One Dance with a Duke (Stud Club #1)(62)

He grabbed her wrist. “Leave it.”

She gasped, and the breathy sound stoked his desire. He wanted to make her gasp again. And again. Moan, whimper, call out his name.

Eyes widening with apprehension, she tugged against his grip. “Then I’ll just go to bed.”

Lifting her into his arms was the work of an instant. Oh, and the gasp she gave that time—it made his blood sizzle.

“Not without me, you won’t.”

Chapter Thirteen

“You can’t do this,” Amelia protested, even as Spencer carried her swiftly up the stairs, proving he could, quite easily, do this.

At the top of the staircase, he turned in the direction of her suite.

“You gave me your word,” she said breathlessly. “If you break it now, I’ll never be able to trust you.”

“Damn it,” he growled, shouldering open the door to her parlor, “stop pretending you don’t want this, too. You’re so wet for me beneath those skirts, I can taste it from here.”

Oh, my. If she hadn’t already been damp between her thighs, that little speech would have done it.

“I don’t want it like this,” she said, a little less firmly than she’d like. Yes, she’d intended to share his bed, but not in the heat of passion.

As he swept her through the door, she cowered into his chest, not wishing to hit her head on the doorjamb. A frantic pulse beat at the apex of her sex, matching the rhythm of his pounding heart. She pressed her cheek to his strong chest, feeling threatened, protected, desired, conquered. Thrilled, in a dozen different ways.

He carried her through the parlor and antechamber, straight into her bedchamber. Oh, God. He really meant to take her, tonight.

He stopped short of the bed, dropping her to her feet.

Dizzy, she reeled on her toes. “I … I think you should leave.”

He made a sound of exasperation. “Amelia, turn around.”

She turned. And immediately berated herself for it. Why did she obey his arrogant commands so instinctively? He said “sit,” she sat. He said “stand,” she stood. He told her to remove her bodice, she stripped herself to the waist faster than a master chef skins an eel. It was a fortunate thing he hadn’t yet ordered her to go to the bed, lift her skirts, and be still.

A fortunate thing, indeed. Or a considerate one, on his part. Perhaps even a patient, generous, honorable thing?

Now she was more confused than ever.

“Look to your right,” he said. “What do you see there, just to the side of the mantel?”

She raised her hands in bewilderment. “A chair?”

“Between the mantel and the chair.”

“Oh.” There was a small silver frame hanging there that she didn’t recall seeing before. She took a candle from her dressing table and stepped closer, peering at it hard. “It’s …” Oh, goodness. It was her needlework—the little country scene she’d finished the other night-stretched tight and framed under spotless glass. The silver frame complemented the silver threads she’d woven into the brook, and the whole effect was … even if she did say it herself, it was really quite charming.

“You had it framed?” she asked, still staring at the embroidered vignette. “I thought you said you’d never allow it in this house.”

“I said it would never adorn a settee in this house.” His voice deepened as he came to stand behind her.

“But … but you took it from me.”

“Of course I did. Because you threatened to make it into a pillow.” He placed both hands on her shoulders. Their weight felt like a reproach. “A pillow, for Christ’s sake. Why should it have to justify its existence by serving some mundane function? It’s lovely. It’s art. In this house, we don’t sit on art. We hang it on the wall and admire it.”

She didn’t know what to say. Thank you came to her lips, but she wasn’t sure he meant his words as a compliment. In fact, she felt strangely unsettled by them.

He turned her to face him. “You are so eager to define yourself in reference to others. Jack’s sister, Claudia’s sponsor, this house’s mistress. You rail at me for not treating you as I would treat one of my horses, my possessions. For not measuring your worth by the food you serve or the musicales you could host.” He gestured impatiently toward the framed embroidery. “From the moment we met, you’ve resisted me, provoked me, demanded my respect. Then we arrive at Braxton Hall, and here … It’s as if you wish to be a settee cushion, and you’re vexed with me for refusing to sit on you.”

She shrugged off his grip on her shoulder. “You have no right—”

“Oh, I have every right.” He closed the distance between them, taking the candlestick from her hand and placing it atop the mantel. “I’m your lord and your husband, and I have all manner of rights I’ve chosen not to exercise. Yet.”

That last word gave her chills.

His hungry, dangerous gaze trapped hers. “There’s a lot going on behind those pretty blue eyes, but somewhere between those delectable ears and that remarkable brain is a seriously faulty connection, if when I call you ‘Amelia’ you hear it prefaced with ‘just.’ Believe me, I could have married ‘just anyone’ years ago.”

Did she still have knees? If so, she couldn’t feel them.