Page 78 of How to Tempt a Duke

He opened his eyes and flexed his brows in consideration. Finally his shaft shifted from her inner thigh to the throbbing ache of her need. He pushed into her gingerly.

More. She needed more.

She spread her legs wider and he pressed forward, until the very entrance of her stretched around the girth of him.

He clenched his jaw. “Are you ready?”

Eleanor nodded, and opened her mouth to speak just as he thrust into her. A flash of pain burst through the haze of her lust.

Charles froze where he remained, still buried in her depths. He was large within her, slightly uncomfortable, and the feeling was foreign and awkward.

He touched her face. “I’ve hurt you...”

She shook her head, unable to speak. Her body would adjust, and then there would be gratification.

He pulled out and a ripple of pleasure went through her. She drew her legs around him and rocked her hips with the same natural motion as before. He followed the slow pace she set, slowly easing deeper inside, and deeper still. His breath came fast against their shared kisses.

Just as Eleanor had known would happen, her sex became accustomed to him—not only accustomed to the invasion of her intimate place, but welcoming it with slick, wet heat. His hand moved between them and found the spot where he would drive her to the edge of ecstasy. He circled it with his thumb in time with his thrusts, until Eleanor’s body tensed with impending release.

“Yes...” he breathed against her ear. “Yes, come for me.”

He didn’t need to ask. She couldn’t stop it even if she tried. Her body clenched until she feared she would begin to tremble, and then the pleasure exploded around her like the flashing fireworks of Vauxhall Gardens in the night sky.

The spasming of her core gripped around Charles’s length repeatedly, further heightening their bliss and prolonging their satisfaction. Charles pushed firmly inside her and gave a tight grunt. He twitched within her depths and a delicious wave shuddered through her.

Unwilling and unable to move, they remained in their joined position for a long moment, both gasping to catch their frantic breath.

Eleanor’s heart raced harder and faster than it ever had before, frenzied with the excitement of their intimacy. And as her breath began to calm, a quiet contentment swept over her, bringing total and complete satiation.

Charles slowly pulled away from her and motioned her to remain where she was while he strode across the room in all his nude glory. She watched his form appreciatively, enjoying the play of light and shadows over the powerful planes of his back.

When he returned he carried a wet cloth and gently cleaned her. Though the heat and pain of his initial intrusion had ebbed, the coolness of the cloth against her sensitive area was most welcome.

He regarded her tenderly. “Are you all right, love?”

Love. Her lips curled into a dreamy smile. “It was beyond words, Charles. Truly, in every brilliant way.”

Eleanor stretched back onto the bed and Charles pulled her into his arms.

She could lie there forever at his side, she thought. Listening to his heartbeat, wrapped in his embrace and trying not to fall in love.

Chapter Twenty-Six

The following day Eleanor found herself in the confines of a carriage once more—but this time she hardly minded. It was only for a short time, while they made their way to Comlongon Castle, and she was with her new husband. The one who had kept her up the better part of the night with another round of teasing and satiating and loving.

Her body hummed with the languid warmth still thrumming in the slight tenderness between her thighs.

As if he were considering similar thoughts to her own, a soft smile touched Charles’s lips where he sat across from her in the private carriage they’d taken. Once more they were blissfully alone, with Thomas and Lottie having remained to see to their effects at the inn so Eleanor and Charles could arrive at Comlongon together.

Charles’s brilliant blue eyes were fixed on Eleanor’s. It would be hard not to love a man who looked at her so, and yet she knew it best to guard her heart.

“You look radiant, my Duchess.” He settled back in his seat with a contented grin. “I am the luckiest man in all of Christendom.”

“To have had so fine a wedding?”

Together they laughed over the episode at Gretna Green. It was the kind of shared joke they would tell in the years to come.

The trees cleared away around them to reveal a large span of lush green grass with the powerful form of Comlongon Castle rising at its center. It wasn’t so much the sight of it that robbed Eleanor of her speech, but the memories which crashed into her with such alarming clarity it rendered her quite overwhelmed.