Page 68 of The Devilish Pleasures of a Duke

Charlotte practically pushed him in her hurry to reach the door first. “Splendid idea. Now—”

A thin voice floated down to them from the dormer window. Her white face overshadowed by a frilly nightcap, Harriet sat perched across the sill. “Would the pair of you mind taking the chitchat inside?”

Gabriel scowled up at her. “You wouldn’t be talking to me, would you, Miss Sauce-Box?”

“Yeah. What if I am?” Harriet peered down at him for several moments. “Hey, I know that ’and-some face, don’t I?”

Gabriel snorted. “If you’re referring to me, I doubt it.”

“I’ve seen you in the slums,” Harriet insisted. “Sneakin’ about, you were.”

“Not me,” Gabriel said in annoyance. At least not in recent years.

“Maybe you have an evil twin,” Charlotte whispered amusedly.

“Maybe I’m evil enough to be triplets,” he retorted. “Which reminds me. How are those brothers of yours?”

“I don’t ask.” She gave him a suspicious look. “How are yours?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Ah.”

Harriet pounded her fist on the sill. “Some of us do need our beauty sleep, you know. If you keep that blether up, you’ll wake up the whole house in a minute.”

Gabriel raised his brow. He had a hunch the whole house, if not all of Mayfair, would be in an uproar before morning.

Emma moaned, sinking into the mattress. “Please draw the bedcurtains,” she whispered. As if darkness could veil their indecent desire for each other.

He loomed over her, his shirt hanging halfway off his shoulders. He looked raw, sexual, and he acted it, too. “What if it pleases me to look at you?”

“You shouldn’t—”

“Ssh, love,” he said, unfastening his trousers.

“My head is swimming,” she said in a quiet voice. “I think I’m going to faint.”

Her eyes fluttered shut as he lowered himself onto the bed. His large hands glided in gentle possession across her face, her throat, then her breasts. His erection pressed hard against her bare hip. His clean scent, mint and male spice, stole enticingly into her senses.

“You’re not going to faint.” He kissed the engorged tips of her breasts, his voice a seductive whisper on her skin. “At least not until after I’ve f—”

“Adrian,” she gasped, opening her eyes. “Not that word.”

He laughed, locking his leg over hers. “Fine,” he murmured. “I won’t say it, but I’m going to do it to you good, Lady Emma. Shall I suck on your breasts first? Or may I stroke your lovely quim?”

She caught her upper lip in her teeth. “Must you describe every detail of the acts we are to experience?”

His sharp white teeth closed around a delicate nipple. Her spine bowed in pleasure. “It’s all in the details, isn’t it?” he murmured, echoing the words she had spoken to him at the wedding. “The little touches.”

Her breath caught on a broken laugh. “I shall take you to task…later.”

His thumb spread through the dewy curls that crowned her cleft. He inhaled raggedly, then began to rotate the stiff pearl of her sex. “You’re silky wet,” he said, his voice deepening to a soft growl. “Temptress.”

Temptress. Her. Of all the names used to describe her, this was the most unlikely, the most lovely—Oh, heaven. He wedged another finger into her secret place until she could feel herself stretching, weeping against his hand in supplication.

“Not yet,” he whispered.

She thrashed her head, lifted her hand to his thigh. Her body trembled with irrepressible need. His thumb teased her clitoris, light flicks that drew a deep moan of frustration from her throat. She felt his heavy shaft thicken against her thigh. She moistened her lower lip with her tongue, imagining his organ in her mouth, between her legs.