Page 64 of Duke in Darkness

“No. You’re going to lift your gown, petticoat, and chemise. Then sit on my lap. Facing the mirror.”

“What?” she replied, startled. Surely he couldn’t mean…

“Quickly, Lili,” he added in that colonel tone, and a pulse started beating wildly between her legs. Good heavens. They were really doing this.

Slowly, Lilian lifted her pink-striped gown, linen petticoat, and fine lawn chemise to her waist, shivering as cooler air danced against her overheated, damp center, stifling a moan when her nipples hardened painfully. Then she turned around and settled on his lap, her back to his chest, and her thighs spread wide by his.

Oh.

In front of the mirror like this, her private parts completely exposed, she could see everything. The thatch of tight curls, glistening with juices. The pink of her secret flesh.

Cheeks burning, she looked away from the too-carnal sight. “Um, Exton—”

“Excuse me?”

“Gabriel,” she said softly.

“Better. Yes?”

“What should I, ah, do now?”

His hands stroked up and down her arms in a soothing motion, then one brawny arm curled about her waist, and the other came to rest on her thigh. “Keep your gown high. And tell me what you like. If I understand…I can make you come. But you must watch. If you stop watching…I stop touching.”

Lilian whimpered and eventually dragged her gaze back to the mirror. It was altogether too wicked, sitting here on her husband’s lap with her gown raised and her legs spread, in the daytime. And yet he was holding her. His huge, hard chest a warm wall at her back, his arm securing her. Never had she felt so safe. So protected. And the throbbing between her legs had become quite unbearable. If she obeyed and said all those naughty words, she would be thoroughly pleasured by her soldier lover, the lover who said she mattered.

Taking a deep breath, she shifted a little on Gabriel’s lap to get more comfortable. “I like being stroked. Between my legs.”

“Very well,” he said, trailing his fingertips along her sensitive inner thighs. Up and down. Back and forth. Teasing and teasing and yet staying far away from the place that ached for his touch.

Her hips tilted in supplication. “Please.”

Gabriel tsked. “No. I can see you want to come. Your clitoris is swollen. Your cunt is dripping wet. But you’ll get nothing…until you ask. Specifically.”

Such a strict colonel, insisting she submit fully like this. How did he know that was exactly what she wanted?

“Stroke my clitoris,” Lilian whispered, arching against him like a kitten wishing to be petted.

“Can’t hear you,” said her husband, the hot glint in his eyes making a lie of the words. Not to mention the bulge of his cock pressing against her bottom.

She moaned in frustration. “Stroke my clitoris.”

“Louder,” he commanded, his mouth creating sensual havoc as he gently nipped her neck, then flicked his tongue against the slight sting, the muscled arm draped across her breasts rubbing her taut, tender nipples through her gown.

Her body screamed at her to obey. All at once, the fantasy of the moment descended over her like an erotic cloak, blocking out the world apart from Gabriel. Allowing her to be free.

Lilian took a deep, shuddering breath. “Stroke my clitoris. And…and put two fingers inside me. Inside my cunt. I am a soldier’s woman and I need to come. Please. Please let me come.”

His arm tightened around her, and the lustful approval on his face made her squirm in his lap. “Very good, Lili. Very good indeed. Now. Remember to watch.”

Seconds later his big, bronzed hand slid down and cupped her mound. The warmth of him felt like a brand, a mark of ownership in itself, and the contrast of his size, the color of his skin against the pink and white of hers, had her trembling in delight. Then his fingers parted her nether curls and began to caress her soft folds, while his thumb circled her clitoris.

“More,” she said.

“So wet, Duchess,” he rasped, his fingers stroking her entrance, the erotic sounds of her slick readiness, her panting breaths, his low, guttural growls a sensual symphony in the stillness of the bedchamber. “What a pretty cunt you have.”

Just when she was ready to shriek her displeasure with the deliberate teasing, he pushed his fingers inside her. A gasp tore from her throat as a jolt of pleasure raced from her core to the tips of her toes. But Gabriel remained ruthless and utterly in control, not allowing her to buck away or retreat from the ferocity of the sensations as he plunged his fingers in and out, and his thumb pressed against her aching clitoris. Hotter and hotter, tighter and tighter, the tempest coiled inside her, and Lilian groaned in frantic need as the orgasm she wanted so desperately hovered tantalizingly out of her reach.

“Please, please,” she begged. “Gabriel…”