Page 52 of The Duke Meets His Match

She squirmed, her fingers grasping fistfuls his hair. “Michael?”

“Let me pleasure you.” He pressed a kiss to the top of the curls, then gently parted the delicate pink lips of her sex. Then she was bared before him, swollen and wet. Glistening in her feminine glory of arousal. For him. There was something feverishly arousing seeing her spread before him on his desk where he’d spent hours with his maps and his solitude and his memories of war. She was his fantasy, and he never need experience dread or fear or loneliness in this room again. His gaze greedily memorized every inch of her, and the stunningly erotic image burned in his mind and replaced all the others he wanted to forget.

He slid his hands beneath her bottom and raised her to him. With the tip of his tongue, he traced her swollen lips. “Michael!” she cried out.

He ran a finger down the wet slit and she shuddered. The scent of her arousal filled his senses and fueled his arousal. His tongue replaced his finger and the taste of her was like nothing he’d ever experienced. It filled his senses and drove him to the brink. He licked and laved and teased, and when she raised her hips, he gloried in her response.

Her soft moans drove him onward, and when his tongue traced the sensitive pearl at the crest of her sex, she arched high off the desk and into his mouth.

“Oh, my,” she whispered. “I never imagined.”

He raised his head to meet her gaze. “Let yourself go, love. Come for me.”

Her hands threaded in his hair, but this time, she held him against her. He tasted her wet heat as she surrendered completely to his strokes. He loved her soft moans, her uninhibited reaction. He wanted to hear her cry out his name as she found her release. He flicked his tongue where she craved it most, the tiny bud between her thighs that made her tremble and moan. He gave her no quarter, but reveled in the way she shivered and squirmed and gasped.

When her body grew taut in need of release, he slipped a finger inside her tight sheath and swirled his tongue over the sensitive nerves. She cried out, and he felt the tiny tremors of her climax on his finger. He was harder than he’d ever been, aching and heavy, desperate to free his cock and thrust himself deep inside her tightness.

But this was for her, for the singular woman she was. And for what she’d done for him. His heart squeezed with an emotion he dared not name. He may not be able to keep her…to hold onto her forever, but he’d have this memory.

Standing, he held her, kissed her forehead, her eyes, her lips. “To my dying day, I’ll never forget how lovely you are in your passion.”

Chapter Nineteen

Chloe had never imagined a man could make love to a woman the way Michael had pleasured her. It was glorious, marvelous. She should be ashamed to be naked in the middle of the day sprawled on a duke’s desk in his study. She should be ashamed, but shame was the last emotion she felt. What she’d shared with him wasn’t just physical, but something intense and emotional. Something rare and special.

Her heart swelled with love.

She raised herself on her elbows. “I’m afraid your map is ruined.”

“I hardly care. Are you blushing, Miss Somerton?”

“It is daylight, and I’m lying on your desk without a stitch of clothing. While you are completely dressed, down to your hessians,” she pointed out.

He grinned. “A fact that can be quickly remedied.”

“Devil,” she said, giving him a wicked smile. “The truth is I’m wildly curious about your body.”

His expression grew serious. “Chloe, I want you very much, but this was for you.”

He meant only to pleasure her. An odd twinge of disappointment pierced her chest. She was curious about his body, and this would be her last chance to explore him. The thought was dismaying, so she forced herself to push it aside. He had shown her unimaginable pleasure, and she wanted to give and receive, to explore and satisfy a burning curiosity, and to make this moment last as long as she could.

“But I long to see you,” she said.

“That’s dangerous.”

“It’s good then that I’m not a lady who’s easily frightened.”

His half-lidded gaze spoke of desire. He wanted her, but he still held back. She shimmied off the desk to stand before him and pressed a hand to his chest. His heart pounded beneath the soft fabric of his shirt. She leaned into him and pressed soft kisses to the corners of his lips, light and teasing. It had the intended result.

He swept her high into his arms as his mouth slanted across hers and deepened the kiss. He carried her away from the desk, kicking aside maps and books that littered the floor as they went, then set her on her feet before the fireplace. The plush Oriental carpet felt decadent beneath her bare feet.

Breathless from his kisses, she reached for the buttons on his shirt. “May I?”

The first buttoned loosened. Soon he was aiding her and pulling it over his head to reveal a long, sinewy torso. Her mouth went dry at the sight of his chest, all hard angles and ridges. She rested her hands on his shoulders and placed a lingering kiss on his collarbone, then let her tongue edge out to lick his hot flesh. He growled deep in his throat, and the rumble made her shiver with pleasure.

She kept going, placing kisses on his chest followed by licks. The growl turned into a groan, his fingers buried in her hair. She kissed and laved each of his flat nipples, then her fingers followed the line of hair down his stomach that disappeared into his trousers.

When his hands rose, she pushed them away and raised her eyes to his. “Let me.”