Dare to Love a Duke Read online

  Her room gave some clues as to who she was. Though it was simply furnished, there were touches of vivid color everywhere. Vibrant green fabric draped across the foot of her bed, the table was painted a sunny yellow, and bright blue curtains hung in the window. A half-read book lay atop the table, though he couldn’t see the title. Pictures from fashion journals were pinned to the walls, and a vase of purple Michaelmas daisies perched on a windowsill.

  No pictures or miniatures of family.

  Her silence stretched on, and each moment without her answer drew tautly along his flesh.

  “An incentive,” he said. “For every truth given, an article of clothing will be removed.”

  Her tongue darted out to moisten her lips. The quick, carnal action stoked the flames within him even higher.

  Finally, she said quickly, “You go first.”

  Instead of giving in to the urge to pump his fist in victory, he inclined his head in agreement.

  What to start with first? There were any number of things he could say. Simple likes and dislikes that didn’t touch the core of him.

  But he didn’t want to hand her trifles. If they were to open to each other, and learn who they truly were, he had to begin with something of significance.

  “There was a death in my family not long ago. One of my parents—thus, my absence from the club.” With just a few words, an ache throbbed in his chest.

  “I’m so very sorry.” Sincerity was heavy in her voice.

  “My thanks.” Melancholy hovered close, eager to enfold him in its gray embrace. For all of his father’s disapproval, the late duke’s presence had been a constant. There were things that could be relied upon—the best sip of wine was always the second to last, the curve of a woman’s neck never failed to delight, and the Duke of Northfield sat at the head of the dining table every Sunday supper, glowering at Tom with displeasure.

  How could he miss a man who let him know at every turn that he was a disappointment? Yet he did, and the loss was an open wound, seeping blood.

  He mentally bound the wound with a hasty field dressing. This night was not for sorrow. There would be time enough for that later.

  “Now, I’ll honor our agreement.” He shrugged out of his jacket and draped it over a chair.

  A smile touched her lips as her gaze turned avid. “When you do that, your shirt pulls across your muscles in a most agreeable manner.”

  It wasn’t the first time a lover had complimented his physique. All that time at the pugilism and fencing academies apparently reaped physiological dividends. But it was her praise that made a little firework of gratification go off within him.

  When she merely stared at the breadth of his shoulders, he prompted gently, “This bargain requires participation from both of us.”

  “Yes. Yes, of course.” She cleared her throat, and then her brow furrowed as she seemed to decide what aspect of herself to reveal. “England is not my home. That is, I wasn’t born here. I’ll never return to the land of my birth.” She said these last words with the finality of someone who had long ago resigned themselves to a hard truth.

  A host of questions begged to be asked, swirling in his mouth, but he and Amina had made no provisions for queries, so he only nodded. He tucked away her revelation, setting it in his mental cabinet of wonders to be studied and admired later.

  Blood shot into his groin as she bent down and raised the hem of her skirts to reveal a pair of sleek ankles. Ribbons from her slippers crisscrossed up her stocking-clad calves.

  Downstairs, he’d seen women in all states of dress, from fully clad to entirely nude. The sight had been arousing, but the modest display of Amina’s lower legs made his whole body tight with a fiercer hunger.

  She untied the ribbons before slipping off her shoes, which she set neatly aside, before letting go of her skirts. Then she straightened and looked at him with expectation.

  He searched once more for something of himself to give to her.

  “For the first twelve years of my life,” he said, his fingers already working to undo his neckcloth, “I lived in Ireland. My mother’s home.”

  He’d been teased mercilessly at Harrow for his accent, but instead of working to erase it, he’d held firm to his brogue. Like hell would he let anyone’s ignorance shape his feelings about himself.

  The neckcloth came loose, and he dropped it to the floor. The chill air of the room touched the flesh of his throat, and it was only then that he realized the fire wasn’t lit. He’d been too focused on her to notice.

  Amina stepped closer, and his breath caught as she ran her fingertips down the length of his bare neck, to linger at the hollow at the base of his throat. Sparks danced along his skin where she touched, all sense of coolness gone.

  “The night we met,” she said on a whisper, “was my first night as manager of the club. Being merely a server wasn’t enough for me. I made certain that I became indispensable to our former proprietress, so that when the time came for her to step down, there’d be no doubt as to her choice of successor.”

  “Ambitious,” he murmured.

  “Always.”

  A rush of pleasure coursed warmly along his veins. This was what he craved, this knowledge of who she was beneath the layers of her persona. And it pleased him to know of her determination and drive, a person who took what she wanted.

  He lowered his eyelids. “Garters and stockings next.”

  “Now you make my disrobing decisions?” she asked, her voice dry but her lips curving upward.

  “Merely providing suggestions. And, if you’ll permit me, I offer my services to assist you in undressing.”

  She laughed throatily. Her words dry, she said, “Never had an abigail.”

  He’d unclothed many women and was well versed in the intricacies of their garments—but none of that signified now. Amina was all that counted.

  Smoothly, he lowered to one knee. She lifted her skirts once more and it was like the curtain going up on a play he’d been desperate to see. Excitement vibrated through him.

  He settled his hands on her calves. Taut muscles moved sleekly beneath the openwork silk of her stockings. As he skimmed his fingers upward, her breath caught—and his did, as well. His pulse throbbed heavily in his groin as he stroked past her knees, reaching higher up her skirts, until he came to her garter. They were sapphire blue, dotted with embroidered pink flowers.

  A little spike of gratification rose up. Here his knowledge of women’s clothing was useful. He undid her garters quickly, and they fell in gentle curls onto the braided rag rug.

  His mouth went dry.

  He lightly stroked at the top of her stockings and couldn’t stop the rumble that rose up within him when he brushed the silken skin of her thigh. Glancing up, he saw her chest rise and fall with quick breaths, and her lips had parted.

  With patience he never knew he possessed, he rolled her stocking down her leg. He repeated the procedure with her other garter and stocking and, by the time he stood, her legs were bare and he was dizzy with lust.

  He plucked at the buttons of his waistcoat.

  She held up a hand. “First, a truth.”

  Words tumbled from him, as if waiting for this moment to be spoken. “Everyone expects me to continue my father’s legacy. I’m to be another him—not my own man. The thought is like being hammered into a coffin while I still live. But if I don’t . . . there’s more at stake than merely my own happiness.”

  Hell. He hadn’t expected to share so much, and yet there was a rightness to speaking of these things with her, a purity that came not just from the fact that they would never see each other again, but that it was Amina to whom he confessed.

  He threw aside his waistcoat, heedless of where it landed.

  “My turn,” she said in a voice as dark as wine. “My heart has been broken three times—and after that, I vowed never to let myself be hurt again.”

  “Let me hurt whoever hurt you,” he said at once. His hands curled into fists and his muscl
es burned with the need to punish those that had dared cause her pain.

  A bittersweet smile touched her lips. “Two of the people who broke my heart are dead. My mother, and the man who sired me. The third person was my grandfather, who was blood kin but no family of mine.”

  She spoke so simply, and yet each syllable spoke of immeasurable loss. They resounded within him as though she’d whispered in a cavern, the quiet words growing in strength with each echo.

  “I’ll take care of him,” he said fiercely.

  She shook her head, mingled sadness and anger in her gaze. “He cannot touch me now.” She looked every inch the deposed queen, regal and wounded.

  “Amina—”

  She spun on her heel and presented him with her back. “The hooks, please. On my gown. I can’t reach them.”

  Gazing at the bare column of her neck and the slope of her shoulders, his fury on her behalf dissolved in a haze of desire. For all his experience taking off women’s clothes, his fingers were suddenly thick as sausages, and equally clumsy. He fumbled with the tiny hooks until the back of her dress opened.

  With movements supple and graceful as a cat, she slipped off her gown before facing him.

  “God almighty,” he rasped.

  She didn’t wear stays. Or drawers.

  She stood in only a whisper-light chemise, and beneath the fabric he could plainly see the rosewood brown of her taut nipples and dark delta between her legs.

  Without a hint of shyness, she let him look his fill.

  If they didn’t leap into bed soon, there was the distinct possibility that he’d lose his sanity.

  “Here’s my next truth,” he said, his voice low and rasping with need. “I’ve never wanted anyone the way I want you.”

  Her dark eyes became almost black, and her cheeks reddened.

  A conflagration blazed along his flesh to see her so aroused.

  Impatient to feel her against his bare skin, he tugged off his shirt and cast it to the floor. His boots were next.

  If she minded that he rushed his disrobing, she didn’t give voice to it.

  Instead, she murmured, “Dio mio.” Her gaze roved avidly over his torso. “You are . . .” She shook her head, her cheeks staining deeper with the flush of desire. Reaching out, she placed her palm just above his heart, nestling her fingers in the dark hair that spread across his pectorals. “Where I am from, there are ancient statues of men like you. Statues of heroes and gods.”

  “I’m not carved from marble.” His voice was deep, almost guttural. “I’m a man made of flesh.”

  “That is something about you that I know quite well.” She looked downward, toward the hard column of his cock pressed against the front of his breeches, and her lips pursed with approval.

  Holy hell, he might come from her gaze alone.

  “Here is my final truth,” she said, her words simple and unadorned. “I think I might die from my need for you.”

  And then, with a woman’s timeless smile, she whisked off her chemise. Save for her mask, she was nude.

  If a man could literally immolate himself, surely he would do so. She’d said he was formed in the likeness of a god, but he was merely mortal, while she had the ripe figure of a harvest goddess, abundantly curved.

  “I’m the luckiest bastard in England,” he muttered.

  She reached up and unpinned her hair so that it fell in heavy black waves about her shoulders.

  “No such thing as luck,” she said confidently. “We make choices, for good or for bad, but they’re ours to make.”

  Perhaps if rational thought hadn’t evaporated when she’d stripped off her chemise, he could form a cogent and contemplative response. He might pick apart her words to consider what they meant, what they revealed. But that was beyond him at present.

  She flicked her fingers toward his lower body.

  “The breeches.” Her words were crisp, commanding. “Remove them.”

  “I haven’t given you a truth,” he felt obliged to note.

  “I want the truth of your body.”

  Never had he taken off his breeches so speedily. One moment he was in them, and in the next, they were on the floor. By habit, he didn’t wear drawers, and, other than their masks, both he and Amina were naked.

  Her sigh was long and appreciative. “That is a beautiful cock.”

  “And I want to fuck you with it.” He lifted his hands. “But first—” He undid the ribbons of his mask and pulled his disguise away, letting her see his naked face. “My name is Tom.”

  She hesitated, and a cool trickle of fear ran down the back of his neck. He’d never been as exposed as he was at that moment. He was no stranger to nudity, but clothing only hid the body. With the removal of his mask, and the giving of his name, he opened himself to her. Yet she might not do the same. He would have reached out, only to have her withdraw, leaving him bared and undefended.

  A moment later, she followed suit, removing her mask.

  His breath caught. She had a face of arresting beauty, with dark slashing eyebrows and sculpted cheekbones that should have been elegant but instead made her a creature of carnal, earthy splendor. He could write sonnets to her bold, assertive nose, and the lushness of her lips.

  “My name,” she said firmly, letting her mask fall from her fingers, “is Lucia. And I will not wait a moment longer. I want you now.”

  Chapter 7

  Never had Lucia been this unprotected, so vulnerable—not with a lover.

  Perhaps it had been a grave error to play this game with him, trading truths for clothing. He was fully human now, not just a fantasy. He hurt, and yearned, and possessed an entire history. Her buccaneer was a man named Tom.

  And she wanted him. If anything with this exchange, her desire had grown, until she felt her pulse between her legs like a thudding drum, her breasts tight and sensitive.

  This was not part of her plan. It should have been simple desire, with her taking refuge in uncomplicated lust. Yet with just a few words from him, she felt a piece of the scales around her heart fall away, welcoming him in.

  Turning back was impossible. Her hunger for him had grown too large and couldn’t be locked back in its cage. The beast was loose, and it demanded Tom. All she could do now was follow in its wake and pray that, when it was time to bid him farewell, she might withstand the loss.

  He looked at her now with fierce intensity, his gaze afire, his beautiful body taut, his cock thick and ready.

  She still had some supremacy—because she knew that if she asked anything of him now, he’d obey her.

  She moved away from him and walked on legs that felt sleek and powerful to the foot of the bed, where she turned and faced him. He took purposeful strides toward her, until their bodies were snug. Her sensitive flesh drank in the sensation of him, from the press of the hair on his chest against her breasts, to the length of his rigid thighs along her own. His hands cupped her arse while she looped her arms around his neck. His cock rose up in a hard, delicious curve that lay snug against her belly.

  Without his mask, his face was even more handsome. She followed the angled line of his jaw to his expressive mouth, up higher to his hawkish nose. The vivid hue of his eyes was a jolt of clear color. His eyebrows were heavy and dark, eloquent, and they lowered into a look of almost stern severity as he gazed at her.

  She shook to be the focus of so much singular need—not merely a desire for her body, but for her. All of her.

  For a long moment, they only stared at each other, eager breaths mingling in the narrow space between them.

  I won’t think of tomorrow. Only this moment.

  He lowered his lips to hers, but did not quite kiss her. “You’re here with me. Now.”

  “We are together.” She lifted up just enough to bring their mouths together.

  Passion and desire pushed the kiss, and they devoured each other in fevered caresses that seared her.

  She felt herself falling, until the mattress met her back. All the while,
she and Tom kissed with a madness that verged on desperation. She was supple with need, her breasts aching and full, liquid warmth spreading between her legs where he wedged.

  “Dreamed of you like this,” he said in a rough, deep voice. He dragged his mouth along her neck, and then he bit her lightly. “Hungry for me. The way I’ve hungered for you.”

  Her head spun and she realized that he’d turned them, rolling onto his back so she lay atop him. His hands roamed over her body, stroking between her shoulder blades, down the curve of her back. Each kiss and caress stoked her higher and higher. He was both deft and reverent as he touched her hair, then he licked along her throat and over her collarbone, carnal and adoring.

  “Sometimes, before I sleep, I think of this, of you,” he said in a voice like whiskey. “I stroke myself as I fantasize how I’d touch you.”

  The image of him with his cock in his hand sent a rush of heat through her.

  “Don’t have to fantasize,” she gasped. She sat up, straddling him fully, and looked down at him.

  He stroked up over her waist, along her ribs, until he cupped her breasts. A deep sound of pleasure rolled up from him as he caressed her, and she tipped her head forward, hot and restless, as he teased her nipples and lightly pinched them. Between her legs, his cock surged, and she ground down onto him. They both moaned at the contact.

  “Christ God,” Tom said hoarsely, “you’re beautiful.”

  She felt beautiful. Especially when he gazed at her as though she was both alluring sin and vital salvation. And she looked back, soaking in the sight of him in her bed.

  He was made of tight muscle clinging firmly to bone, every plane sharply defined, his light skin smooth and taut. Dark hair curled temptingly over his pectorals and traced down in a thin line over the ridges of his abdomen. And there was that incredible cock of his, heavy and upright.

  She was no stranger to the male body in all states of dress and undress. And she could say without reservation that he was the most exquisite creature she’d ever seen.

  “You are unfair,” she whispered. “All this time, you’ve hidden this away, denying me the pleasure of your form.”