No Good Duke Goes Unpunished (The Rules of Scoundrels #3)(72)

He didn’t stop talking. “I’m talking about your lovely long arms and your perfectly shaped legs . . . I find I am quite jealous of those stockings for knowing the feel of you, the warmth of you.” She shifted, unable to keep still beneath the onslaught of his words. “I’m talking about that corset that hugs you where you are lovely and soft . . . is it uncomfortable?”

She hesitated. “Not usually.”

“And now?” She heard the knowledge in the question.

She nodded once. “It’s rather—constricting.”

He tutted once, and she opened her eyes, instantly meeting his, hot and focused on her. “Poor Pippa. Tell me, with your knowledge of the human body, why do you think that is?”

She swallowed, tried for a deep breath. Failed. “It’s because my heart is threatening to beat out of my chest.”

The smile again. “Have you overexerted yourself?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“What, then?”

She was not a fool. He was pushing her. Attempting to see how far she would go. She told the truth. “I think it is you.”

He closed his eyes then, hands fisting again, and pressed his head back against the side of the desk, exposing the long column of his neck and his tightly clenched jaw. Her mouth went dry at the movement, at the way the tendons there bunched and rippled, and she was quite desperate to touch him.

When he returned his gaze to hers, there was something wild in those pewter depths . . . something she was at once consumed and terrified by. “You shouldn’t be so quick with the truth,” he said.

“Why?”

“It gives me too much control.”

“I trust you.”

“You shouldn’t.” He leaned forward, bracing his arm against his raised knee. “You are not safe with me.”

She had never once felt unsafe with him. “I don’t think that’s correct.”

He laughed, low and dark, and the sound rippled through her, a wave of pleasure and temptation. “You have no idea what I could do to you, Philippa Marbury. The ways I could touch you. The wonders I could show you. I could ruin you without thought, sink with you into the depths of sin and not once regret it. I could lead you right into temptation and never ever look back.”

The words stole her breath. She wanted it. Every bit of it. She opened her mouth to tell him so, but no sound would come.

“You see? I’ve shocked you.”

She shook her head. “I have shocked myself.” His gaze turned curious, and she added, “Because I find that I would like to experience those things.”

There was a long moment of silence, in which she willed him to move, to come to her. To touch her. To show her.

“Show me,” he said, the words seeming to come from her thoughts.

Startled, she said, “I—I beg your pardon?”

“Before, you told me that you wished I would touch you. Show me where.”

She couldn’t. But her hand was already moving, already trailing up the bones of her corset to the place where silk met skin. The edge of the stays was lower than the line of the dress had been, mere centimeters from—

“Your br**sts?”

She flushed at the words. “Yes.”

“Tell me how they feel.”

She closed her eyes, focused on the question. On the answer. “Full. Tight.”

“Do they ache?”

So much. “Yes.”

“Touch them.” Her eyes flew open, captured instantly by his. “Show me how you wish I would touch you.”

She shook her head. “I can’t.”

“You can.”

“But why not you? Your hands are here . . . you are here.”

His gaze darkened, and a muscle leapt in his jaw. “This is all there is, Pippa. I won’t touch you. I won’t ruin you.”

Obstinate man. She was aching and frustrated, could he not see that? “I’m ruined, whether you touch me or not.”

“No. If I don’t touch you, you’re safe.”

“And if I don’t wish to be safe?”

“I’m afraid you haven’t a choice.” He flexed one large hand, as though it ached him. “Shall I tell you what I would do if I could touch you?”

The words were soft and dark and all irresistible temptation. “Yes, please.”

“I would lift them from that prison in which you keep them, and I would worship them in the manner they deserve.”

Oh, my. Her hands froze, rendered unusable by his beautiful, liquid voice.

“And then, when they’d forgotten how it felt to be caged by silk and bone, I would teach you about kissing, just as you asked.” Her lips parted, and she met his gaze, filled with dark promise. “But not on your mouth—on your beautiful br**sts. On the soft pale skin of them, on the places that have never seen light, that have never felt a man’s touch. You would learn about the tongue, my little scientist . . . there on those pretty, aching tips.”

The image he painted was graphic and groundbreaking, and she was instantly entranced by the idea of his tongue on her—too entranced to be embarrassed, her hands following his words, teasing, touching, and for a moment she could almost believe it was him touching her. Making her ache. She sighed, and he shifted, straightening, but coming no closer, damn him.