The Day of the Duchess (Scandal & Scoundrel #3)(47)

She cried out at the touch, at the force and pleasure of it, at its promise, not just in the moment, but for all the moments that were to come. Her cry was punctuated by his groan there, against the soft, wet center of her, where she was so tender, so ready, so desperate. His tongue—how many times had she lay in the dark and thought of his tongue?—stroked, sure and firm over her, finding all the places that had ached for him, and her fingers tightened in his hair. “Malcolm,” she whispered. “Dear God. Yes. There.”

“I know, Angel,” he said against her. And he did. He’d always known.

In this, nothing was changed. He was back, this man whom she’d loved so thoroughly, this man who had always made her pleasure the most important piece of their lovemaking. Even at the last.

He pulled back at that, as though he heard the thought, turning his gaze to her, his beautiful eyes finding her, capturing her as one finger slid deep into her, finding her wet and willing. They both groaned at the sensation, and when Malcolm began to move, to wring pleasure from her most secret places, she was unable to keep her eyes open.

He stopped. “No.”

She opened her eyes. Fairly begged. “Mal.”

“I’ll give you everything you want, love. But you give me what I want.”

He moved again, and she lifted toward him. “Yes.”

“You keep your eyes open,” he said. “I want to watch. I want a new memory.”

He was close enough that she could feel his words on her, where she was open and aching. She wasn’t even certain that there was sound to match sensation, but she understood him nonetheless.

She’d give him anything he wanted as long as he didn’t stop.

And he didn’t. He blew a long stream of air where she wanted him most, teasing and tempting and making promises on which she knew he could deliver.

Deliciously.

He wanted to wreck her with temptation. To punish her with the pleasure of the wait.

But she’d waited long enough.

She slid her fingers into his hair again, letting them tighten against his scalp until he looked up at her again, met her gaze. The universe had given him such power over her beyond that room. Beyond that moment.

But in this, they were equal.

In this, she reveled in her power.

“I want, as well,” she said.

She took her pleasure.

He gave it, not hesitating, knowing just how to make her writhe and cry, slow, then fast, flexing fingers and tongue until she had lost her strength and he was holding her with strong hands and shoulders, wringing every inch of pleasure from her.

It was an age before she returned to the moment. It was an instant.

He sensed the moment, turning, pressing his lips to the soft inside of her thigh, lingering there until she pushed him away, removing her leg and lowering her skirts, smoothing them with careful precision as she willed her heart to stop beating.

Willed him to stand. She hated him there, on his knees, as though he gave penance.

As though he wanted her.

As though she was for having.

As though he was.

“Sera—”

“No.” She cut him off. Unable to let him finish.

Afraid of what he might say.

“No,” she repeated. Louder. Clearer. “No, Duke. This changes nothing.”





Chapter 14



A Modern “Meet Duke!”



After making him desperate for her, his wife avoided him for a full week. Oh, she sat at breakfasts and luncheons and dinners, and she took her sherry and played croquet on the lawn. She did her requested duty with no sign of hesitation or distaste.

She even saw dossiers delivered to him with clockwork regularity—the ladies’ respective qualities and interests outlined with impressive thoroughness. Indeed, once she received her divorce, Sera could easily find work as a professional matchmaker.

Of course, she wasn’t receiving a divorce.

He’d never planned to give it to her, but now there was no way it was happening. Not when he’d touched her again. How often had he tried to remember that exact sound she made when she found her pleasure. The exact taste of her. The exact feel of her lips against his, of her fingers in his hair, of the weight of her in his arms.

It was all the same, and somehow, none of it was. She was entirely different.

This changes nothing, she’d said.

She was right. It changed nothing.

He still wanted her. He was still going to win her. The only difference was the urgency of his desire to do so. He’d been patient as Job, dammit. He’d given her a week to find him again. To seek him out. He’d sat at meals, the proper duke at his end of the immense dining table. He’d greeted the suitesses—they were going to have to find a better descriptor—pleasantly when he passed them in the hallway.

The times he had gone hunting for her, he’d been waylaid by a collection of cloying mamas, and once commandeered into going hunting for an easier prey with Lord Brunswick, a man who was decent with a shot, but altogether too gleeful at the prospect of shooting things.

For the last seven days, Haven had done his best to stumble upon his wife accidentally. Or, rather, to ensure that she stumbled upon him.

And she hadn’t.

It was as though she had eyes and ears throughout the house, and perhaps she did, considering her mad sisters seemed to be everywhere. The Marchioness of Eversley had taken up residence in his library, Landry’s wife couldn’t stop telling his stable master how to do his work, and that morning, when Mal had dressed, there had been an uncanny amount of white fur on his trousers from Sesily’s damn cat. Not to mention the ass Calhoun, marauding the grounds like a damn pirate, tipping his hat at anything in skirts.