Dare to Love a Duke Page 19

  But he wasn’t civilized now. He was primal and hungry and burning to devour her. To give her ecstasy.

  “Fucking Christ almighty.” He could barely form words as he caressed her.

  She was wet. So wet. His fingers were glossy with the evidence of her arousal. She mewled as he stroked her, and more sounds climbed up her throat as he traced her pussy and circled the tight knot of her clit. He’d always loved this part of a woman, and touched Lucia with rough reverence. She panted with need when he stroked two fingers up into her passage and thrust.

  He hadn’t spoken Gaelic in years, and yet he turned to it now to tell her how perfect she was, how he worshipped her and hungered to possess her fully. How she was the sole source of his happiness and if he could spend the rest of his life giving her pleasure, he’d gladly do so. All the while, he caressed her quim and fucked her with his fingers. He pressed against the swollen spot deep within her passage, and she cried out in ecstasy.

  Her body arched back as she came. Slickness coated his hand. She crumpled onto the mattress as her orgasm receded.

  She breathed out. “Ah, God.”

  “That was merely the prelude,” he said with the solemnity of a knight making a vow. He lowered his head and licked her.

  Her hips lifted up from the bed. He held her in place as he stroked his tongue over her and into her, dipping into her entrance. Her taste filled him, smoky and sweet, and he adored her with his mouth. Lightly, he took her clit between his lips and sucked. As he did so, he pumped his finger into her. She threw back her head and let out a long, keening cry of rapture.

  He continued to worship her as he fucked her with his tongue and finger.

  “Yes,” she wailed. “Yes. That’s—yes—”

  She broke apart with a cry. Her climax rolled from her body into his, and he soaked up her pleasure. When she thrashed against the mattress, he didn’t relent. He continued to thrust and lick until she came once more, longer this time. Only then, he gently slid his finger out and pulled his mouth away.

  As he lowered her skirts over her legs, he looked up at her. Her eyes glittered through lowered lashes.

  “You’re right,” she said, her words faintly slurred. “We both won.”

  “The night’s barely begun,” he murmured. “Let us continue our winning streak.”

  Chapter 16

  Lucia couldn’t possibly want more, not after the mind-dissolving orgasms Tom had given her.

  Yet his words made her whole body catch fire.

  He leaned up to kiss her, and she tasted herself on him. With his clever fingers, he worked the fastenings down the back of her gown until the neckline hung loosely. He stroked down her neck, over her collarbone, lower, and he made a thrilling sound of animal hunger when he found that she’d purposefully not worn a shift. She gasped, her lips against the shadow of his beard, when he caressed her breasts. When he stroked her nipples, she writhed with pleasure.

  She peeled off her dress, flinging it aside, before sliding from the bed to kneel as well, pressing her body to his. His cock surged against her belly, and he snarled when she clutched at the curves of his buttocks to bring him closer still.

  “Need you now,” he rasped.

  “Yes.”

  He turned her with a firm, guiding hand so she faced the bed, her upper body pressing into the mattress. He caressed one hand down the cheek of her arse. She purred in response.

  His hand came down with a decisive, stinging slap.

  She stiffened in surprise, then moaned as hot sensation flooded her.

  He repeated the spank on her other cheek. Shamelessly, she wiggled, and her mouth formed a sly smile when he growled in response. Her smile fell away when he stroked down her arse and dipped between the lips of her slick quim. She sucked in a breath as she pushed herself back into his touch. His fingers found her aching clit and circled it until she was lost in a fever.

  He stilled for a moment. Looking back, she saw him tightly gripping his beautiful, thick cock. When he positioned himself at her entrance, she dug her nails into the mattress, eagerly bracing herself.

  Still on his knees, he thrust into her. She jolted exquisitely with the force of his stroke.

  He plunged in and out, one hand clutching tightly on her hip. The other hand lavished attention on her clit, caressing her in time with his thrusts. She jolted from the ferocity as he drove into her. Her taut nipples rubbed against the bedclothes, adding to sensation.

  She managed to reach behind her to cover his hand on her hip, then brought him up to the crown of her head, urging him to tug at the roots of her hair. When he did, lush fire poured through her. Only to him could she permit herself this ceding of control, this tumble into surrender when in every other moment of her life, she had to be in command. There had to be trust between lovers for one to yield to the other, and with dawning awareness, she discovered she had faith in him—with him, she could let everything fall away, secure in the knowledge that he would never willingly hurt her.

  It was startling, terrifying, and wonderful. She lost herself in the expansive openness that was trust. Her back arched and she pushed back against him in wordless demand.

  He rumbled his approval and his thrusts grew deeper, even stronger.

  Her orgasm erupted, cascading along her body. She cried out. And still, he fucked her, never relenting until she came again, and once more.

  “Ah, damn,” he growled, then went rigid as he pulled out and groaned his release. His seed shot across her flesh. He draped over her back, and they fitted against each other, his front to her back, panting.

  They climbed into his bed, the span so narrow she lay half-atop him. She let herself drift in and out of sleep, soothed by the beat of his heart and the rise and fall of his chest as his large hand splayed against her back.

  She never slept with her lovers, preferring to have her pleasure and then leave. Yet she couldn’t make herself move away from Tom.

  Stay, her body whispered. Stay with him.

  She roused from a doze, her face pressed against his chest. He made gentle sounds of sleep, and it engulfed her in a warm cocoon. But as she splayed over his body, desire licked through her. She stroked her hand up his chest, the hair crisp against her palm, before lightly scratching her nails down his torso.

  “Insatiable,” he rumbled.

  “No shame in that.” But she was insatiable for him, and if she wasn’t caught in a frenzy of need, such unending hunger for one particular man would have frightened her. She couldn’t care now, not with his hot skin against hers and his scent coating her.

  “None at all,” he murmured.

  They kissed, and then he rolled so that she was under him. Her legs opened. In one single, potent thrust, he was inside her.

  “Want you so much.” He punctuated each word with a stroke. “I’m lost in you.”

  “I have the same madness,” she said on a gasp.

  Despite her revelation of trust, she told herself that this thing between them was only lust—a feeling she knew well.

  He hitched her leg higher onto his hip, his thrusts hitting her at precisely the right spot.

  She came hard, her back arching up. A moment later, he pulled out and snarled as he climaxed.

  As they collapsed onto the bed, she felt herself spiraling beyond the limits of lust into something much more dangerous. There it was again—her faith in him, that frightened her even as she turned toward it. She could not stop herself, gladly throwing herself into the fire that would surely reduce her to ashes.

  Checking her timepiece, Lucia saw the time to be three o’clock in the morning. It was Friday night—or, more specifically, early Saturday—and activity at the club showed few signs of slowing down. New guests continually arrived. The establishment’s entire staff never had a moment of rest as they went about their duties in a frenzy.

  She’d lost count of the number of times she had run up and down the stairs and the loops she’d made through the club. Dimly, she felt her feet t
hrob, but the ache belonged to someone else. Weariness didn’t touch her. Instead, energy zigzagged through her body, always pushing her forward.

  By all rights, Lucia should have been dragging herself through her workday. She and Tom had barely slept the night before, and instead of napping as she always did in preparation for the evening ahead, she’d been exploring his body with the zeal of a woman who’d long been denied the pleasures of her lover rather than someone who had fucked herself raw only hours before.

  As she stepped into the drawing room, she handed a server several bottles of wine she’d just brought up from belowstairs. She caught sight of Tom flipping a chair back onto its feet, and her stomach tumbled as if she had been the piece of furniture.

  “There’s that smile again,” Elspeth said, coming to stand beside her.

  “What smile?”

  “The one that I’ve never seen you wear for longer than five seconds. Until . . .” Elspeth looked at Tom, who now conversed with Arthur in a corner of the room. “I keep turning around and finding you beaming at him like he personally invented cake. And I should know, because I look at Kitty the same way.”

  Lucia busied herself collecting glasses. “He and I, we’re enjoying ourselves. It needn’t mean anything.” But her skin was flushed and her heart beat at an unseemly speed.

  “I never said a word about anything meaning something. That was your inference.”

  Caught.

  Lucia’s hand hovered for a moment over an empty wineglass before she shook her head and picked up the vessel.

  “What will you do,” Elspeth asked softly, “when it’s time for him to go back to his world?”

  Lightly, Lucia said, “We haven’t discussed it.”

  But at the thought of his departure, something huge and empty opened up within Lucia, so suddenly and powerfully she pressed her lips together to keep from gasping.

  Lovers she’d had, and yet none of them made her truly feel as he did. His insight, his heart, his joy in the pleasure of being—they were rare qualities to find in anyone.

  “Perhaps you ought to.” Elspeth stroked a finger down her cheek. “Through all the years we’ve known each other, I’ve never seen you this happy.”

  A hard knot formed in Lucia’s throat. “Cara.”

  “I’d hate for you to lose that because of fear.” With that, Elspeth plucked the glasses from Lucia’s fingers and strode away.

  The trouble with friends, Lucia thought as she plunged back into her work, is that they saw beyond all masks, both literal and figurative, all the way down to the needy, love-starved soul beneath.

  Lucia stood in the foyer as the very last guest walked out the door on unsteady legs. The guest in question, a black man with the clothing of a prosperous man of business, had drunk only one glass of wine the whole of the night. His wobbly gait was the result of being the object of two women’s attentions for hours, clearly evident in his lopsided grin.

  “Next Wednesday?” he asked as he stood on the threshold.

  She inclined her head. “We shall await your presence.”

  “Rely on it.” Despite his weakened physical condition, he whistled as he strolled off into the dawn.

  A smile curved Lucia’s mouth as she shut the door behind him. This was why she truly enjoyed her work. When that guest had arrived earlier in the evening, he’d been tense as a cocked pistol, deep lines of strain framing his mouth. Clearly, the Orchid Club had worked its magic on him.

  Her smile faded when she turned around and found Tom standing beside his valise.

  “Oh,” she managed to say. It felt as though she’d been running at full speed down a hill, joyous and free in her movement, and then slammed into a stone wall.

  “Much as I hate not contributing to cleaning up,” he said regretfully, “I’m due home before breakfast.”

  “Yes. Of course.” Her feet were bolted to the floor, and she could only stare at him across the expanse of the entryway.

  “I . . .” He balled his hands into fists. “I need to go. Don’t want to, but I must. I promised my family that I would be gone for three days only. And Parliament won’t wait for me.”

  “I understand.” The urge to fling herself at him, to wrap her arms around him and beg him not to leave, was an insistent demand she forced herself to ignore.

  “Three days ago,” he said, his gaze searching, “I sought shelter, and you gave it to me. You gave me . . . so much. A roof over my head, labor for my hands, pleasure for my body. And my heart . . .” He swallowed hard. “Goodbye, Lucia.”

  “Goodbye, Tom.” There, she spoke with admirable restraint, as if parting with him once more didn’t rend her apart. She wouldn’t ask when she could see him again. She would be sophisticated, affable but not clinging. Whatever happened in the future couldn’t touch her. She was as she’d always been—aloof and in command of herself.

  Who are you trying to convince?

  She refused to answer her own question, even as he turned and walked out the door.

  Chapter 17

  “The house hasn’t descended into chaos in my absence, I see.”

  Tom strode into the dining room and pressed kisses to the cheeks of his mother and sister as they sat at breakfast.

  “Maeve has threatened to disguise herself as a lad and sneak out,” his mother said as he took his seat at the head of the table.

  “Only to see Hugh,” Maeve replied. “We both love As You Like It, so I should think the prospect of his soon-to-be fiancée wearing breeches for a clandestine assignation wouldn’t be too off putting.”

  “Discussions of furtive rendezvous are generally done out of earshot of one’s parent,” Tom said drily.

  He nodded as a footman stepped forward to offer him coffee, then inhaled the scent deeply as the beverage filled his cup. God, but he was weary. He’d arrived home, and there had been just enough time to quickly bathe, change, and gather up a stack of waiting correspondence before joining his family for the morning meal.

  Hopefully, Lucia would get a few hours of sleep before heading to Bethnal Green and her waiting students.

  God, if only I could be back with her.

  The day stretched before him, a daunting mountain of hours he had to climb. Monday would see him back in the Lords. He had only today and tomorrow to acclimatize himself before he’d meet Brookhurst not as a future relative and fellow investor but possible disinterested party where the canals were concerned and opponent on future votes. The decision he’d made on the roof of the Orchid Club, in the depths of night, now confronted him in the light of day, in this breakfast room.

  He’d have to face it now. And tell Maeve.

  He took a bracing sip of coffee before moving to the sideboard and assembling a breakfast plate, loading it up with rolls, eggs, and grilled sausages.

  “Someone awoke hungry.” His mother eyed his plate as he sat.

  “Travel stirs the appetite,” he said. “Besides, I’ve been up for hours and this is the first meal I’ve taken in a long while.” And it gave him something to do other than stew about Maeve’s reaction to his choice.

  The last thing he’d eaten had been stewed beef with the staff of the Orchid Club—over twelve hours ago. Now he was back home, back amongst the world he’d known his whole life, where little changed except, on occasion, the decor.

  He glanced around the dining room of Northfield House. His mother had refurbished it three years ago, changing the dark-paneled walls to sophisticated and modern pale yellow plaster, and selecting two massive silver chandeliers to light the chamber.

  The staff’s dining hall at the Orchid Club wasn’t nearly as elegant, with its rough stone walls and long, battered table, and he wished more than anything to be there now. Laughing and telling tales with the staff as Lucia sat beside him, adding her voice to the harmonious bedlam.

  The notion of time was clearly a construct, if three days in Bloomsbury could feel like three minutes.

  And now I’ve become a philosopher, specula
ting on the nature of time itself.

  He hadn’t taken more than a few bites of his breakfast before he felt his mother’s assessing gaze fixed on him.

  Quickly, he ran a hand along his jaw. He’d shaved, so the state of his beard couldn’t be the source of her interest. Glancing down, he checked to be certain all the buttons of his waistcoat were fastened in the proper order, and that the knots of his neckcloth were respectable.

  “What?” he asked warily.

  “The country air must have agreed with you,” she said. “You’re . . . different, somehow.”

  What could he tell her? I worked at a secret sex club and there’s a woman there who makes my blood sing and I’ve reached a crossroads that will affect the course of our family for generations to come and who am I, anyway?

  “Despite the fairy stories you told us as children,” he said with an attempt at whimsy, “I’m not a changeling. Same Tom who’s been giving you a headache for thirty-two years.”

  “Let him eat in peace, Mam,” Maeve said with a shake of her head.

  “It’s a mother’s labor to harass her children.” Deirdre dabbed her lips with a napkin and stood. As Tom got to his feet, she waved him back down. “Saturday’s my letter-writing day, so I’m off to give my children some much-needed peace.”

  A moment later, she was gone, and Tom and his sister were alone.

  He eased back down to his seat before resuming his breakfast.

  “It’s true, though.” Maeve propped her chin in her hand. “You do seem altered.”

  Rather than acknowledge the truth of that statement, he rolled his eyes. “Saints protect me from the meddlesome women in my family.”

  “You may be older by thirteen years,” Maeve said primly, “but I’ve considerable experience running after you and knowing your moods. Something’s troubling you.”

  Though he did need to speak with her, he’d no great eagerness to tell his sister that he might very well cost Maeve her beloved Lord Stacey.