This Duchess of Mine (Desperate Duchesses #5)

“Well, you can always ask.”

But she was thinking about it now. “The problem is where does one stop? If I ask the monks here, I’d have to ask someone in the church.”

“The archbishop, at least,” Elijah suggested. Against all odds, he was starting to feel oddly happy.

She scowled at him. “How dare you smile at me!”

“I didn’t die today,” he said cheerfully. “I’m walking with you, and you don’t have gloves on, so I am feeling a pleasantly irresponsible wish to kiss your fingers.” Which he did. “And your mouth.” Which he did.

“You have the most lovely mouth, Jemma,” he whispered sometime later. “It’s soft and full. It makes me want to bite you.”

Her smile was so beautiful that he kissed her again, and then because a man can’t kiss a luscious woman and simultaneously feel despair, he started to feel something quite otherwise.

Jemma had her arms wound around his neck and didn’t seem to take it in when he unbuttoned her pelisse and ran his hands inside.

He almost groaned aloud. The lush weight of her breasts, plumped in his hand, made him feel mad. It was the work of a moment to pull down the delicate pleated material hiding their beauty.

The gardens were utterly still. They had walked long enough so even the baths were out of sight. He couldn’t hear a sound from the road, just the high clear song of a lark, rejoicing in the end of the rain shower.

If there was ever a moment since the world began in which a man ought to play Adam, and make love to his own Eve, this was it. Without further ado, Elijah spun Jemma to the side and plumped her down on a narrow bench at the edge of the path. She let out a little shriek that might have had something to do with the rain glistening on the marble seat.

But Elijah fell to his knees before her, ignoring her protest. He traced the curve of her breast with his hand and then followed that caress with his lips. She certainly protested: she even tugged at his hair. But he felt primitive and alive, suckling his wife with a passion bred by grief and joy intermingled. He knew her body, knew her soul, and so he wrapped his hands around her waist at the very moment Jemma surrendered. Her head fell back and a ragged cry came from her throat.

The smooth skin under his tongue tasted like milk and honey, like the most delicious food the world has to offer. He gave her a little bite; she gasped and the sound stoked his belly, sent fire raging up his legs.

“Sweetheart,” he said, wrenching her bodice even lower so that he could give the same ministrations to her left breast, “you’re killing me.”

Her body went rigid.

He gave her another little bite. “Not literally, you fool.” And licked her to ask forgiveness for his offense.

“Don’t you dare call me names,” she said, but her voice was syrupy and he knew he had her. He wasn’t dead yet. He wasn’t dead yet.

He stroked and nibbled until her whole body was trembling and she was clutching his shoulders closer, rather than trying to push him away—and then he stood up. “Time to be on our way, sweetheart.” He caught her hand and brought her to her feet, loving the look of her. The contrast between her lush skirts and bare breasts, between her dazed eyes and ruby mouth.

“Wh-what?”

He loved it when his sophisticated Jemma got that look in her eyes, as if she were bereft because he had stopped touching her. As if her need for him was so great that she couldn’t think about chess pieces or logic or any of those other things she did so well. So he kissed her again, just to make sure she was agreeable, and then pulled her down the path.

There was mist hanging in the air from the morning’s shower, but he could see that the path ended in a little circle with a statue. Perfect. He couldn’t give her time to think, so it was the work of a moment to have Jemma flat on her back, cushioned on his coat and her pelisse. He threw off his boots too, though she hadn’t quite noticed.

“Just a kiss,” she said, starting to wake up. “I don’t mind kissing, Elijah, though this is terribly—”

He had to move quickly so he put a hand under her skirts. She was soft and wet, and the little noise that came from her mouth replaced all those anxious words she was trying to say. Every time she started again he changed his touch from light to deep, from a brush to a stroke. She did manage to gasp ridiculous things in between pants. Like “We shouldn’t,” and “Is that rain?” and “No!”

But he took his time, his fingers dancing, his mouth stealing her moans until she started bucking against his hand, twisting from side to side.

Still he waited…waited…moved his fingers in the kind of languid stroke that his own sweet Jemma could not resist, could not fight.

It started to spit rain again, just enough to cool them both off. She had stopped saying no, and was breathing his name over and over, like a song. There was something in the sound of it that made him feel such a wave of tenderness that he instinctively shook his head. Rather than say something foolish, he threw up her skirts and slid down so that he could feel with his fingers and his mouth every shudder that raked her body. Her hands wrapped into his hair and she gave a little scream, a cry of pure pleasure.

“Elijah!” she cried. “I—” and she came with a force that shook her body from her toes to her fingertips.

It was his moment. He wrenched down his pantaloons and eased into her. She was swollen and silky, like milk wrapped around him. A thick groan broke from his lips.

But: “I’m worried about your heart,” Jemma said. He looked down and her eyes were wide open, anxious—terrified.

He brushed her lips with his own. “I’ve never been better. Do you know what I love, Jemma?” He moved slowly forward, sliding into her, stretching her. She squeaked. “You didn’t think you’d be naked today.”

“Of course not.” She arched up against him so that he nearly lost his train of thought. “We shouldn’t be naked,” she pointed out. But there was no real conviction in her voice.

“You wear perfume when you think you’re going to be naked.”

“Yes,” she breathed, pushing back against him at just the right moment.

“I love it when you don’t wear perfume. You smell so good,” he whispered, nuzzling her. “You smell like clean rain, and hot woman.”

“Elijah!” She was trying to sound scandalized, so he ignored her.

“Now I’m going to—“He lowered his mouth to her ear again and told her in detail what he meant to do. And then because his language had been thrillingly rough, he followed it up with kisses so sweet that he felt another pulse of nervousness. Making love wasn’t supposed to be so—so loving.

He shook the thought away, threw his head back, and pumped. But even as Jemma squeaked when he filled her, her hands clutched his shoulders, and her moan was of fear.

He opened his eyes. “Jemma?”

“I’m afraid for you,” she gasped. There was rain on her nose, and shining in her curls, and she was so beautiful that it took everything he had to stop the movement of his hips. Even so, he couldn’t stop himself, and nudged forward just a bit. Just enough to make sure that she was with him.

She was, because she took a quick breath and her fingers bit into his shoulders.