The Duchess Deal (Girl Meets Duke #1)(30)

“That’s it,” he whispered between shaky breaths. “Just like that.”

He worked both hands beneath her bottom and lifted it, tilting her hips. Her body yielded to him a fraction more, and he sank home.

Perfect. So perfect.

Still on his knees, he held her by the hips and thrust faster. With the help of the dim firelight, he could just make out the taut globes of her breasts, rolling with his every stroke. God, how he wanted to see those breasts in full daylight. The nipples alone. He’d learn their color; trace their shape with his fingers, then his tongue. Nuzzle and feel the softness against his cheek.

But as much as he wished to see them, Ash had to admit that picturing them . . . It was working, too. Really, really working. It threw him back to his youth, when he’d made do with nothing but a hand and his imagination. Except this wasn’t his callused hand, and his imagination had never been anywhere near this good. This lover wasn’t a fantasy, but real. She had shape and heat and scent.

She had a name.

“Emma.”

When he called to her, her body tightened deliciously around his cock.

So he did it again.

“Emma.” The pleasure was keen, slicing through him like a knife. He gritted his teeth. “Emma.”

Words were beyond him after that. He squeezed her plump little bottom in both hands and took her hard and fast, relentless in his race to the peak.

And then he came. He came hard, spending into her with fierce joy. His hips jerked with each wrenching spasm. The climax seemed to go on and on, approaching forever. And yet it wasn’t nearly enough.

He collapsed on the bed beside her, weakened and emptied. If he’d known taking a wife would be like this, he would have married ages ago.

Of course, marrying ages ago would have meant taking a different wife. He wasn’t certain wives like this one abounded.

He turned his head to face her in the dark. “Where on earth did you come from?”

She was silent for a long moment. “Hertfordshire.”

He laughed, without restraint or apology.

“You really must give me something to call you,” she said. “If we go on like this, I’m going to need a name to cry out, and I don’t think you want it to be honeybee.”

“Just try it, blossom.” He sat up in bed. “But if you insist on something else, just use Ash. It’s what my friends call me.” Or called me, when I still had friends.

He reached for his trousers.

“You don’t mean to leave me,” she said. “After that?”

Her obvious satisfaction swelled his pride, but staying the night was out of the question. He was not going to allow her to wake up beside him in the full light of day, mere inches from his mangled face, let alone the wreckage that remained of his neck, chest, shoulder.

Not now, not yet. Perhaps not ever.

She’d think she’d woken from a nightmare. She’d shrink from him. Run from the room. Worse had happened before. Unless she was pregnant with his child, he could not take that risk. And once she was pregnant, they were done.

The sooner that happened, the better.

He left her room on wobbly legs, then sank against the door.

Please be fertile, or you’ll be the death of me.





Chapter Twelve




Walking through the streets that night was a novel experience.

Forget stalking and prowling down the darkened alleyways. Tonight, Ash was all but skipping. Gamboling.

He didn’t encounter any enraging specimens of human refuse.

He was no longer sexually frustrated to the point of irascibility.

He felt almost . . . human again.

He even strolled across an open square.

“Say!” someone called. “You’re the Monster of Mayfair!”

And with that, Ash’s lightened mood popped like a balloon. So much for feeling human.

A gangly figure jogged across the green to him. Ash pushed back the brim of his hat, revealing his face, and scowled. That always worked on the children.

For it was, in fact, a school-aged boy who’d approached him. One who’d clearly learned to curse this past Michaelmas term at school.

“I’ll be damned.” The boy whistled low. “You truly are as fearsome and ugly as the papers said.”

“Oh, really. And do they say anything about this?” Ash brandished his walking stick. “Now go home. Your nursemaid will be missing you.”

He turned and kept walking. The lad followed.

“I saw you over by Marylebone Mews,” the boy called out. As if they were two old chums holding a conversation at the club. “You thrashed that gin-soused cur. The one who was beating his wife, remember?”

Yes, of course Ash remembered. It was only two days past.

“That was bloody brilliant.” By now the youth was scampering alongside him. “Just capital. And I heard about the footpads in St. James’s, too. All of London has.”

Ash released a long, slow breath. He refused to be baited. The more thoroughly you ignore him, the faster he’ll go away, he told himself. Like a canker sore.

“So where are we off to tonight?” the boy asked.

We?

Now that was too much.

Ash halted in the center of the empty square. “Just what is it you want?”