No Good Duke Goes Unpunished (The Rules of Scoundrels #3)(73)

“Would you like me to tell you where else I would touch you?”

“Yes, please.” The words were a whisper.

“So polite.” He leaned forward. “There’s no place for politeness here, my bespectacled beauty. Here, you ask and I give. You offer and I take. No please. No thank you.”

She waited for him to continue, every inch of her humming with excitement, with anticipation.

“Hook one leg over the arm of that chair.” Her eyes went wide at the order. She’d never in her life sat in such a way. She hesitated. He pressed on. “You asked.”

So she had. She moved, opening to him, her thighs widening, the cool air of the room rushing through the slit in her pantalettes. Her cheeks burned and she moved her hands to block his view.

He was watching them, and he made a low sound of approval. “That’s where my hands would be as well. Can you feel why? Can you feel the heat? The temptation?”

Her eyes were closed now. She couldn’t look at him. But she nodded.

“Of course you can . . . I can almost feel it myself.” The words were hypnotic, all temptation, soft and lyric and wonderful. “And tell me, my little anatomist, have you explored that particular location, before?”

Her cheeks burned.

“Don’t start lying now, Pippa. We’ve come so far.”

“Yes.”

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, I’ve explored it before.” The confession was barely sound, but he heard it. When he groaned, she opened her eyes to find him pressed back against the desk once more. “Did I say the wrong thing?”

He shook his head, his hand rising to his mouth once more, stroking across firm lips. “Only in that you made me burn with jealousy.”

Her brows furrowed. “Of whom?”

“Of you, lovely.” His grey gaze flickered to the place she hid from him. “Of your perfect hands. Tell me what you found.”

She couldn’t. While she might know the clinical words for all the things she had touched and discovered, she could not speak them to him. She shook her head. “I cannot.”

“Did you find pleasure?”

She closed her eyes, pressed her lips together.

“Did you?” he whispered, the sound loud as a gunshot in this dark, wicked room.

She shook her head. Once, so small it was barely a movement.

He exhaled, the sound long and lush in the room, as though he’d been holding his breath . . . and he moved. “What a tragedy.”

Her eyes snapped open at the sound of him—of trouser against carpet as he crawled toward her, eyes narrow and filled with wicked, wonderful promise.

He was coming for her. Predator stalking prey.

And she could not wait to be caught.

She exhaled, the breath coming out on a low, shaking sigh that could have become a moan if she weren’t careful and, God help her, she moved her hands, opening to his touch and sight, ready to thank God and Lucifer and anyone else who might have had a hand in this moment for finally, finally bringing him to her.

Except, he didn’t touch her.

“Shall I show you how to find it, lovely?” he asked, and she could have sworn she felt his breath against her hands, hot and tempting. “Where to find it?”

She’d never know where the courage came from—how she pushed past the embarrassment and the shame that should have been there. “Please,” she fairly begged, and he did, in soft, devastating words.

She did as he told her, parting folds of fabric, then folds of a more secret kind, following his whispered instructions, answering his wicked questions.

“So pretty and pink . . . does it feel good, love?”

She whimpered her reply.

“Of course it does. I can smell the pleasure on you . . . sweet and soft and very very wet.” The words brought sensation, a thundering pleasure that she’d never felt before, not even in the dark nights when she’d quietly explored on her own.

“Oh, Pippa . . .” he whispered, turning his head, breathing against the curve of her knee, but not touching—never touching. He was destroying her. “If I were there . . . if my fingers were yours, I would spread you wide and show you how much more pleasurable it can be when the experience is shared. I would use my mouth to give you your second lesson in kissing . . . I would teach you everything I know about the act.”

Her eyes went wide at the raw confession, for she could see it. She could see him, on his knees before her, brushing her hands from her and replacing them with his beautiful, firm mouth, stroking, touching . . . loving. She had no reference for the act—she’d never even imagined it before now—but she knew, without question, that it would be magnificent.

“I would feast on you . . . yes . . . right there, lovely,” he urged her on, rewarding the bold, little movements of her fingers with a growl of pleasure, knowing, even before she did, that she was on the edge of something stunning. “Would you like my mouth there, my sweet?”

Did that happen? Dear heaven. Yes. She wanted it.

“I would stay for hours . . .” he promised. “My tongue would show you pleasure you’ve never known. Over and over. Again and again until you were weak from it. Until you couldn’t bear it, and you begged me to stop. Would you like that, love?”

Her body answered him, rocking against the chair and her hand, giving her everything he promised . . . and somehow none of it. She cried out for him, reaching toward him, desperate for the feel of him, for his strength and sinew.