Lady Be Reckless (Duke's Daughters #2)(70)

He leaned forward and swept her up in his arms, placing her on his lap. She was warm and soft, and he couldn’t get distracted by that, not when he had to make sure they understood one another.

“I love you too.” Her eyes widened, and he heard her draw her breath in sharply. “I was angry because I thought you just wanted me for what you thought you could accomplish with my wealth. Like you wanted to with Bennett, back when you first proposed.” He pressed a kiss on her brow. “Plus your timing was terrible, given what had just happened between us.”

She grimaced. “Yes, I don’t always think before I speak,” she said.

“I would say you never think before you speak.” He laughed as her embarrassed expression turned outraged. “Not that I want you to ever stop. I love you, I love how you rush into things without wondering how you’ll look, and I love your determination, your forcefulness when you see inequality. Whether it’s for ducks or bastards,” he finished, grinning.

She swatted him on the arm, but she was still here, still very much in his lap, a smile on her mouth.

“You love me?” she said, looking up at him.

“I do,” he replied.

“Then let’s do something about that,” she replied, a wicked look on her face.



Olivia straddled him, catching his jaw in her hands, lowering her mouth to his.

He loved her. She loved him.

She kissed him, and he wrapped his arms around her body, holding her close against his chest. She ran her hand through his curls, down his neck and underneath the fabric of his dressing gown.

She made a noise in her throat as she realized he wasn’t wearing anything underneath.

“What?” he said, moving his mouth to her neck. He sucked her skin into his mouth, then licked the tender spot, making her shiver.

“You’re not wearing any clothing,” she said, sliding the fabric off his shoulders.

“Well, I was, but then you took it off me,” he said, smiling as he shrugged out of the garment.

She leaned back to take the view in. His chest was golden in the candlelight, whorls of hair lightly covering his muscles. She placed her palm on his nipple, making his stomach muscles contract.

That was fun. She drew her fingernails over the nipple, and he hissed, encircling her wrist with his fingers.

“You don’t want me to touch you there?” she asked.

“I do,” he replied, his voice low and growly, making her shiver all over again. “But there are other places I want you to touch me.” And he brought her hand down, skating it over his skin, to his—

“What do you call it?” she asked as she curled her fingers around him.

“My cock,” he replied, his eyes shut. “Stroke my cock, Olivia.” She began to move her hand up and down, and he made a groan deep in his throat. “Yes, just like that.”

She felt so powerful—sitting astride him, feeling how he twitched and throbbed under her fingers. Watching his intense expression as she stroked him, feeling how there, where he’d touched her, was feeling sensitive.

“What do you call what I have?” she asked, shifting off him and lying down on the bed, her hand still on his cock.

He lay down beside her, facing her, his hand going to her neck, her collarbone, curling over her breast, and then yanking the fabric of her night rail up and putting his fingers on her bare skin.

Moving them up . . . and she caught her lip in her teeth, his gaze on her mouth, his hand moving up and up until—

“It’s your quim,” he said as his fingers caressed her there. Right at her quim. “Or cunny, or if you’re being fanciful, your daisy.”

“Oh, my daisy. I like that one.”

“I like your daisy very much.” And then his fingers slid inside her, and she forgot all about words, or where she was, or anything but what he was doing to her. How he was making her feel.

And then he was kissing her again, his cock—his cock!—nudging at her belly, his tongue thrust deep in her mouth.

She had one hand still on him, on his cock, while the other was tangled in his curls, holding his face close to hers.

“Need to see you,” he said hoarsely, reaching down to her night rail and pulling it up, up over her head.

Which would have been fine except that she still wore something on top of it, so all the fabric was a mad tangle between them.

“Hold on,” she said, tugging at the sleeves. And then starting to laugh at the absurdity of it—him naked beside her, her with her clothing entirely disarranged, them doing this.

He helped her with the removal, then tossed everything toward the end of the bed.

And then they heard a noise, and both looked down, and Scamp was leaping up, a piece of Olivia’s night rail in her mouth, and they watched as she dragged it down off the bed.

She heard him chuckle, and she began to laugh again too. How was it possible that this—which she had heard was very serious and possibly unpleasant—could be so much fun?

It must be because it was he. Entirely due to him.

“Now that you are naked to my satisfaction,” he said, “let us resume.”

“I want you to ruin me,” she said. “If I am totally and completely ruined, I won’t have to marry anybody but you.”

“So it’s my duty to ruin you?” he said, raising his eyebrow.