Duke of Midnight

He pulled back, his chest heaving, and looked at her angrily. “Don’t start something you mean to stop.”

She met his gaze squarely. “I don’t mean to stop.”

His eyes narrowed. “I cannot give you marriage.”

She’d known. She’d never thought he could—she would’ve sworn so had she been asked a minute earlier—but his blunt words were an arrow of pain piercing her heart nonetheless. She bared her teeth in a smile. “Have I asked you to?”

“No.”

“And I never shall,” she vowed.

He still wore his white wig and she snatched it off, flinging the expensive thing aside. Underneath, his dark brown hair was shorn close to his head. She ran her hands over it, reveling in the intimacy. This was the private man beneath. This was the man without his public persona.

Suddenly she wanted all his disguises stripped away. She began working frantically at the buttons of his banyan, almost tearing the beautiful shot silk in her haste.

“Hush,” he murmured to her, catching her hands with his own. He looked at her, and although his voice was gentle his face was not kind. “Are you experienced, my Diana?”

She scowled. The very last thing she wanted was for him to send her away because of some ridiculous scruples. On the other hand, she didn’t want any more lies between them. “No.”

His expression didn’t change, save for a small, satisfied curve of his lips. “Then by your leave, we’ll take this slow, both for your sake and because I have a mind to savor you.”

If she’d wanted to protest, she wouldn’t have been able to. He spread her hands wide and bent to take her mouth again. She felt the press of his thumbs, rubbing in slow, sensuous circles on her palms even as his lips parted hers. The kiss lingered achingly, as if they’d all the time in the world. He licked across her upper lip, pulling back teasingly when she opened for him.

“Maximus,” she moaned.

“Patience,” he chided, and angled his head before pressing his mouth against hers again.

She tried to pull her hands from his, but his grip was too strong. He chuckled low in his throat and pressed into her, still holding her hands wide. She was distracted by a nip at the corner of her mouth and then she found herself falling backward.

For a split second alarm made her frame stiffen… and then she bounced on a soft, feathered mattress. Artemis looked up and saw Maximus standing over her that satisfied little smile on his lips again.

He reached down and traced the line of her throat, his touch light, nearly tickling as his fingers trailed to where her bodice cut across her breasts.

She shivered.

“Don’t think I’ve forgotten when your fichu slipped from your dress,” he murmured. “Strange, for I’ve seen more immodest décolletages at every ball I’ve ever attended, yet I’ve been entirely unable to remove the thought of your breasts from my mind.” His gaze flicked up to hers, dark and enigmatic. “Your breasts and other parts of you. Perhaps it’s the very fact that you usually cover yourself so modestly in public that makes the unveiling that more anticipated. Or perhaps”—he bent and whispered in her ear—“it’s you. Merely you.”

She swallowed even as he licked around the rim of her ear, pausing to tug on her earlobe with his teeth before trailing his open, wet mouth down her neck and to the slopes of her breasts.

“I’ve never before been so obsessed with a woman,” he said, his warm lips brushing against her flesh with each word. “I wonder if you’ve ensorcelled me, Diana?”

His tongue probed between her breasts and she inhaled sharply. He’d at last let go of her hands and she moved both to his head, holding him against her as he made love to her still-clothed bosom. Surely if anyone were bespelled it was she? In moments she would be giving up any hope of marriage. Of the future she’d taken for granted before Apollo’s arrest.

She felt nothing but exultation at the prospect. To finally live. To take the reins of her own life, however hobbled. This was what she wanted.

If she were bespelled, she wanted the spell to never end.

Artemis blinked and saw that Maximus was watching her. “Second thoughts?”

“The exact opposite.” She pulled him down and this time it was she who kissed him. Fiercely, if not expertly.

“Roll over, then, my goddess of the moon,” he murmured against her lips. “Let me free you from these earthly weights.”

She moved to her belly, then, and felt the tiny tugs as he unhooked her bodice, untied her skirts, unlaced her stays. He was right: each layer of cloth removed from her body made her lighter. More free.

He gently nudged her to her back and drew her stays over her head, then he plucked the pins from her hair, putting each one carefully in his banyan pocket, until her hair fell down in a great, heavy loop.

“Artemis,” he whispered as he drew her hair to her breast, “goddess of the hunt, of the moon, and of childbirth.” His lips quirked wryly. “I’ve never understood the last, as she’s a virgin goddess.”

“You forgot wild things,” she whispered back. “She guards all the wild animals and the places they live, and I suppose childbirth is, at base, the closest a woman comes to becoming an animal, isn’t it?”

He pulled back, examining her face, and then grinned, quick and mercurial. “I adore the turnings of your mind.”

The word adore made her heart leap foolishly, but she knew that sort of declaration meant very little in the bedchamber. She would be content with what she could have, not what she really longed for.

She wound her arms about his neck. “You still wear your banyan.”

“Mmm,” he hummed, but his attention was once again on her bosom. Her chemise was old and worn, and she had no doubt at all that her breasts could be seen quite clearly through the thin material.

He slid his hand over one breast, pulling the material taut. “Did you do this?”

He rubbed a thumb over a small, neat square patched over a hole worn into the linen. The patch happened to sit right above her left nipple.

“Yes,” she said. “Who else?”

“A practical woman.” He fitted his mouth over her nipple.

She arched into his sucking warmth, her fingers flexing against his scalp. “A woman without any other options.”

He looked up, his face suddenly grim. “Have you come to me because of your lack of options?”

“No.” She frowned at him because she resented the abrupt absence of his lips. “I’ve come to you because I want to.” She arched up to him, scraping her teeth against the edge of his jaw before falling back. “I come of my own free will. I have the right to do as I wish.”

He nodded slowly. “So you do.”

And he caught her chemise between his hands and ripped it from top to bottom.

She was bare before him now, everything from her nipples to the place between her legs. She should be ashamed. Embarrassed and confused.

Instead she felt wonderfully free. She stretched her arms over her head, arching her back, and looking through her eyelashes up at him. “Will you take off that banyan now?”

His eyelids had half-lowered, his gaze a burning brand upon her naked skin as he stared at her legs. “Yes, I believe I will.”

He straightened and she watched as he carelessly flicked open the buttons lining the front of his banyan. Beneath he wore merely a shirt and breeches. He shrugged off the shirt easily, the muscles on his shoulders bunching and relaxing as he moved.

She caught her breath as his torso was revealed. She hadn’t seen many a male chest unclothed—a rustic or two when she was a child, once a drunken soldier in the streets of London, and of course the marble chests of statues—but she had a mind that most aristocratic men didn’t have such muscled bodies. She was reminded abruptly that this man was not only the Duke of Wakefield but also the Ghost of St. Giles. What exertions had built such massive shoulders, such bulging upper arms, and such a deep chest? This body had been honed to fight. This was the body of a dangerous warrior.

His eyes narrowed as if he knew her thoughts and he shucked his breeches and hose quickly before climbing into the bed.

“Now we two are as God made us,” she said as he settled over her again.

He arched an eyebrow. “And you prefer me thus?”

“Always,” she said. “There’s nothing between us now—neither your past nor mine. Your rank and titles mean nothing here.”

He bent to kiss the tip of her breast, making her wiggle. “Most ladies prefer my ducal finery, I think.”

“But then I am not most ladies,” she said sternly.

“That is true. You are like no other lady I know,” he breathed and took her nipple into his mouth.

Heat enveloped her, making her moan. She could feel his tongue against her sensitive breast, the curling hairs on his chest tickled her belly, and one hard thigh was suddenly pressed against the apex of her legs.

She caught her breath. She might not be ashamed of her nudity—or his—but that did not mean that there wasn’t a bit of trepidation about what would come. She’d never done this. Never even come close. While her peers had been marrying and learning the joys of motherhood, she’d been cataloging Penelope’s embroidery thread.

But she wanted this—wanted him. She ran her fingers through his shorn locks, fascinated by the bristles. He had speckles of gray at the sides, making him look both more commanding and more human. Her hands dropped to his broad shoulders and their warmth, their tensile strength, made her bite her lip in anticipation. He was so vital. So alive. And soon he would be her lover.

He moved abruptly to her other breast, sucking strongly even as his fingers teased the first damp nipple. The twin points of pleasure made her restless. She clenched at his sides with her fingers, wanting more.

He reared back, watching her. “All right?”

“Yes?” She frowned and bit her lip, shaking her head against the pillow.

The corner of his lips quirked, but he looked far from amused. A dark flush had moved up his high cheekbones and the lines beside his mouth had deepened. She could feel that part of him—his male part—pressed into her leg. It seemed to throb against her, a living thing wanting sacrifice.

He petted down her side, soothing her as if she were a fractious mare.

She glared at him, prompting him to kiss her, hot and quick, on the mouth. “Patience.”

“I don’t want to be patient anymore.” She stared at him defiantly. She wanted to find out what this was about. What would happen and how it would feel and if she would be a different woman afterward.

He smiled down at her just as his fingers reached the tiny curls at the top of her slit. She could feel him parting them, carefully, probing, and she went very still, waiting to see what he would do.

One finger trailed to her valley and he looked up into her eyes and smiled. “You’re wet.”

She frowned because she didn’t like not knowing if that was good or bad.

He bent, brushing his mouth against hers, growling so deeply his words were nearly unintelligible. “Wet for me.”

Good, then.

He slid his thumb between her folds and found that nub at the top, pressing down as he watched her face. She arched involuntarily, the sensation singing through her limbs.

A muscle ticked on his jaw, his face stern and ruthless, as he pressed again, his finger finding her entrance and slipping in.

She bit her lip, staring back at him, refusing to break their gaze, wanting him to continue.

“God,” he whispered. His nostrils flared suddenly, and seemingly against his will, he kissed her.

She opened hungrily beneath him, trying to press up with both her head and her pelvis. But he held her still, pleasuring her with his fingers, taunting her with his tongue.