There was a light tap against her arm, and then he lifted it gently and peeked beneath.
His chin was slick with her release, his lips red from pleasuring her. She lowered her arm and cupped the back of his neck, drawing him to her so she could kiss him deeply. She tasted herself on his mouth, sweet and salty, earthy.
When they parted, she shook her head. “My God.”
He gave a half-smile, arrogant and proud. “Happy to oblige, my dear.”
She giggled despite herself and swatted him on the arm. “Please tell me that you’re not going to be even more insufferable than usual.”
“I absolutely intend to be,” he said. “Now that I know how beautiful you are when you fall over the edge of pleasure, I’m going to congratulate myself about it five times a day.”
She smiled again as she reached out and traced the line of his forearm, her palm tickled by the faint smattering of hair there. She bit her lip. “It seems only fair to even the score, doesn’t it?” She glanced at his trousers, where the bulge of his erection pressed against the fabric.
He followed the line of her stare and smiled. “You won a prize today for a wager and I always pay promptly and fully. This…” He caught her hand and pressed it to his cock through his trousers. It twitched, and she sucked in a breath. “…will keep.”
He leaned in, bracing his hands on the pillow behind her head. He kissed her once more and then shoved to his feet. She stared, utterly confused by his…was it a rejection? Not exactly; after all, he had just rocked her entire being to its core. And she could see he wanted her, so it wasn’t that.
But he was just going to…walk away?
She stood on unsteady legs, tugging her chemise free of her gown as she did so. She slid it over her head and watched as he moved to the mirror over her fireplace. He fixed himself, smoothing hair made wild by her fingertips. He looked almost a proper duke again when he was finished. Only she knew the truth.
“Here, let me help you,” he said.
She stepped into her dress, and he motioned her to turn around. He fastened her with the same efficiency he had made her come undone. She might have thought him completely unmoved but that he leaned in and pressed a warm kiss to the side of her neck. He sucked gently, and she found herself leaning back against his chest, ready to start all over again.
“You are a temptation,” he grunted, his voice thick. He stepped away and began to unroll his sleeves, refastening his cufflinks before he put his jacket back on. “But one I must resist just a while longer.”
She nodded and hoped she looked as nonchalant as he did. “What are your plans this evening?”
He unlocked the door and they walked out together, back down the hall toward the foyer where he signaled for his carriage. As they waited, he said, “I’ve a supper meeting with a friend, someone I hope can help Rhys in his predicament. And, of course, I will be waxing poetic about our great romance.” He leaned in a bit closer. “It will be much easier to do with your taste still on my tongue.”
Her cheeks flamed and he laughed as he stepped away toward the carriage that had just pulled up to her door. “Goodnight, Abigail.”
“Goodnight,” she managed to croak out. She watched as he drove off into the growing dark, and shivered.
What had happened here today was…very confusing. She had no idea where they stood and less of an idea of what their marriage would be like. But there would be passion. It seemed he would make that happen.
And if he wouldn’t, she would.
Chapter 13
Nathan paced the parlor that faced the street, pausing occasionally to glance out the window toward the drive. His sister would be arriving any moment. He hadn’t seen Ophelia in over a month, since his last trip to Cornwall. He missed her, troublesome though she sometimes was.
He would have been excited except that he still didn’t know how she would react to Abigail. Her letter after he’d told her of the engagement and asked her to come to London early had been…well, it wasn’t exactly supportive. She’d had a thousand questions and concerns.
That wasn’t the only trouble on his mind, though. Abigail, herself, was to join them for tea later, after his sister had settled in. He hadn’t seen her for almost a week, since he left her after he pleasured her in her study.
He had dreamed of her every night since. Her taste, her scent, the sounds she made as she arched beneath him were all burned into his mind. He wanted more. Wanted it so much that the power of it frightened him a bit. Which was why he had been avoiding her and telling himself he was just busy with preparations for Ophelia’s arrival and his wedding to Abigail.
Abigail had been no better, of course. She had not sought him out, either. And when he wrote to her, to ask her questions or invite her as he had today, she wrote only short, one-word answers.
Blue.
Thursday.
Yes.
He didn’t think she was upset with him. Certainly, she hadn’t seemed that way when he left her, and Rhys and Owen assured him she was simply swamped with the work of shutting down her house and her last preparations for the wedding.
Perhaps he could speak to her about it today. Try to connect on a level beyond their usual sparring or the surprising and all-consuming passion that pulsed between them beneath the surface.
“Your Grace?” his butler said from the foyer, and Nathan jolted back to reality.
His sister’s carriage had arrived while he was daydreaming of Abigail. He rushed to the foyer and outside just as a footman helped Ophelia down from the rig. She looked up at him from the bottom of the stairs, and then her face broke into the wicked grin he knew and loved so well.
“Nathan!” she squealed as she rushed up to greet him while the footman helped her companion, Miss Cross, down behind her.
They embraced, and Nathan welcomed the warmth that spread through him at her presence. Though Ophelia was eleven years his junior, they had always been close. Even closer after the death of their parents when she was eleven and he twenty-two. He had been thrown into the position of duke and of father figure. Once past the initial terror, he had thrived in both roles in the near-decade that followed.
Ophelia was the person he adored most and who frustrated him most—until he met Abigail, that is. She broke their hug and looked up into his face. “You look tired.”
He shook his head as he tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow and drew her into the house. She greeted the butler, Gardner, and then followed Nathan into the parlor he had recently deserted.
“I suppose I am tired,” he admitted. “Would you sit?”
“After the last few days of travel?” she said with a laugh. “No, I will pace ceaselessly and drive you mad instead.”
He smiled as she began to do so. “I’m so happy you’re home. I’ve missed you.”
“Of course you have,” she teased. “And I admit, I’m happy to be back in London. After…everything that happened last year, hiding away felt right. But I’ve been bored of late and I know I cannot avoid the Season forever.”
“I hope you won’t want to after a while. I hope you’ll reconnect with friends and make some new ones and actually enjoy the parties and balls.”
She arched a brow. “You mean you hope I’ll swiftly find a husband so that we will both be leg shackled.”