Daring and the Duke (The Bareknuckle Bastards #3)(93)

“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 re member 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.

“I love you,” he whispered to her, wanting to say it again, now, in this perfect moment.

She lifted her head at the words, her gaze searching his, finding whatever she was looking for, because she pressed a kiss to his chest, and then tucked herself back into the crook of his arm, as though she might never leave.

He tightened his arm around her, urging her to stay.

And then she asked for the thing he had known she would ask from the moment he’d woken up in the dark in this very building a year earlier.

Then, he’d been unprepared to answer it.

Now, he was ready.

No masks.

“What happened that night?”





Chapter Twenty-Three


He didn’t answer immediately.

In fact, for a moment, she thought he might not answer at all. Or perhaps he hadn’t heard her, as nothing changed after she asked the question—he did not loosen his grip on her, nor did his breath quicken, nor did the slow, steady beat of his heart increase beneath her ear.

Finally, he replied, the words a low rumble between them. “I have asked myself that question a thousand times.”

She did not lift her head, knowing that whatever was about to happen between them would change everything. Afraid that the truth would make it worse.

“And so?”

Grace listened to his breath, slow and even, for a long stretch, willing herself to be patient, as though her whole world weren’t in chaos at the idea that she might be in love with this man who had been her enemy for so long.