The Day of the Duchess (Scandal & Scoundrel #3)(71)

She would get him out of her mind forever.

One time.

She came up on her toes, closing the distance between them as he whispered—more breath than sound—a single devastating word, a word echoed in her heart.

“Please.”





Chapter 19



Haven Hooked by Huntress



There was nothing soft about the way they came together, nothing quiet or tentative. They crashed into each other as though the dome around them might implode and wash them away, and if this was to be their last moment together, why not let it be one of power and passion and devoid of regret?

Why not have one, single moment when there was nothing between them—no plotting or anger or frustration or clamoring for something else—nothing between them but the desire that had always consumed them? The pleasure they had always wrought?

Sera’s hands were instantly in Mal’s hair, threading, pulling him to her, her lips already opening for him as he sent her hairpins flying, bringing her hair down around her shoulders before his arms came around her, lifting her high against him as he stole her breath.

As she stole his, as she claimed him.

There had been a time, long ago, when she would have followed him where he led. But not now, not when she’d dreamed of him for so long and changed so much. Now, she was his equal. Each led, each followed.

And it was glorious.

His hands were at the ties of her bodice, unraveling her even as she set to work on his coat, shucking it over his shoulders. He paused in his work at her gown, flinging the garment across the room even as he refused to release her from their kiss. Her hands chased over the lawn of his shirt, reveling in the hard, warm muscle beneath as he tugged at the silk cords keeping him from her.

After a long moment, he lifted his lips from hers. She opened her eyes, intoxicated by their kiss and desperate for him to touch her again. It was her turn to plead. To feel his desire shudder through him when she did.

With a wicked curse, he clutched the edge of the fabric where the ties seemed to flummox him, and he pulled, hard and fast, rendering the silk cords unnecessary as the fabric split in two, baring her to him.

Another curse. His. Perhaps hers, lost in their groans as his broad warmth pressed to her and they kissed again, long and rough and full of everything they had spent years denying.

And then he tore his lips from hers and set them to her jaw, her cheek, her ear, down the column of her neck, giving her all the words she’d ever dreamed of, wicked and wonderful. “I have ached for you for so long,” he confessed to her skin, his lips playing at the secret places to which only he had ever had access. “It has always been you, every night, Angel.”

His tongue came out, swirling a little circle at the place where her neck met her shoulder, and when she gasped, he said, “I have lain awake every night, visions of you haunting me until I have no choice . . .”

He trailed off, those lips sliding down the slope of her chest to the place where her breasts strained at the top of her corset. “Visions of your skin—miles of perfection—of your beautiful lips. Of your eyes, like sin. Of your breasts,” and then he was there, lifting them from her corset, sliding his lips over the delicate, desperate skin of them, drawing little, teasing circles around her nipples. “You used to love it when I suckled you here,” he whispered, the filthy words sending heat and heavy desire coursing through her.

“Do it,” she whispered.

“Anything you wish,” he whispered, his tongue finding the straining tip of one breast. “Everything you wish, love.”

Love. The endearment thrummed through her, and she pushed it away, instead, setting her hands to his impossibly soft curls and showing him just where she wanted him. “I wish this,” she said, his lips coming to take her nipple into his warm, glorious mouth. He shook beneath her touch—or perhaps it was she who trembled. He stilled until she said the filthy word herself. “Suck.”

He did, giving her everything she’d ached for on her own nights. In her own darkness. Pleasure coursed through her at his touch, at first one breast and then the other, until her knees were weak and he was catching her, lowering her to the tiled floor.

He made quick work of the fastenings of her corset even as she tugged the shirt from his waist, her hands finding the warm, hair-roughened skin beneath, and tears threatened at the feel of him beneath her fingertips.

She had forgotten. It had been an eternity, and she had longed for him so well, and so thoroughly, and still, she had forgotten the feel of him. And now, the memories returned and she could not hold the glory and the ache and the thrill at bay.

She did not wish to.

Neither did he. “How often I have dreamed of this,” he whispered, pulling his shirt over his head and sending it to the floor where his coat already lay, before spreading her corset wide and placing kisses between her breasts, down the soft skin covering her ribs, speaking to her body in a way he might never have spoken to her face. “How many nights have I taken myself in hand, thinking of this,” he went on, the words echoing around them in the starlit dome, the shock of their truth setting her aflame. “How many have I spent alone, ashamed, desperate for you?”

“Not more than I,” she whispered, immediately regretting the confession.

His head shot up, his eyes finding hers in the darkness. Refusing to let her go. “You have dreamed of me?”