Page 104 of The Phantom Duke

“You truly are my hero!”

From where he had been kissing her neck, Damien’s frowning face appeared. He silenced her once more. This time, sheallowed it to continue. A weight that had rested upon her shoulders for years, all through her father’s drunken rages, had lifted for good. And she knew well what his kisses might lead to and welcomed it, passion awakening within her with startling force.

The pressure that had driven her to seek aid for the orphanage, to accept the offer of marriage from the duke, was gone. For the first time that she could remember, there was no fear. And no doubt.

She cupped her husband’s beautiful face in her hand, stroking the lines of his high, angular cheeks, tracing the blade of his strong jaw even as she explored the soft planes of his lips. He nuzzled at her neck, making her writhe, eyes squeezed tightly shut.

“My beautiful wife,” he said. “I am so eager to be inside her.”

Maria let out a little laugh, for her husband had often been inside her since their first amorous congress. “Are you not tired of me yet?”

She ran her fingers through his mane of hair, he allowed it to grow even longer these days, usually tied neatly back. Now Damien shook it loose so that it cascaded around her.

“I will never tired of being sheathed inside of you,” he said, his eyes blazing. “You are so soft and warm, and you feel so very good with your walls pressed against me.”

She groaned, that familiar ache forming between her legs at hearing him describe their coupling in such a brazen manner.

“You are going to undo me,” she said.

“With pleasure.”

She looked into his barbarian face, a savage pagan warrior, a prince of the exotic east. Maria rested her hands upon his broad chest, feeling the tightly controlled power there. More kisses pressed her down to the bed. She gathered handfuls of his shirt, pulling it free from his breeches with more and more urgency in her tugs.

Then she could grab at his bare back, find purchase with her nails, claim him as hers. She pressed her thighs together to soothe the ache, noting with no small measure of satisfaction that she was already wet for him.

Damien shrugged off the shirt, tossing it aside and unveiling his muscular body to her. Maria’s pulse jumped, her eyes hungrily roaming over his strong shoulders and impressive chest all the way down to his narrow waist. Then he pulled Maria from the bed by her hands until she sat upright.

Then he began helping her to unbutton her gown. His movements were quick, but to Maria, it felt as though he was taking an eternity to undress her. She pushed the bodice down to her waist and then began to unlace her stays, her fingers made clumsy by her eagerness for his touch.

“You wear far too many garments!” Damien exclaimed as he tore at the ties that kept his wife’s naked breasts from him.

Maria laughed, warmth rushing to her face. “I could not agree more. I would be happy walking around naked were it not for Gilbert and the servants.”

Finally, she was released from it. She wore a chemise beneath which survived mere seconds. Damien did not bother to strip it from her but, instead, ripped it asunder. Maria clutched the ruined material to her bosom and looked back at him from beneath lowered lashes. Seeing a show of his raw strength never ceased to make her heartbeat thunder in delight.

Damien commenced kissing her back, following a path that made her arch her back, lifting her hair up high to allow him to kiss her neck. She turned to kiss him over her shoulder, but his lips danced teasingly out of her reach.Each kiss was like a branding, and she squirmed against the bedlinens, letting friction build between the fine fabric and her aching, needing sex.

Instead, he kissed her shoulders and the back of her neck, his hands going around to remove the last vestiges of clothing from her upper body. Then his strong, broad hands cupped her breasts, his hands rough and persistent. Maria melted into him, biting her lip and closing her eyes.

She turned to him and kissed his chest, biting gently and licking, savoring him inch by inch. The smell of Bay Rum filled her nostrils, the freshness of the scent mingling in the air with hissweat and masculine musk. Her tongue lingered longest over those parts of him that she knew he was self-conscious about. Still.

The red birthmark that covered his left side. Maria always took care to show devotion to that part of him, kissing him with as much fervor as she possessed, even as her core ached for want of attention.

They helped each other with their remaining clothes, the act of undressing as important a part of their lovemaking as the act itself. Fabric tore. Garments and stockings and shoes were flung carelessly to the floor and over furniture. Then the moment that always felt as though it were happening for the first time, as if their passion was awakened anew every time that they made love. The moment in which their bodies joined.

Suddenly, gloriously after increasingly frenetic play that led to it. That moment in which their bodies became one and Maria’s reasoning mind dissolved, leaving her in a world of instinct and sensuality.

She burned inside and ached, shoving herself against him, and when he plunged inside her at last, Maria tossed her head back with a scream of pleasure. When she clutched at his muscular, powerful frame. When she held him tightly as he thrust and moaned her name, the syllables emerged in desperate, worshipful breaths.

“Maria…” he groaned her name as if it was a prayer, as if he was dying man and only she could save him. “God, Maria!”

“Yes!” she exclaimed, riding him fiercely.

He met every rock of her hips with a thrust, a push and a pull that made her muscles tight. She gasped, her entire body quivering as that familiar sensation of release grew tighter and tighter inside her. At last, she came, white spots filling her vision as she rode the wave of glorious pleasure.

There was nothing hidden between them any longer. Their bodies were mapped and explored. Their minds were open to each other. There was nothing in the world for them to be afraid of. Not now they had truly found each other.

After sometimes languid, sometimes passionate and frenetic love-making, they lay entangled amid the scattered bedclothes. Damien drowsed, his head on her breast. Maria lay with one hand on her stomach. She wondered if this time, a little brother or sister for Gilbert had been made.

It did not matter if not. There would be tomorrow night. Or the next. So many nights that her body quivered just thinking of them.

“I love you,” she whispered.

He tilted his head, his soft hair brushing against her breasts. Their eyes met. “I love you, too.”

She smiled, closing her eyes, letting sleep take them both.

The End?