To Desire a Wicked Duke (Courtship Wars)

At her husky gasp, Ian sank even deeper inside her, deliberately inflaming the shimmers of pleasure that were radiating from her in waves.

He moved in a rhythmic motion, with slow, hot strokes that she felt in her very core. Liquid wanting poured through her, her flesh absorbing the heat and strength of him, her tension mounting with his every sensual thrust.

In only moments, the quaking excitement in her body built to shattering proportions … until she shuddered and melted around him. As she shook and sobbed his name, Ian came also, emptying inside her in a powerful climax that left them both weak and gasping.

In the drowsy aftermath of their passion, he stroked the curve of her hot cheek with a soothing finger.

“I would say we are making progress,” he murmured in husky satisfaction.

“What do you mean?” Tess asked hoarsely.

“You cried out my name rather than my title.”

She sighed with grudging contentment. She couldn’t regret surrendering to him. No doubt it had been inevitable after spending so much time alone together these past few days. The wonder was that she had managed to resist Ian’s allure as long as she had.

But the almost smug note in his voice compelled her to reaffirm her position.

“I thought you claimed to be a man of your word,” she breathed in an accusatory tone.

“I am.”

“Then how do you explain going back on your pledge? You promised we would not consummate our marriage until I begged you, but I never begged.”

When Ian lifted his head, she saw a lazy, heated smile glittering in the gray depths of his eyes. “Not yet, but you will. And I might point out that you are to blame for precipitating the consummation. You came to my room clad only in a provocative nightdress.”

Although Tess couldn’t deny his logic, she sidestepped the issue with a smile. “I will never beg you, Ian,” she insisted.

His mouth lowered to hers with heart-stopping languor, then finally drew back. “I will refrain from mocking you when you renege on your vow, love. For now, however, I propose we ring for breakfast. All this passion has left me famished.”

Tess was starving also, but she raised an eyebrow at his suggestion. “It would be more proper to dress and go down for breakfast.”

“Propriety be damned. I mean to spend the remainder of the day here making love to you.”

A fresh shiver of excitement ran through her. “Is that not rather decadent, as well as lazy and self-indulgent?”

“Perhaps, but newlyweds can be forgiven their inordinate carnal lust. And it is time you indulged your own needs for a change. You have acted the role of Saint Tess for so long, you have forgotten how to enjoy a leisure hour or two.”

Acknowledging the truth of his charge, she gave Ian no further argument just then. They breakfasted in his room, wearing only robes, and while they were being served, he ordered a bath to be filled in the adjacent dressing room.

Tess waited until the footmen had left to do his bidding before lodging a protest. “You cannot mean for us to bathe together.”

Ian sent her a taunting smile. “Are you afraid of a simple bath, darling? Or merely afraid I will make you beg?”

“I am afraid of neither,” Tess replied defiantly.

Ian was obviously taking her declaration as a challenge, and she thought it wiser to respond in kind. Keeping their marriage adversarial would go a long way toward maintaining her emotional distance from him, she rationalized.

For the remainder of breakfast, Tess tried to tamp down the anticipation and excitement welling inside her, yet she felt Ian stealing her breath every time their gazes collided.

His servants carried cans of h

ot water into the dressing room and eventually filled the copper bathtub. When the last one left, he shut his bedchamber door and locked it behind them, then turned to face Tess.

Awareness coursed through her with an intensity that made her burn. The air was crackling between them again, charged with a suppressed sexual chemistry … that blood-pounding, swept-away sensation that always made her feel so alive.

Then Ian shrugged out of his dressing gown, baring his nude body. Tess was unbelievably stirred by his striking beauty. He was strong and tall and handsome enough to take her breath away—but then, breathlessness was becoming a habit with her whenever she was near him. She wanted him with a greed that she had never experienced before.

He crossed the room to her, moving with a masculine grace that titillated the senses and only emphasized the leashed power in his long limbs.