Duke of Desire (Maiden Lane #12)(73)

Iris clutched his waistcoat with her unbound hand, feeling the muscles bunch and relax under her fingers. His face was set.

They reached the ducal chamber finally, and Raphael shouldered open the door. He crossed the room and set her on the bed and then climbed in after her, shoes and all, and pulled her to his chest.

The room was dark, save for a banked fire.

She could hear his breaths in the silence, even and steady.

“I’m not,” he said, so suddenly she started.

She licked her lips. “Not what?”

“An abuser of little boys. Or little girls. I swear to you on my mother’s grave, on my soul, on everything I hold dear in this life or the next that I’ve never, never touched or looked at or thought about children in that way. I—”

“Raphael.” She struggled to face him, for he wouldn’t unlock his arms from around her. “Raphael, please listen.”

He stopped, his breathing uneven now.

She tested his hold and found she could sit up and turn around and look at him.

He lay staring at the canopy of the bed, his eyes iced over and blank.

She had to make that look stop.

“I know,” she said to him, and took his face between her palms. “I know you would never do the things they were whispering. I know they’re all lies. I believe you, my darling. I believe in you.”

He closed his eyes.

And when he opened them the ice had melted. He was looking at her with tears in his crystal eyes.

“Iris, my Iris,” he whispered, and drew her lips to his.

He kissed her like a man dying. Like a man taking his last breath.

As if he cherished her.

And something in Iris blossomed open and expanded in her chest and seemed so full it would make her burst. She wasn’t sure she could contain this feeling, this emotion, she had for him.

Her husband.

She cared for this man—rather a lot. Perhaps even more than cared for him.

The thought should frighten her, but all she felt was happiness.

Happiness.

“Iris.” He sounded desperate. Undone. And she realized his hands were shaking as he held her.

He rose up suddenly and turned her, so that she lay on the bed. He pushed up her skirts, found the ties to her panniers, and yanked them off and threw them to the floor.

Then he was on her again, trailing his mouth down her neck, biting at her collarbone.

She ran her fingers into the hair at the back of his head, grasping, trying to hold on as he moved on her so intently.

He’d always been in control when he’d made love to her. Now he seemed moved by a sort of compulsion.

An animal need.

The thought made her shudder with arousal. Made her clutch at his shoulders.

She felt his hand on her leg above her garter, on bare skin, urgent and hot. She was still fully dressed, as was he, but he didn’t seem to want to take the time to disrobe. His fingers covered the curls at the tops of her legs possessively, and he raised his head.

“Spread your legs for me,” he said, his eyes implacable.

She inhaled and felt liquid heat pool low in her belly even as she was already moving.

She felt enthralled by him, enthralled by her own sexuality. He bared something in her that she hadn’t even known was there before she married him.

Something base, primal. Had it always been there, this fierce drive to feel? Or was it something that had been engendered by his touching her?

Her touching him?

She knew that she should be wary of this part of herself. Ladies were often exhorted to ignore any animal urges. To be polite. Formal. Cold.

But the flames of her desire, meeting and burning higher with his compulsion, were intoxicating.

It felt wonderful.

Too good to ignore. Too good to give up.

And when his fingers traced into the wetness of her vulva, into the depths of her pleasure, she cried out, her eyes still caught with his.

He smiled, crooked and sinister because of his scar, but a smile nonetheless. A smile that wasn’t exactly nice or gentlemanly.

But a smile that was all for her.

Only her.

No man—no one—had ever looked at her so before.

She arched beneath him, her hips shoving up, trying to get more of that hand, more of that gaze. He lowered his head and covered her mouth, thrusting between her lips as he slid a finger into her softness.

She trembled beneath him, moaning as he kissed her so deeply she thought she might lose her senses.

He was rubbing his thumb over her clitoris now, fast and hard, and he broke the kiss to murmur in a voice dark as hellfire, “Wet my hand. Show me your desire. Show me all that you are. Let me look at your sweet cunt, swollen and rosy for me. I want to make you weep. I want all your pleasure, Iris, all your pain, everything you are. You are the light in my black night. Come for me.”

And she felt herself bow with the stark white bliss of her epiphany, the shattering realization of his words and his hands and his mouth. She was gasping for breath, shaking, lost, unseeing. The center of her being pulsing with pleasure.

She lay limp and heard him curse, sounding desperate, and then felt his weight on her.

She opened her eyes and saw that his face was hard and his gaze riveted on her.

“Raphael,” she moaned, begging. Wanting. “Please.”

“I can’t,” he said. “God, I can’t.”