Page 59 of If the Duke Demands

“What?” he pressed, lowering his head until their eyes were even and his mouth was so close to hers that he could feel the heat of her panting little breaths shivering over his lips.

“Oh, you infuriating man!” She shoved at his shoulder, but he refused to back away. “I want to do it again, damn you! What we did in the carriage—” Her voice cracked with frustration and embarrassment. “I came here because I hoped you might like me, too, enough to want to—”

He lunged forward and captured her mouth beneath his.

Unable any longer to resist her, he shoved his hand into her hair and grasped the silky strands between his fingers, to hold her head still beneath his kiss as his mouth ravished hers. He was ravenously hungry, both for the taste of her and for the vivaciousness radiating from her that drew him the way no other woman ever had, and he devoured her kiss in great, greedy mouthfuls.

A whimper of need escaped her. He drank in the sound, his blood surging hot with desire as he plunged his tongue between her lips to taste the sweetness inside, reveling in the electric thrill that cascaded through him. She was infuriating, challenging, aggravating to a fault…and wholly irresistible. She likedhim, and not the title he’d inherited but the man he’d shaped himself to be. With nothing more than that whispered confession, she’d completely undone him.

A groan of surrender tore from the back of his throat, and he was lost in her. At that moment, with her softness pressing against his hard body, making herself vulnerable, he didn’t give a damn about the dukedom or propriety; all he knew was that he needed her in order to escape the prison his life had become, if only for one night.Allof her.

He tore his mouth away from hers and nipped at the tender column of her throat as his hands stroked up and down her body. Now that she was here with him, he didn’t want to stop touching her, as if in some irrational fear that she truly was nothing but a ghost and would vanish in the night.

“I don’t want to do what we did in the carriage,” he rasped out, then licked at the hollow of her throat where he could feel her heartbeat racing. For him. The sensation left all of him aching.

Clinging to him, she gasped for breath as she panted out in confusion, “You don’t? But I thought—”

“I want so much more than that,” he breathed hotly against her lips, before kissing her languidly and reveling in her soft response. “I want all of you, understand?” He cupped her breast against his palm through the thin material, and she shuddered. “I want every breath and shiver, every laugh and smile…”

He lowered his head to take her nipple between his lips, teasing at it gently until it pebbled against his tongue even through the crêpe. When he lifted his head, a wet circle showed on her gown where he’d had his mouth on her, a possessive mark that revealed her dusky nipple behind the translucent material.

“Every secret in every inch of you,” he promised against her lips, his mouth returning to hers.

Moaning softly, she arched her back against the wall to push her breasts harder against him. He throbbed at the delicious sight of her, her eyes closed as if his nearness was unbearable but her full lips parted with desire to be taken. A beautiful contradiction, just like the strong yet kind woman she was. So fierce yet so fragile. The woman who could never be his…who was now his for the night.

“If you want to leave, you need to go now,” he warned, his voice little more than a rasp in his aching need for her. “If you stay, you’ll be ruined. And I cannot marry you.”

Her eyes fluttered open, and she stared up at him, her green depths a stormy sea of excitement and desire, arousal and nervousness. He traced his thumb across her bottom lip and elicited from her in a soft whisper, “I don’t want to leave.”

Cupping her face in his hands, he rested his forehead against hers, squeezing his eyes shut against the swell of emotions. Relief and affection warred in equal measure with the guilt churning inside him, yet he still wanted her, still needed her, even knowing that he could never offer her a future without betraying his father’s faith in him. Something he wouldneverdo again with any woman. Even Miranda.

“I don’t need any more warnings from you, Sebastian. I know what I want.” She slid her mouth along his jaw to his ear and whispered, “I want to inspire you.”

He exhaled a long breath in an attempt to slow his racing heart as it jumped into a furious beat. “You already do, Rose,” he murmured. “More than you realize.”

“Then show me.”

He grinned wickedly at that, and his hand stroked slowly down her body and slipped beneath her skirt to tenderly caress between her thighs. “You mean like this?”

She moaned and rolled back her head. “That’s a good start,” she agreed in soft pants, her tongue darting out to wet her lips as her sex began to quiver with quick arousal against his fingers. “Oh yes…that’s good…verygood…”

With a low laugh, he reached over to the door and threw the lock.

***

Miranda bit back the moan on her lips as his fingers continued their gentle caresses between her legs. Oh, those clever fingers! Her body heated instantly, and the ache at his fingertips grew even more intense than it had been in the carriage now that she knew how good it felt to have his hands on her, stroking her, exploring her. She gasped as he grazed the sensitive nub buried in the top of her folds, and her arms clenched around his neck to keep from falling to the floor.

Then his hand slipped away. The sudden loss was unbearable, and she whimpered and wiggled her hips invitingly to coax him back.

“Shh,” he murmured, his lips resting against her temple as his hands stroked soothingly down her arms to her hips. “We’ve got all night, sweet. No need to rush.”

“But I want—”

“So do I.” He lifted her off the floor to carry her across the room to his bed. He laid her on the mattress, then followed down on top of her. “Very.” He kissed her lips. “Very.” His mouth slid down her throat to kiss into the hollow between her breasts. “Verymuch.”

“Sebastian,” she moaned plaintively as fire flared inside her fluttering belly, her fingers combing through his silky hair as he continued to cover her cleavage with kisses. To have Sebastian’s attentions on her was so much more wonderful than she could have imagined, this time alone with him far more precious.

“You wore the masquerade dress,” he mumbled, then he placed a savoring kiss on the inside curve of her breast.