My Darling Duke

st hated him in this instance.

“You will break me,” she murmured, holding his gaze, wanting him to scoff and deny. Or fall back on the humor that seemed to have saved him when his world had turned to ashes.

A dark knowledge lingered within his brilliant stare. A finger trailed along her cheek, sorrow…and something unfathomable whispering through his stark gaze. “You will recover,” he said softly, his tone ruthless and implacable.

Kitty flinched.

No promises lingered, nor were any implied. And the first crack in her silly, reckless heart appeared.

They stared at each other; the darkened chamber clasped them in an intimacy that made her believe all their secrets would be kept safe. All their kisses, improper glances, wicked touches would be only a memory between them and this small cottage. Society need not know, and ruination would be averted.

I’ll know, her aching soul cried as she allowed the heart that had dreamed once but had been buried under duty to flicker to life.

As if he sensed the hunger jerking inside her, his head dipped, their noses rubbed briefly, then his sensual mouth claimed hers in a kiss of violent tenderness. She floundered in a blinding sea of sensation, desperate to sink deeper. Her fingers dug into his hair, holding him steady, pushing him away, urging him on all at once.

…

Hunger flamed through Alexander’s soul, a wicked craving that crawled to burrow deep under his skin. The wonder of Katherine’s lips against his felt like his first brush with intimacy. He almost went to his knees, so urgent and desperate was the need to be touched by her and to feel the burn of pleasure. Even when he’d teased her of slobbering earlier to save himself…to save her from this fiery madness, her taste had enslaved him.

Touch me, please, he silently, desperately implored.

The sweet taste of her spilled into his mouth; her soft sighs of pleasure vibrated through his body, burrowing their way down to his heart. It beat. For the first time in years, he felt the shudder of his soul and heard the echo of his heartbeat. It transmuted a halting stutter to a thundering roar within seconds. How long had it been since he had tasted such sweetness? Felt such pleasure? Ten years? A lifetime.

He could feel the dull ache of awakening desire in his cock, and he trembled in reaction, shock tearing through him. He was impotent. For ten years, doctors had probed and prodded; the Marquess of Argyle had sent Alexander some of the most exotic and wicked Parisian courtesans, and all had failed to rouse his ardor.

While his cock wasn’t rushing to attention, he felt something…and that was everything.

Miss Danvers’s mouth was a sweet silken flame under his as she responded with artless wonder to his ravishing kisses. She made an achingly hungry, demanding, yet soft sound against his mouth. Every muscle in his body tightened, every echoing emptiness in his soul expanded to be filled with a strange sensation akin to wonder. He cupped the back of her head with one hand, cradled her cheek reverently with the other, and slanted his mouth over hers more forcefully, a desperate need burgeoning inside to feel the press of desire.

Alexander sensed the heated quickening inside, and though he felt a throb along his shaft, the phantom pulse of remembered pleasure, his length did not harden. She whimpered into his kiss, and he felt her pulse fluttering wildly against his palm like the wings of a captured bird. He shifted, and pain flashed up his thighs and into his hips.

With a muffled moan, she pushed against his chest. He released her immediately and shifted so that she rolled away from him, taking great gulps of air through her swollen lips. Her body was flushed, the creamy mounds of her breasts quivering through the gaping nightgown. She touched her full lower lip with a fingertip, and her eyes were wounded shadows in the paleness of her face.

He took a deep, deep breath. “I’ve frightened you,” he murmured.

“No…I’ve frightened myself.”

And he understood.

“Come here, Katherine.”

Her eyes shot with a defiant spark, and her tongue darted and wetted her bottom lip, a nervous gesture. “Are you making an offer, Your Grace?”

A pounding ache went through his heart. “No.”

Indignation brought a flush to her cheeks. “Then you will refrain from taking liberties,” she whispered, her voice achingly soft. “Though I was foolish to kiss you just now, I do not wish to be reckless and impetuous with my virtue. I… If I should succumb to your ravishment, I would expect and demand a marriage. Our situation is very…unorthodox, and we must not give in to any temptation our forced intimacy imposes. I must not give in and you must not be the devil’s advocate. I’ve no brother or father to protect my honor, so I must use my good senses.”

She looked pale and stricken and heartbreakingly beautiful, yet so very fierce and determined.

His fingers lightly caressed her arm, and he bent his head closer to hers. “Then use your good senses wisely, Miss Danvers.”

She was so endearing, so indomitable, so damn sweet. She had a stubborn strength that did not lessen her beguiling femininity. And Alexander wished and hoped for things he hadn’t longed for in years. The ability to give…pleasure and joy and his name and protection. It was foolish, it bordered on rank absurdity, but suddenly he wanted Kitty Danvers with all her bold impudence, reckless heart, and vivacious personality…to belong to him.

If only…

He rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling, hating the empty, hollow feeling once more rising inside. He’d conquered these emotions years ago when he’d wanted to rail at life and become a monster in his grief and despair. He’d accepted the certainty this would never be his, so why was he tempting himself again with things that could not be?

You will break me.