Duke of Desire (Maiden Lane #12)(61)

He sat up and found a handkerchief on the table beside the bed.

“Hush,” he said, sounding weary, drying her cheeks. “It happened a long, long time ago.”

She closed her eyes. But it hadn’t, not really. This injury was always with him. He lived with it, aching, every day.

She shook her head, gently touching the corner of his mouth where the scar distorted the line of his lips. “I’m so sorry, Raphael. Oh, my darling, I’m so terribly sorry.”

He stroked her face with his thumbs. “You understand now why I cannot continue my line.”

Her eyes widened in shock. “What?”

“I carry his blood in my veins.” His nostrils flared as if he scented something rank. “Filthy, deviant, disgusting blood. Are you not repulsed by my story? Surely you can see why my line needs to be stopped with me?”

“I … I’m repulsed by what your father did to you,” she said slowly, carefully. She mustn’t say the wrong thing now. “And I’m repulsed by your father. But Raphael, you’re not your father.”

“It doesn’t matter.” He shook his head. “Better my family die with me than another monster be born. Another like my father.”

She looked into his eyes, still crystal gray, still icy with resolve, but all she could see now was the pain he hid so well. “Raphael …”

“No.” He placed his palm against her cheek. “My mind is made up. I have known my fate since I was twelve, and I will not be persuaded from my decision. Can you not leave your argument, just for tonight? Let us not be at odds tonight.”

She shouldn’t give in to him. Shouldn’t let his weary words win her over.

But he’d let her see the black ichor that lay at the heart of his past. He’d bared it for her, though she knew he was ashamed and hated it.

She nodded—what else could she do? He had confided in her, despite the pain it must have caused him. This was not the time to rail against him, to give him more pain by arguing.

This was a time to comfort.

“Very well,” she whispered. “I, too, have no wish to be at odds.”

She knelt up in the bed and leaned to look at him. His wide brow, his Roman nose, those too-cold eyes, and the lips that in another life—another, better world—would still have been beautiful.

This man was her husband. He was intense and intelligent, arrogant and vulnerable, dark and strange.

The more she found out about him, the more she thought that perhaps she might fall in love with him, Raphael de Chartres, the Duke of Dyemore.

What was more, he was hers.

Hers to take care of.

And in that she would not fail.

She bent and brushed her lips over the divot in his chin. Kissing again his scar, now that she knew how it had been made. The memory, the mental anguish it represented was terrible. But this scar? It was just skin. A bit more knotted than his other skin, true, but skin nonetheless.

She told him so with her lips, her tongue, her breath. Licking the permanent sneer of his upper lip, tracing the path of the knife up his cheek, pausing to kiss his closed eye and give thanks, and ending at his bisected eyebrow.

She cupped his dear, mysterious face and drew back to examine him.

And when he opened his frozen eyes and looked at her, she quirked a smile and kissed him. She closed her eyes and brushed her lips against his, feeling the silk of his mouth, the slight bump where the scar cut across the corner. She licked his bottom lip, teasing with her tongue, feeling as he tensed beneath her.

He hugged her and slowly rolled her over so that now she was below and he above as he took control of the kiss.

He caught her bottom lip between his teeth for a moment. Giving it a gentle tug before he pressed against her lips with his tongue.

And she yielded.

Maybe that was why she opened her mouth, because she’d asked and he’d answered. Because he’d suffered for her. For her curiosity. Such a small thing, and in the end, did it make any difference?

She couldn’t say.

Except she knew now. She knew. And even though the memory was horrific, she was glad she knew. She wanted to understand this man. All of him, both the good and the bad.

No matter how shattering.

So she opened her lips and let him in, and when he thrust his tongue into her mouth, she sucked on it softly.

Yielding to his desire.

Yielding to his wants.

Yielding to the heat rising between them.

Trying to tell him that she wanted to give him everything he needed.

He threw one leg over her hips, holding her trapped as if he never wanted to let her go.

She could feel the press of his penis through the thin layer of her chemise, pulsing as he came to erection. He caught her thighs between his legs, pressing them together, and he moved …

Oh. He was so close to where she wanted him to be! She could almost feel him. Feel his bare skin. Her chemise was becoming damp from the slick wetness growing at her core. She tried to arch up. To widen her legs. To get his cock where she needed him, but he was stronger than she.

He would not bend.

She whimpered in frustration and he twisted a hand between them and pulled the ribbon free from her chemise. The bodice was merely gathered at the neck and it fell open, giving him access to her breasts.

He lowered his head and sucked one nipple into his hot mouth.

She moaned, twisting under him, panting, wanting something he would not give.