She Tempts the Duke

He slid down further, nestled himself between her thighs. The fragrance of her sex wafted around him. He blew at the curls. She sighed.

She did not question, she did not object. He lowered his face and kissed the very heart of her womanhood. He swirled his tongue over her, felt her quiver beneath him. So sensitive, so ready for his plunder.

He was aching with the need to plow into her, but not yet, not until he revealed what she could have. With mouth, tongue, and fingers, he taunted and teased, urged her toward greater heights. Her mewling cries echoed around them, trapped within their curtained confines. He heard her gasping, could feel her writhing.

Her fingers became entangled in his hair, tugged and soothed. His body was tense with need, but he fought it back. He would have her, but he would have her so slick and wet that he would slide in smoothly and save her discomfort.

He didn’t want to hurt her, considered pleasuring her and denying himself, but she was a temptation he hadn’t the strength to resist. He wanted to know how it felt to sink into her heated depths. He wanted to feel her pulsing around him, drawing out the last of his seed. He needed her to make himself complete.

He didn’t know where that thought came from. Didn’t want to acknowledge the truth of it. He had been too long on his own. He needed no one. Yet the declaration mocked him.

Unlike Mary, who never mocked him. Who accepted him faults and all.

Who was crying out and bucking beneath him, whose nails were scoring his shoulders.

Mary, Mary, Mary. Dear sweet glorious Mary, lost in the throes of passion.

Rising above her, he plunged into her and released a harsh curse when she screamed.

He stilled, but holding him as close as she was Mary could feel the tremors cascading through the entire length of his body. He had taken her on a journey of exquisite rapture. But it hadn’t been enough to distract her from the pain of her maidenhead being breached.

Perhaps it wouldn’t have been so bad if he hadn’t been so large, but the fullness of him astounded her.

“Forgive me, Mary. Dear God.” His face was buried in the curve of her shoulder.

“Shh. It’s all right.”

“I didn’t want to hurt you.”

“I know. The pain is easing. Give me a moment.”

Their harsh breaths filled the air, echoed around them. The musky scent of sex hung heavy around them. She didn’t know why she’d never considered that lovemaking would come with a fragrance. Strange how it enhanced her desires, made her yearn even more for what could be between them.

“It was lovely, by the way,” she murmured.

“Lovely?”

He sounded as though he choked on the word, but how could she describe what she’d felt? “Splendid, really. Spectacular.” She released a self-conscious laugh, held him tighter.

He pressed his forehead to hers. “It can be like that when we’re together.”

“I might expire if I experience those sensations again.”

“You won’t.”

“Is it like that for you, when you . . . reach that part.”

“It’s exceedingly . . . lovely.” He chuckled low, a sound that vibrated through her heart.

“You’re teasing me now. Is it all right to tease when we’re doing this?”

“It’s all right to do anything we want.”

He shifted slightly, and she squeezed her eyes shut against the discomfort.

“Does it still hurt?” he asked, and she heard the worry in his voice. While he’d not been able to see her closing her eyes, he’d obviously been aware of her stiffening.

“Not so much. Move a little more. I think I’m getting used to it.”

He took her mouth as though he owned it, and she supposed in some ways he did. There was a roughness to the kiss that had been lacking before. It more closely resembled the desperation she’d sensed in the garden. As though if he didn’t have her, he would die.

Warmth swirled through her and her entire body responded by curling inward. It took her a moment to realize that he’d begun moving slowly, sliding out, then in, gently with no hurry, no rush. The kiss had initially distracted her, but now it became part of the sensations. His tongue swirling through her mouth, his hands knotting in her hair, his hips rocking against hers.

The discomfort receded, the pleasure returned. More intense, more encompassing than it had been before. This time she knew what to expect. Before she had fought it, feared it. Now she embraced it. Embraced him.

She caressed him, every inch that she could reach. She realized that he, too, had to be lost in the sensations because he didn’t stiffen or object when her fingers encountered scars and continued to explore them. They were part of him, and as such, they were part of her.

Breaking off from the kiss, he rose above her and began pounding into her with a fierceness that called to the wildness in her. His grunts echoed around her. She felt the tenseness in his muscles, the quivering. Her own body reacted in kind: tightening, crying out for release.

When the climax hit her, she feared that he had lied, that she would die. How could anyone survive such intense pleasure? It rocked her to her core, left her with no bones, with the inability to move as Sebastian cried out with his final thrust.

Resting on one elbow, he buried his face in her hair. She could feel the hard pounding of his heart against her breast. She didn’t know where she found the strength to skim her fingers over his slick back.

“That was even more lovely than before,” she said breathlessly.