The Duke's Broken Angel

I felt out of control and I loved it. I surrendered to the freedom and settled back into his chest. His hands locked around my hips, his hard body pulling me tighter into his.

“I’m sorry I didn’t come for you today.” His words were slurred. It was barely eight p.m. and he was more drunk than the average night when he came home. Whiskey wafted on the air between us. “I was afraid you’d hate me.”

“Why? Because this dress makes me look like the King’s mistress?” I joked, but he remained serious.

“Because I deserve it. But you don’t deserve the way I treat you.”

“No, I don’t. But you’ve been a heel since I arrived, why stop now?”

His grin quirked. “Because this is our first date.”

“Hardly, Keir. You can drop the ruse, I get why you brought me here.”

“Why?” He spun me in his arms, snuggling me close to his hard body.

“There’s no one here our age, it’s just...I think the Queen passed me on the road while I was walking and, I just don’t think this is going how it should be. I know I said I wouldn’t give the money back, but I think I’ve done all I can the last few days and all it got me was this beautiful, muddy dress.”

“You wear beautiful and muddy well,” he rumbled against me.

Inhaling his clean scent, I closed my eyes, pressing into him. His knee positioned between my thighs caused my dress to ride up. We danced as the world fell away. I inhaled the delicious scent that was all Keir while my brain buzzed from my proximity to the gorgeous Greek god wrapped around me. The thrum of his heartbeat pounded through my body, nerves tingling and my breathing shallow. My brain focused solely on the rhythm of my form against Keir’s. I shouldn’t have been dancing so close, but the champagne that pulsed through me was doing the thinking for me and for once, after everything, I just wanted to let go.

Keir pressed my body up against a wall at the edge of the dance floor and moved his hips against mine as the next song hummed around us. He ran his teeth up my neck and scraped my earlobe as his palms roamed my body?down my bare back, up my rib cage, over the underside of my arms. He dipped his head and trailed his tongue along my collarbone, sending a shiver of pleasure rocketing through me.

What was I doing?

My fingers tightened in his hair as a small whine escaped my throat. He felt so good.

“Do you like that?” his words escaped in a throaty whisper.

“Yes,” I hissed, my eyes closed as my hips moved against his. Thoughts dashed in and out of my head. I felt like I was supposed to grasp their meaning, but too much champagne in too little time had left me with the inability to think straight.

“I want my tongue all over your body.”

My breath caught as he continued to lick and scrape with his teeth.

“I want that, too.” I confessed, arousal flooding my thighs.

“You shudder when I touch you.” He ghosted one fingertip up the underside of my arm. My head swam in a cocktail of him. I exposed my neck as Keir's tongue laced up my throat and then bit at my jawline.

“Oh, God.”

He slid a hand down my leg and gripped my thigh possessively.

“Oh, God...” I said again as the fog slowly dissipated from my brain. Keir kneaded the flesh of my thigh as his other hand held my neck. “Keir.”

“I love when you say my name, Cricket.” The words escaped his lips on a husky exhale.

“Keir, stop.”

His hands stilled on me instantly and he rested his forehead on mine. “I’m sorry, Cricket. I mean it. Please believe me.”

His palm tightened on my thigh and I wanted to beg him to touch me more. Everywhere.

His hands slid up my arms and caught both of my wrists, locking them above my head. My eyes finally flickered open and Keir's heavy-lidded gaze bore into mine. All traces of a smile left his face as his jaw tightened.

“Your lips say the right words, but your body says you’re lying,” he whispered in my ear. “I can tell that you want this, Cricket.” My name falling off his lips made my heart skip. His thigh was still wedged in between mine as his body angled over me possessively?a predator unwilling to relinquish his prey.

“No. I have a job.”

“Maybe.” He ran his nose up my neck as he pinned me against the wall. My hands locked above my head, my body bowed into his?trapped between him and a wall?I’d never felt more vulnerable. Or more turned on.

He dipped his head, the tip of his tongue trailing down the vee of my dress and tasting the skin between my breasts.