Page 51 of The Duke’s Suspicion

Though the command was unfamiliar, she knew she hadn’t the strength to resist it, didn’t want to resist it—resist him—anymore. With a choked cry, she gave herself over to the blinding rush of pleasure and release.

Sometime later, he stirred, calling her back from a far off dream, and when she opened her eyes, it was to discover he’d hoisted himself higher in the bed, so that they were lying side by side. “Erica?” His voice was pained. “Touch me.” With a tug of his fingers, the corset cord unraveled from her wrists, and her hands were her own again. “Please.”

Clergymen, moralists, gossips all spoke of what a woman lost when she went to a man’s bed: her reputation, her maidenhead, even her place in heaven. Why had no one ever hinted at the extraordinary power she got in return?

As if trying to make up for lost time, she raced one hand over his shoulder and down his arm to his hip, tracing the muscles, reveling in his hardness. His buttocks clenched and she followed the movement, her fingertips skating into the dimples she’d glimpsed from the doorway earlier. Then she eased herself apart from him just enough to run her palm over his chest and his abdomen, to curl her fingers in the dark hair that covered him there, and lower…

“Wrap your hand around my cock.”

She’d never heard the word before, but some commands were too primal to require explanation. Without hesitation, she curled her small, pale fingers around his dark, hot desire. So firm and proud, its potent shape familiar, like the stamen of a flower. Suddenly the figurative language of every botany text became literal, and she saw the truth they had tried to hide from young ladies’ curious eyes. He levered himself above her, and with a swift tilting of her pelvis, she brought his cock to the smooth, silky petals of her body’s opening. “Come inside me,” she murmured.

A momentary twinge of discomfort told her, Yes, this is real, this is true. And then the slick glide of him filling her, the exquisite stretch, the certainty of his possession.

“All right?” he whispered against her hair.

Her arms came around his back. “Never better.”

In some corner of her mind, she wondered if perhaps she ought to have known, having so often observed the bees at work in the flowers. But what could have prepared her for the power of his thrusts, the teasing agony of his withdrawal? Slow at first, and steady, then faster, a race toward pleasure, his arms and shoulders taut with strain and her own hunger rising once more.

And with one last, shuddering nudge of his hips into hers, she burst into bloom again.

Chapter 16

Submissive was the last word he’d ever use to describe Erica. And though he wielded a great deal of power over those around him in almost every aspect of his life, he didn’t generally expect to do so in bed. But in the army, he’d often seen a longing for support and security in the face of turmoil, the relief in another’s eyes when authority was properly exerted. In her journal Erica had recorded her quest for that elusive moment when she could set aside her uncertainties and be herself, and he’d wanted—needed—to give such a moment to her.

He twisted one coppery lock around his first finger while she dozed curled against his side. She’d given him control and then, gloriously, had taken it back again with the brush of her fingers, the surer clutch of her sex. Life would never be boring with her in his bed. In his life. Perhaps next time they’d—

Next time?

The spiral of hair unwound and slipped away. She had no desire to marry him. And beneath this very roof was another woman whose family, at least, anticipated his offer. How could he look forward to any future with the woman beside him now? In addition to being a wealthy aristocrat, he was an officer in an elite corps responsible for protecting British liberties, a hero in many people’s minds. He knew ladies generally found his looks satisfactory. But he wasn’t vain enough to imagine that one night in his arms had changed Erica’s mind.

He needed more time. Time to trace his fingers along the scattered path of her freckles, which hid in the most delightful spots. Time to tempt her with the beauty of Hawesdale’s gardens on a sun-dappled afternoon. Time to thank her for the energy and vibrancy and passion she’d brought into his life. He had known them only in other guises: disorder and disarray and loss of self-control. He had not known he needed them. Until now.

But time was not on his side. The storm was weakening. Even at this moment, the silence pressed upon him—no wind battered the eaves, no spit of rain dashed against the windows. In a few days at most, she would leave.

As if his churning thoughts had somehow communicated themselves to her, Erica stirred, made a sleepy murmur, and snuggled closer. Then, on a jerk, her eyes popped open and her body grew rigid. “What if—?” One hand pushed ineffectually at her disheveled hair. “Captain Whitby was wrong about me, but what if he was right in essentials? Could there still be a spy at Hawesdale Chase?”

“I—he—” His thoughts snapped like the lash of a whip. While it was hardly unheard of for an agent to discuss such matters in bed—sometimes, after all, such discussions were the primary object of taking a woman to bed—it was not the conversation he had hoped to have with Erica now. What did it mean that her first thoughts upon waking were of something other than the extraordinary experience they’d just shared? “Perhaps.”

With one hand, she scooted herself more upright, while the other tugged the bed linens higher, hiding her rose-tipped breasts from his view. “Doesn’t that mean you’re in danger?”

“Not immediate danger.”

He had known the answer would offer meager reassurance, but he was unprepared for the way it made her curl more tightly within herself. Beneath the sheets, she brought her knees to her chest and wrapped herself into a ball.

“If someone wants something from me, he’s unlikely to do anything rash until he has it,” he hurried to explain, plucking absently at a wrinkle in the coverlet. “As far as I’m concerned, the greater risk is having my identity as an agent compromised. If it is, I may be unable to return to the field.” Speaking those words aloud, facing their reality, was more difficult than he had expected.

She had been watching the movement of his hand as he spoke, but now she lifted her gaze to his face. “You mean to go back? To continue as…mere Major Laurens?”

“Not ‘mere,’” he said sharply. “Not to me. It’s essential work, though if it’s done well, most people will never know it’s been done at all.”

“But what about…?”

He had not realized he was holding onto a spark of hope until her hesitation breathed life into it and coaxed it into a glowing ember. Was it possible she too had been considering the possibility of a future together?

Then she concluded, “What about your sister?”

The flicker of hope in his chest sputtered. “Vivi will be all right. She has her mother, her—” governess, he had been about to say before remembering that he intended to dismiss Miss Chatham. “The familiar faces who’ve surrounded her since her infancy. She’s grown accustomed to my absences, I’m sure.”