Page 65 of The Duke’s Suspicion

“I’m not asking you to be my duchess, love…”

Every muscle in her body, even the blood in her veins, appeared to have turned solid as mortification overspread her face.

Hurriedly, he finished his sentence. “I’m asking you to be my wife.”

Warily, she unbent the tiniest degree. “But you’re a duke. Which means your wife will be…”

“You, I hope. Just as you are.” Her lips quivered at that, and the pink came back into her cheeks. “I cannot blame you for not wanting to be the Duchess of Raynham,” he said, “for I certainly never wanted to be the Duke. But these last few months—no, this week has reminded me how little of the world I really control, whether as a duke, a major, or simply a man. And when I think of all your supposed ‘flaws,’ well… It seems to me you’re far better prepared for this messy, uncertain life than I am.” He brought his hand to her face again, stroked his thumb along her cheekbone. “Will you share the ups and downs of this journey with me, love?”

She hesitated. “What will your colonel say about you marrying an Irish rebel?”

“He might just consider you an asset,” he answered with a teasing half smile. But her expression did not soften and he realized the question had been sincere. And something in the nature of a confession? Perhaps Whitby’s suspicions about her family hadn’t been wrong after all. Damn. Releasing her other hand, Tristan pinned her face between his palms, so that she could not avoid his eyes. “He’ll come around. Because you’re not just any Irish rebel. You’re mine.”

She melted then, into his arms, into him, her hands sliding up his shirtfront and wrapping around his neck, while her lips traced a fiery path along his jaw to his ear, all the time whispering, “Yes. Yes. Yes.”

He tried unsuccessfully to shift and gather her into his arms, but the bench was narrow and unforgiving. “I wish now I’d given in to temptation in the library. That’s the softest carpet in the house.”

“Hardly a proper place for you to punish my defiance, Your Grace.” Her laugh tickled against his throat, where her tongue was doing marvelously naughty things.

Ah, yes. The note. “I was thinking of it more in the nature of a reward.”

“The floor in here is warm,” she suggested.

“But deuced…hard.” The groan slipped from his lips as one of her hands made its teasing way to his lap.

Once before in this room, he had wondered what it would be like to find himself the sole focus of her attention. Now he knew. Her curious fingers lightly traced his erection through the woolen breeches; he made no attempt to deter her when, some minutes later, she sought the buttons of his fall and slipped them free, one by one. Then it was more of the same pleasant torture through the thin barriers of his shirttail and his drawers, her light touch learning him with slow deliberation. It would, at this rate, be another hour before she ventured beneath the linen. Anything like gratification hovered far in the distance, almost a mirage. He gritted his teeth and let her play.

His turn would come.

In assessing that he had more patience than she, he was correct. He underestimated her persistence, though, and very nearly to his peril. He had not anticipated that her mischievous exploration would bring him almost to the point of pain, so near crisis that his body trembled with the effort of holding it at bay. His breath was ragged when he told her to stop. Or at least, those were the words he had meant to say. What passed his lips was something closer to a curse, a plea, garbled and desperate for release, and he caught her wrists and pulled her hands away a moment before he embarrassed himself.

Lifting those wicked hands to his lips, he kissed each finger, and each brush of his lips produced a corresponding catch of breath. Ten times he watched her eyes widen, her gaze darken a fraction more, until he held her spellbound. With deceptive lightness, he laid her hands down, one on either side of her hips, palms flat against the bench. Obligingly, she curled her fingers into the iron scrollwork and left them there as his mouth came to meet hers and his hands settled elsewhere, one against her waist, the other cupping the curve of her breast. So many layers between his touch and her skin, yet he could feel her impatience, the rise and fall of her ribcage and the flutter of her heart.

Her kiss, too, was eager and openmouthed. Deliberately, he denied her at first, tracing the very edge of her lips with his own, eluding the darting tip of her tongue. But only at first. Desire could be kept at a simmer for only so long before it began to burn.

Still, for a time he contented himself with kisses, her soft mouth so inviting, the taste of her so sweet. Then he let his lips drift to her throat, the wings of her collarbone, pausing to give a gentle nip to the slope of her breast where it rose above the edge of her dress, pushed to prominence by her corset. He could sense how desperately she wanted to be free of it, bare to his touch as she’d been the night before.

“We’re in the glasshouse,” he reminded her. “And we’ve left the lantern burning. Anyone might see us.”

A tremor passed through her. “Let them see.”

My God. Her reckless passion would be his undoing. And he would have no regrets.

But he didn’t undress her. He made do with sliding one hand beneath her skirts, over her knees, to the hot silk of her thighs. When her legs parted, he traveled higher, inch by careful inch. Her crisp curls were damp already, and she hissed with pleasure when he drew his fingers lightly through them, once, then twice.

“You’re going to make me sorry for teasing you, aren’t you?” she cried softly.

“Yes.” He slipped one finger deeper, just brushing her bud. “And no.”

What he really wanted was to set his mouth to her there, taste the dew that coated his fingers, feel her tremble against his tongue. But there would be a time for that, and a place more comfortable than this. Here, on this unrelenting iron bench and behind these glass walls, she was a prisoner of a different sort. Tonight, he wanted to be able to watch her face, as she had no doubt watched his. See the flush, the glitter of perspiration rise to her skin, the desperate agony of pleasure as he touched her, bringing her again and again to the very brink of release.

He would teach her something about patience.

“Stand up,” he ordered long moments later, rising himself and shoving his breeches to his knees.

She was trembling, weak with desire, but with his help she got to her feet, and once more her trust was a gift unlike any other he had ever known. With gentle pressure, he turned her to face the bench and bent her over it, placing her hands to support her weight. Dragging her skirts upward, he bared her backside to his gaze, welcome curves of creamy flesh over which he swept his eyes and hands before stepping closer. With one quick thrust, he was inside her.

Her head came up with such force her hair came free of its pins in a flash of silken fire; he heard them skitter across the flagstone floor. Three slick strokes would finish him, he had no doubt, but it was time enough to slip his hand around her hip, to flick one fingertip across her swollen bud. She shattered with a scream that rang from the walls, and his seed sprang from him, filling her.