Page 23 of Unraveled by the Duke (Scandalous Duchesses #1)

He always pushes me away. He always tries to keep me at arm’s length.

I thought that my desire was matched by his.

I hoped that at least this farce of a marriage would provide companionship with a man I found interesting.

I hoped there would be more to this marriage than an illusion to placate the ton. And he is dashing my hopes. Damn him!

“I was, and for the same reason, I am now married to you—for a fat dowry. And I planned to get rid of Lavinia as soon as I could,” Alexander seethed.

“Just as you plan to get rid of me, clearly,” Celia retorted.

They stood almost nose to nose, their voices raised. Had Finsbury House been better staffed, their argument would have been heard by all. There were no servants to hear it, though, except Peggy.

“No!” Alexander roared.

It stopped the argument dead, cutting through the noise in the same way that the roar of an enraged lion would silence the sounds of the savanna.

Celia blinked. Alexander looked just as surprised. As though the word had been torn from his subconscious with no prior warning.

“Then tell me why you wish me to stay,” Celia said quietly.

Alexander opened his mouth, his eyes holding hers with the force of magnets. She could not look away, could not step away. He drew her into his orbit, and she could not escape. Not if there was the smallest glimmer of hope.

He closed his mouth and looked away, half-turning. “Perhaps you have a point. Maybe I am being… sentimental. It comes from being in this house once again. I should have had it demolished.”

“If there is nothing holding me here but fear of scandal, then… that is not enough,” Celia said.

She turned to the door and reached it with no word or gesture to stop her. When she opened it, Alexander had not moved.

Celia stopped. She willed herself to move, to run. To take Aurelia and flee this lonely, cold house. They could take their chances at Banfield. At least there were people there. At least she could try to put Alexander out of her mind and her dreams.

But she could not move, did not want to cast the die irrevocably. She wanted to be caught. She looked back over her shoulder at him.

“One week has passed,” she said quietly.

She did not mean it to sound seductive, but her voice was husky with desire. If it enticed him, then… then what? Would she surrender to his desire?

Not just his desire. Mine, too. Part of me craves his company. The other is wanton and wild and desires things I dare not admit to myself.

“It has. I have not forgotten,” Alexander replied. “Are you reminding me for a reason?”

She turned her head back, looking away from him. The dream came back to her, being flipped onto her front, and what had followed. Her breath came hard and fast. She closed her eyes as she heard him step closer.

“Because I have not forgotten either,” she said.

He was close enough now that she could feel his breath on the back of her neck. She bit her lip as he gently brushed her hair aside, exposing her throat. When she felt his lips on the skin beneath her jaw, she could not hold back a gasp.

The kiss began as the touch of a feather. So light, it was almost as though she had imagined it. She lifted her head, allowing her body to move back, to lean slightly until she felt Alexander’s rigid strength. His hands clamped around her forearms and held them to her sides. He was tender but firm.

The kisses deepened. His lips pressed hard against her neck and parted. She felt his teeth nip the vulnerable skin of her throat. Her own lips parted, and she licked them. Her mouth was suddenly dry.

Every part of her felt exposed, as though she stood naked. Her heaving breath made her breasts feel naked to his strong hands, if he chose to cup them. To squeeze and knead them.

Then, he spun her around to face him. His hands wrapped around her waist, and she was pushed backward, a partner in an ancient and primal dance. The movement only stopped when Celia was pressed against the wall.

With one hand, Alexander flung the door shut. It slammed loudly. But by then, Celia was lost to any external stimulus. She wrapped her arms about his broad shoulders and kissed his lips with the hunger of a starving woman. And she was starving.

He had starved her of companionship, deprived her of his presence, which she found so attractive, which fueled such fevered dreams. Now, she felt as though she were feasting.

His hands went from her waist to her buttocks, squeezing the globes through the fabric. His fingers explored her contours, a man savoring the lines of a sculpture he had come to possess.

The idea of being his possession, marked by his lips and owned by his hands, was inflaming. She whispered his name between clashing lips. The taste of his mouth drove her to deliriums of lust, and the feel of his manhood pressed against her both frightened and aroused her.

With casual strength, he gripped her buttocks and lifted her. One hand pulled her leg up and over his hip. His fingers deftly traced the line of that leg until he reached her foot. The soft, indoor slipper she wore was cast aside.

His fingers began their return journey, dancing over her silk stockings until they reached the hem mid-thigh. Then, they yanked down her stocking, hard. She heard the material rip at the harsh treatment and cried out.

The cool air kissed her bare leg. Her skirt was lifted, and she felt the entire length of her leg being exposed. From hip to toe, she was bare.

Alexander spun again, holding her up, lifting her skirts so that she could wrap both legs around his hips.

Having her legs wrapped around him, his manhood straining with herculean effort against the fabric that separated it from the heart of her womanhood, felt natural and right, though she had never done anything like it before.

Alexander carried her to the far side of the room and kicked open a door. Beyond was his bedchamber. Celia moaned as he lowered her to the bed and lifted his head to deny her kisses. He looked down at her with a face cruel and tight with barely controlled desire.

It was the face of David—beautiful and perfect, but hard and unrelenting.

Celia ran her hands up his chest and then down his sides, marveling at the hard muscles she felt. She reached his hips and pulled at his shirt, drawing it out of his breeches, tearing at it until she could lay her hands on his bare skin.

Her head was pressed down into the mattress as Alexander’s mouth descended upon hers.

Her consciousness spun, her awareness of the room, the house, and the world beyond fleeing.

There was only the heat of Alexander’s body atop hers.

The weight of him and the unending, hot pressure that demanded release.

She relinquished her exploration of his back to boldly reach for the button securing his breeches, even pushing at him to give her space.

When that button was undone, she pushed down his waistband, which slid over his buttocks.

Then, she raised her eyes to his, afraid to look down, afraid of what the sight of his desire made manifest would do to her nerves.

Alexander smiled, tracing the lines of her face with his finger, ending at her lips. He ran his fingertip around her lips and then raised it to his own. Finally, he took her hand in his own and lowered it to his bare manhood.

Celia moaned his name as her hand closed around his member.

He reciprocated, whispering hers and placing his hand over her sex.

She did not know what to do, how to touch or move, but obeyed an instinct that had been locked deep within her until this point.

In return, Alexander touched her with deft expertise.

He delved, stroked, licked, and kissed, and Celia writhed under eruptions of liquid pleasure that surged through her. She screamed the first time it swept through her. And the second. Then, she pulled him closer, guiding him inside her, and finally, gloriously, they were joined.

There was pain, sweet and delicious, but it was overwhelmed by other sensations. By volcanic pleasure and nerve-tingling lust.

His body crushed her, and she demanded more. He penetrated her, and she screamed for more. Her nails raked his back, drawing a smile of gritted teeth and slitted eyes from her lover. From her husband.

Now, that word meant something.