Daring and the Duke (The Bareknuckle Bastards 3)

She looked up at him, her eyes glittering with pleasure. “Do you?”

How could she even doubt it? He lifted a hand to her face, capturing her cheek and holding her gaze. “So much,” he said. He took a deep breath, memorizing this moment. “I searched for you for so long, thinking it would be the same when I found you. Thinking you would be the girl I’d loved.”

Her throat worked at the words. “And instead, I found you, beautiful, yes, and bold. But strong and powerful—fucking glorious. You’re glorious, Grace.”

The words struck her and she took a deep breath, her chin lifting just enough for him to see her response. Pride. Satisfaction.

“I see you,” he said.

“I dreamed of this,” she replied, softly, the confession searing through him. “Of you returning. And finding me. And wanting me.”

He shook his head. “You cannot believe I would ever not want you.”

“I am not the girl you loved anymore.”

You can never have her back.

The words she’d hurled at him that night a year ago. The words that had broken him. The words that had reset him. “No,” he said. “You are not. You are more. You are the woman I love.”

She breathed in the words, her hands coming to his chest as her eyes filled with unshed tears. He reached up to pull her down to him, to kiss her again.

When he pulled away, he whispered, “You don’t have to say anything. But I could not stay silent any longer. I love you. Not the girl you were. Not the woman I thought I would find. You. Now. Here.” He tilted his head toward the windows overlooking the Garden. “Out there on the rooftops and below in the Rookery.”

Her hands came to his face, and she kissed him again, long and lush, until they were both panting with pleasure.

He pulled away from her again. “Do you remember what I said to you that night in my gardens? Do you remember what I called you?”

A soft, secret smile played over her lips. “You called me a queen.”

He nodded. “And I, your throne.”

Fire lit in her eyes. “I like that.”

He growled, low in his chest. “I do, too, love.”

They came together again, his hand between them, parting her folds as she lifted herself, the tip of him settling at the opening of her, hot and wet and perfect. No. No heirs. “Wait . . .”

She stilled, understanding. She shook her head. “We don’t have to wait. There is no possibility of pregnancy.” And then he, too, understood. There were ways to prevent the inevitable, and Grace was a grown woman who would know well how to use them.

She lowered herself a quarter inch. A half. Just enough for him to lose his mind as she sighed in his ear. “That feels—”

“Like heaven,” he grunted.

She smiled down at him, “Do you think we can make it better?”

He gave a little huff of laughter. “I can think of several things we can try.”

“Is this one of them?” she asked, coyly, and she lowered herself onto his straining cock, hot and glorious, slow and perfect, and the sensation threatened to ruin him.

“It’s the best of them,” he grunted, willing himself still as she lifted herself a touch and returned to her place, lower, taking more of him.

“God, it’s so—”

He waited, watching her, knowing that it might be uncomfortable. Not wanting to hurt her, and desperately wanting to fuck her.

“Full,” she whispered, and the word, all sin and sex, made him even harder. She felt it, her eyes flying to his. “You like that.”

“Hah,” he said, unable to find proper words for a moment. “Yes. I like it.”

She kissed him again, rocking into him, until she found her seat and he met her sigh of pleasure with a groan of his own. And then she said, “You like it when I tell you how full you make me.”

He couldn’t stop himself from thrusting into her, just barely, just enough to make him mad with the tease of it. “I do.”

“Shall I tell you more? Shall I tell you how hard you are? How you stretch me beyond imagining, until I cannot remember what it was like to not have you inside me? Shall I tell you how it feels, knowing that it is you there, Ewan?”

It was murder. She was destroying him.

And then she leaned down to his ear and said, “You, finally, where you belong.”

His control snapped. His arms came around her and he flipped her onto her back in the bed, the sound of her delighted laughter the only thing that penetrated the haze of his desire. He met her sparkling eyes. “You think this funny?”

“I think this perfect,” she said.

He kissed the words from her lips. “I wager I can make it more perfect.”

She lifted her hips, teasing him. “Prove it.”

And he did, moving, finally, starting with slow, shallow thrusts, until she was arching up to him, and he was suckling her nipples and her fingers were in his hair and she was begging him for more. He was happy to give her more, moving deeper, faster, with more power, until she was sighing his name and matching him, thrust for thrust, deep and smooth and then faster, until he was gritting his teeth to keep from spending.

Not without her. Never without her, ever again.

Not now that he knew what with her was like.

She was a siren, writhing beneath him, her wild curls spread over the bed like silken fire, and he was consumed with his love for her, this woman who had more strength and power and brilliant beauty than anyone he’d ever known.

And now, she was his.

As he thrust, she slid a hand down between them, and he made room for her to find her pleasure again, her fingers working the heart of her need as he thrust into her.

He leaned down to kiss her again. “Does that feel good, love? Your hands and my cock, together?”

“Mmm,” she said, too distracted by her search for release. And then her eyes flew open, and he knew she was there.

“Ewan,” she gasped.

“With me,” he commanded. “Look at me as you take it. I want to watch.”

She did, her enormous brown eyes on his as she fell into pleasure. Watching her proved his undoing. He followed her over the edge, shouting her name to the room even as he did all he could to draw her orgasm out, refusing to stop, refusing to slow, until she was spent.

And only then, when she fell back into the cushions, boneless, did he stop, turning as he returned to her side, pulling her with him until she was draped over his body, her soft skin pink with pleasure and her silken hair cloaking them both, their breaths coming in the same harsh staccato.

They lay there in silence for long minutes as their heartbeats slowed, her body loose and languid on his, as he traced idle patterns over her impossibly soft skin, marveling at the way the evening had twisted and turned, and landed them here, together, in sated peace.

Had he ever felt like this? A pure sense of satisfaction? As though nothing that had come before or would come in the future mattered, because in this singular moment, there was perfection.

He should have known it would be like this.

Grace, whom he’d always thought of as a missing piece, now so much more.

He stroked a hand down the bare skin of her back and she took a deep breath, the rise and fall of her breasts against his chest sending a low hum of awareness through him.