Page 54 of How to Tempt a Duke

So Charles did not walk away.

He did not even step back to break the inappropriate closeness between them.

He could not bring himself to, no matter how reason played in his mind. His thumb brushed over her full bottom lip once more, reveling in the supple pliancy of her warm skin. Her lips parted—and then she drew in the digit with a hot, gentle suck.

His mouth fell open on a surprised exhalation and his manhood lurched to attention.

She tilted her head upward, releasing his thumb and capturing his gaze instead. “One of the journals proved to be most...edifying.”

Charles swallowed around a dry throat. “I think you ought to have taken my advice and not read them.”

Eleanor lifted an eyebrow in a show of naughty prowess. “Should I?”

This level of flirtation would make his shaft burst if she continued. Regardless, it did not stop him from speaking—from asking what he should not. “What was it exactly that you read?”

“Of the other things the ghawazi do.” Her cheeks flushed. “Aside from dancing.”

An image of her in swirls of near-transparent silk lodged in Charles’s mind, the same image as had done so the last few nights. Ever since they’d looked at that image of the nearly naked woman together. His skin tingled with the nearness of her and his shaft raged against his breeches. Ridiculous, considering she hadn’t even touched him. Well, save when she’d sucked on his finger as if...

He shook his head. “You should not have read them. They are not fitting for a lady.”

“I have questions.”

Walk away, Charles.

But again he did not listen to his own command, and instead found himself pressing deeper into the damning conversation. “What questions?”

She pulled in a deep breath and her bosom swelled against the red silk dress she wore. He thought of her nipples beneath, pink and perfect. His tongue longed to circle the sweet buds, to draw them into the warmth of his mouth and suckle her until the nubs grew taut.

Her lashes had lowered to a languid half-lidded gaze. “When a woman sucks a man’s thumb, is it not in suggestion of her taking into her mouth...?” She paused, bit her lip and looked down to his breeches.

“Eleanor, this conversation is not—”

“Appropriate. Yes, I know.” Her blush deepened to an even darker shade of red. “But there is much we have done that is not appropriate. Please answer the question. When a woman sucks on a man’s thumb—”

“Yes,” he gritted out.

Dear God, this conversation was becoming the greatest torture of the sweetest kind.

She nodded. “And if a man could be pleased thus, could not a woman?”

Sweat prickled on his brow. “A woman can be pleased in many ways.”

“So, is it possible to please one another without penetration?”

The woman was going to kill him with such talk. “Yes.”

“A man and woman can both be pleased while she continues to remain a virgin?”

Her line of questioning was suddenly apparent.

The room had grown far too warm, her gaze far too bold, and his willpower was far too damned weak. What man could resist such temptation?

Still, he knew he needed to try. “Eleanor, we shouldn’t—”

“I know.”

She stroked her fingertips over the lapel of his jacket before glancing up at his face. She rose up on her toes and pressed a kiss to his lips. There was no delicate innocence about her. No, this time her affections were those of a woman hot and hungry with need.