Daring and the Duke (The Bareknuckle Bastards 3)

Another one of those small, knowing smiles. “You are not paying attention. She did not care that he was a god. She was one of the most skilled fighters the world had ever seen. She knew her power and was not about to relinquish it. Not even for an immortal.”

“Clever girl,” she said, her own hands on him now, stripping him out of his coat and untying his cravat as he spoke.

“Did I not tell you that she was brave and brilliant?”

She tossed the cravat away, spreading her hands over the fine white linen of his shirt, low, lower until she pulled it from his trousers. “And beautiful, you said.”

He caught her chin in his fingers, tilting her to him. “Incomparable.”

Another kiss, hot and delicious.

“But she did not want a second life like the one she’d lived with her father. She didn’t want to sit in idyll, the wife of a god. She wanted to rule a kingdom—a warrior queen.”

Grace was watching him now, hanging on every word, knowing the end of the story. The only way it could possibly end. “She refused him.”

He nodded. “And so the great god—god of the sun, of truth, of light, of prophecy—he did the only thing that was left to him.”

“He stole her,” she whispered. And the words, part of a silly story, horrified her. The idea that there was always someone with more power, who would stop at nothing to lay claim. How many times had she looked over her shoulder, terrified of that power, in the hands of men?

In the hands of this man?

“No.” He held her eyes, watching her carefully. “No, Grace. He didn’t steal her. He begged her. The son of Zeus, the great deity of the Trojan War, he lowered himself to his knees and begged her to join him. He offered her wealth, jewels, immortality . . . if she just let him love her.”

She shook her head. “She refused again.”

“Why?” The story was fading, and there, at the edge of that single question, she heard reality. “He wanted nothing more than to give her the world. To love her and keep her safe, and give her everything she wished.”

“But not everything she needed,” she replied. “He couldn’t know what she needed—with him a god, and her a mere mortal.”

With him a duke, and her, nothing at all.

“She didn’t want the world,” she said softly. “Not from him.”

He nodded, urging her to continue.

“He wanted to gift her the future,” she said softly, “but she wanted to claim it.”

He paused for a long moment, until she wondered if he was going to speak again, one finger tracing the line of her jaw, over the soft swell of her lips. “What do you need?”

The question brought her such comfort. Such joy.

And hope beyond anything she’d ever experienced.

“I need you—” she said.

He waited. Ever patient.

And finally, she continued. “I need you.”

His eyes darkened at the words.

“Now,” she whispered. “Tonight.”

She didn’t say the rest—the bit that would change everything.

She didn’t say forever.

He might have heard it anyway, for how he kissed her, deep and thorough, rolling her to her back and coming over her to kiss her jaw, her neck, the slope of one shoulder, her breast, easing closer and closer to one straining tip. His lips softened over her and she sighed at the way he worshipped her, her fingers sliding into his hair, her back arching toward him, pressing closer to him.

Aching for him.

Not just for his touch, but for all of it, the intimacy of the caress, the care, the pleasure.

So much pleasure.

He followed her touch, his lips closing tightly around her, and he sucked gently, working at her until she was fisting his hair and whispering his name, holding him at her breast, full of heat and want, and slowly unraveling beneath his long, rhythmic sucks.

His hand was sliding over her hip, down the skin of her thigh, teasing her legs apart until she was open for him, lifting her hips to meet his touch, rocking against him. She ached with need, not just for the caress he promised, but also for the rest, for his eyes on her. For his lips on her. For his words around her. For him.

And then he parted her folds and stroked, finding her wet and wanting, only made wetter by his growl of satisfaction. He lifted his head from her breast and met her gaze. “You like this.”

She nodded, moving her hips in time with his strokes. “I like you.”

He stilled at that, and for a mad, fleeting moment, she wondered if she’d said too much. But if that was too much, what would happen if she told him the rest?

He stroked again, and her eyes began to slide closed. He stopped. “No, love,” he said, the word warming her as much as his touch. “I want you to watch.”

His fingers moved in lazy circles, there right at the heart of her.

She spread her legs wide. “Go on, then.”

They both looked down her body, at his hand, working her, and she slid her own over his, their fingers tangling, their breath coming heavier. Neither of them looked away when he said, “Take it.” He leaned down and took her nipple again, in long, lovely sucks that made her pant, his touch steady and strong, then faster, and she was arching up to him.

“Ewan,” she whispered. “Please.”

And then it was there, cresting, and she was rocking against him as he guided her through the pleasure, lifting his head to watch her claim it for her own. “There,” he growled. “Take it. Everything you need.”

She did, his watchful gaze a gift, a promise that he would always be there to hold her pleasure. To provide it. To revel in it. To guide her through it, as it threatened to unravel her.

When she was sated, he lifted his head, his hand now cupping her tightly, ensuring she received every last moment of pleasure.

Finally, she looked to him and raised her hand to the side of his face. “This was supposed to be yours,” she whispered. “I was to give it to you.”

“And you think you haven’t?” he said at her lips, stealing kisses between whispered words. “I feel nothing but the kind of pleasure that steals one’s sanity.”

She shouldn’t like that, but she did. “That good?”

“Impossibly good,” he said. “Christ, Grace. Pleasure with you—it puts pale to every other pleasurable thing I’ve experienced.”

“Have you experienced much pleasure?”

She didn’t know why she asked it. It shouldn’t matter what had happened in the twenty years that had passed. It didn’t matter if he had had lovers. It didn’t matter who they’d been.

She shouldn’t have asked.

He did not seem to mind. “No.”

She ached at the reply. At the truth in it. He’d been alone for as long as she had. Longing for something, just as she had.

Longing for her.

“I missed you too much,” he whispered, the words so soft that if they hadn’t been entwined, she wouldn’t have heard them. But she did, along with the truth in his voice. “Every day, every hour. I missed you.” A pause, and then, “To say I have missed you—it’s not enough. The word . . . it implies a natural occurrence. It suggests that if only I’d been home the day you called . . . if only you’d been on St. James’s the last time I bought cravats . . . then I’d have had a chance not to miss you. But what do we call the aching emptiness that I feel for you? All the time? Every day?”