Page 63 of Unbound Duchess

Heat laced through his veins, eating away at his lingering rage.

“Ellen,” he rasped.

“Answer me,” she breathed, sliding a hand up his chest to the rip that bared his muscled chest. His breath hitched as her bare palm slid off his warm muscles, his entire body jerking at her touch.

“Yes,” he choked out, feeling his manhood throb and grow beneath her backside.

She turned and drew the tip of her dainty nose up the column of his throat, then pressed her lips to his jaw.

“Then I want you to make me forget again,” she breathed.

Laurence let out a tortured groan as her soft, pink tongue darted out and flicked against the spot on his jaw where she had just kissed.

“…Unless you do not wish to.”

He did not bother with a response. Instead, he snaked his hand into the hair at the nape of her neck, and pulled her head back. He greedily swallowed her moan as he kissed her plump lips with brutal need, giving in to his desire and rewarding hers.

Ellen shifted in his lap, moving so that she straddled his hips, but before she could sink, Laurence lifted her and laid her down on the couch, their lips and tongues still intertwined in a deep kiss. He smoothed his hand down the side of her body, taking in her shapely curves until he reached her ankle, then hitching it over his lower back. He did not just want her in his lap this time. He wanted to feel her completely pressed into him from lips to toes.

He groaned at the closeness as he lowered his chest down to her breasts, reveling in the way her softness pillowed his hardness.

This was wrong. It was going a step too far with their contract, but in that moment he did not care. Judging from the way her small fingertips dipped into the rip in his shirt and yanked until it tore down his middle, neither did she.

“That’s it,” he praised, his voice low and hoarse with need as he trailed kisses down the column of her throat. “Take what you need.”

Ellen moaned at his words as her hands dragged away the ruined shirt from his shoulders and down his arms. He rose to his knees, just long enough to be rid of the thing, then came back down to her, caging her onto the couch with his muscled arms. Ellen gripped the sides of his face as she leaned up and kissed him, taking control of her own wants as her lips melded and her tongue teased. He groaned into her mouth as her hands slid from his face to his back, and he broke away from the kiss and buried his face into her neck as she dragged her nails over his hot flesh from his shoulders all the way down to his lower back.

How long had it been since he’d been touched this way? Had he ever allowed a woman to take such liberties? He couldn’t recall, and as he bit and nipped his way down to her collarbone, he realized he did not care. All that mattered in that moment was Ellen.

Laurence drew his nipping kisses further down, trailing from her collarbone to the valley of her breasts until he met the fabric of her bodice. For a moment he was torn between sitting her up to untie her dress or simply ripping it, but then Ellen demanded he tear it apart with a needy plea, and his decision was made for him. It was new, this gown. But he would buy her another. He would buy her a hundred if she asked. After the way she’d fought him, she more than deserved it.

The sound of ripping silk and corset was nearly as sweet as the sound of Ellen’s moans as he hungrily kissed and nipped at her breasts, then every inch of flesh he exposed as he dragged the ruined dress down her body. When he finally reached her legs and freed her from it, he flung the ruined thing away, not even realizing that it had landed in the fire burning in the hearth across from them. Laurence caught her ankle, and kissed the rounded bone there.

Ellen gasped and shivered at the sudden gentleness; her reaction only spurred him on. He willed his need to cool just enough so that his kisses grew soft and tender as he made his way up her calf and to her inner thigh. As he kissed the porcelain white flesh there, her legs immediately parted a little further for him, and he groaned at her readiness. Whatever will he had to deny himself was completely gone now, and all he cared about was hearing her moans of release again.

It wasn’t about want anymore. He needed to taste her. Laurence burrowed his head between her thighs, starved for her taste, and inhaled deeply. He drew in the sweet notes of her desire and groaned in approval as he wrapped his hands possessively around her thighs, and then he licked.

Pleasure burst through his tongue as he tasted her wetness—so powerful it made stars burst behind his eyes. He lost himself to that hunger, slurping and licking at her as if she was the only thing he ever wanted to taste again, and it was only after several moments of self-indulgence that he realized Ellen was writhing in pleasure as she moaned for more. Her hands, he realized, had slid into his hair. She was gripping the strands tight—as if doing so was the only way to keep her from levitating off the couch.

“Oh, love,” he rasped, willing his need back into control. He slowly slid his tongue over her quivering mons, eliciting a whimper from her. “Oh, love, I lost control. Forgive me.” He pressed a tender kiss to her clitoris, earning him another shiver and whimper.

“It…” she panted, her grip on his hair slowly easing up. “It’s alright.”

“No,” he cooed, reaching up to slide his fingertips through her pretty pink slickness. “No, it is not.”

A breathy whimper broke from her lips as he rubbed gentle circles over her clitoris, soothing away the assault he’d just committed on the most sensitive part of her body.

“I will make it up to you,” he murmured, feeling her taut body slowly sink into the couch as he took a more tender approach. “You do not deserve something so brutal.”

Ellen moaned as her grip on his hair turned into a caress, and he looked up just in time to see her lashes slowly lower over her eyes. With a grin on his shining lips, he moved his fingertip in another lazy circle, reveling in the way her body trembled at the light touch. Then he slid his finger down, stroking over her dewy petals with forced tenderness until he reached her opening. He groaned as he found her entrance flooded with her juices, and as he slowly thrust into her tight sheath, he lowered his lips to her precious bundle of nerves.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

“Laurence…” Ellen moaned.

A quiver of pleasure passed through her, starting in her breasts and traveling all the way down to her toes, as his tongue and hand worked in tandem against her center. Pleasure had reverberated throughout her core as he had burrowed his head between her thighs and slaked his thirst in those first few moments, but she’d never felt anything so exquisite as the tender touch he was paying to her body now.

Ellen let her head loll back as she gave herself over to him, feeling her body sink deeper into the couch with every stroke of Laurence’s tongue. She had fought him so hard, and she could not help but feel that his mouth and hand were now rewarding her for that determination.