Page 55 of An Inconvenient Duke

He rested his forehead against hers, and his warm breath fanned over her skin as he reached up to caress her cheek. “You can trust in me, Danielle,” he murmured huskily. “Now and always.”

Her heart swelled at the promise in his words, at the comfort he was offering. She’d thought they were working together to find justice for Elise, but what was blossoming between them was so much more than that. So intense that it swirled around her in a growing warmth, tingling at her toes and fingertips.

She trembled at the enormity of what he was offering her. To be able to place herself in this man’s care, without fear of harm—

“Yes,” she whispered, then tilted her face up to bring her lips to his.

Seventeen

Marcus groaned at her whisper of permission. Unable to resist, he seized her mouth with his and turned the touch of their lips into a blistering kiss, one that throbbed fiercely with how much he wanted her.

Dear God, the way she twisted his insides! Never had he ached for a woman as much as he did Danielle, and not just physically—every bit of him wanted nothing more than to heal the wounds she’d suffered, to make her happy, to keep her beside him, safe in his arms.

But when her hand began to play with the buttons on his waistcoat, the longing to keep her safe transformed into a new desire, and liquid fire spread through his veins.

“Danielle.” Her name was a plea to let him claim more, and she obliged, parting her lips and letting his tongue plunge inside.

When she responded by closing her lips around him and sucking with an unschooled instinct, a hot shiver raced through him, all the way down to the tip of his hardening cock. His restraint snapped. He lowered her onto her back on the stone floor and followed down after her, covering her body with his. His mouth never broke contact with hers until she tore her lips away to gasp back the air he’d stolen.

“I want…” she whispered, her hands shaking so hard that they fumbled to unfasten the buttons of his waistcoat. But she couldn’t finish putting to words the desire he felt blossoming inside her.

“I know.” He reached up to run his fingers through her tresses until her hair lay around her on the stone like puddled silk. “I will keep you safe here. I promise you that.”

But she shook her head. Her hands on his shoulders stilled him as he lowered his head to place openmouthed kisses across the top swells of her breasts exposed above the neckline of her dress that had sagged down in their flight from Vauxhall.

“No, I want—I mean…Ineed…” Frustration filled her voice as it trailed off.

He rose up onto all fours over her as she lay under him in the flickering shadows at the edge of the lantern light, and he lost all sense of time and place at the sight of her, the world around them falling away until there was only Danielle. Not from how beautiful she was—and shewasbeautiful, with her hair all wild around her, her lips flushed from his kisses, her eyes gleaming in the shadows. But from how she’d captured his soul the way no other woman ever had. The way no other woman ever would.

He brushed his hand along the side of her body in a soothing caress. “You need what, darling?” He dipped his head to tease his lips reassuringly over hers. “Tell me. Whatever it is, you’ll have it.”

She placed her hand on his chest and curled her fingers possessively into his muscles. Her quiet admission shivered into him as she whispered, “I want you, Marcus.”

“I want you, too.” Sweet Lucifer, how much he wanted! All of her, tonight, tomorrow—and every day and night after that.

She cupped his face between her hands to bring him down to her.

He kissed her deeply, drawing a whimper from her lips that turned into a sigh of satisfaction when he trailed his mouth down her neck and nipped at the tender flesh of her throat. Her pulse beat out a fierce tattoo beneath his lips, then nearly exploded when he cupped her breast in his palm. For a moment, he wondered if she would change her mind, if she would come to her senses about what they were about to do and shove him away—

But she arched into his hand and deepened the kiss, parting her lips and allowing him to ravish her mouth the way he wanted to ravish her body. He could taste the nervousness in her but not an ounce of uncertainty.

Marcus wrapped his arms around her and rolled them over, bringing her up on top of him, straddled across his hips as he lay on his back beneath her. She stared down at him, her mouth forming a round O of surprise.

He grinned lazily at her and answered her unasked question, “So I can do this.”

He rose up to reach behind her and swiftly unfastened the row of tiny buttons at her back. Her loosened bodice dropped low across her breasts. With a shy gasp, she reached a hand up to catch it.

“Because you’re beautiful,” he murmured, taking her hand and gently pulling it away to place it on his chest. “Because I want to see you, Danielle.Allof you.”

She bit her bottom lip, yet she didn’t stop him as he crooked a finger inside her drooping neckline and tugged, pulling the dark-blue satin down her front.

When she shrugged her arms out of the dress and let it fall down around her waist, he reached behind her again, this time to feel for the laces tying her short stays. His gaze remained locked with hers as he worked to pull free the lace zigzagging up her back, then carefully removed her corset and tossed it away, leaving her in nothing from the waist up but her thin chemise.

She closed her eyes. “I’ve never…”

“I know.” He brushed her hair over her shoulder. Instead of dropping his hand away, he teased at the chemise’s thin shoulder strap. “And you know that I would never purposefully hurt you.”

She nodded. “Yes.”