradise.”

Her megrims receded, as she understood that Alaric had undergone a similar emotional experience. She blinked away the last of her silly tears and blindly turned toward him. Strong arms enclosed her. His lips met hers, and she yielded to the magic of his kiss. When he lifted his head, she was nestled into his side and her hand rested above his pounding heart.

“I’ve never made love in a stable before,” he said, his voice still choked.

“Me either,” she said, then sneezed violently.