The Unexpected Duchess (Playful Brides #1)(51)

Lucy was mindless. This was wrong for half a dozen reasons but at the moment she didn’t care. She was entirely unable to conjure the strength of mind to push him away or even to protest. She wanted this. This passion between them. Whatever it was and whyever it existed, she wanted it. Needed it right now.

She would worry about the consequences later.

“Damn you. Why do you make me so insane?” he whispered against her hair, nuzzling her ear and making her eyes roll back in her head.

“Damn you. Why do you make me want to scream?”

His mouth trailed down to her décolletage. His fingers worked quickly at the buttons on the back of her gown. When the dress loosened, he quickly pulled down the fabric and stays. Then his hot mouth was on her breast. Lucy arched her back and gasped. She whimpered in the back of her throat. She’d never felt anything like it. Passion. She didn’t want it to end. He bit her nipple lightly.

“I want to make you scream for a different reason,” he murmured, just before his mouth captured the tip of her other breast. She wished she could tug him away but her hands tangled in his hair and held him to her. This was passion, the kind of soul-crushing passion that made no sense. This was the kind of thing that lovers experienced. The thought came out of nowhere. Lucy had read and heard enough to realize that. It wasn’t the demure little chaste kisses that men and women who barely tolerated each other shared. This was the kind of thing you broke the rules for. The big rules. With big consequences.

His thigh was riding high between her legs, and Lucy moaned when he pressed against her. She was a swimming hot mass down there. She reached her hand down between the two of them to feel him through his trousers. He was hot and hard and reaching for her.

“I don’t like you,” she whispered between clenched teeth as she rubbed him up and down.

Derek’s eyes were closed and his teeth were clenched. He groaned, looking as if he were in abject pain from the stroke of her hand.

“I don’t like you, either,” he ground out. “And perhaps your issue isn’t that you don’t like me but that I’m not your precious Lord Berkeley.” He opened his eyes, and the emerald green of them stared into Lucy’s soul.

She could deny it again. This time it would be true. He wasn’t Lord Berkeley, but she was having difficulty recalling the man’s face at the moment. Slowly, Derek pulled both of her hands up and easily pinned them over her head with one of his.

“Planning to show me how much you dislike me, Your Grace?” she whispered.

“No, right now, I want to show you how much I do like you.”

She could have struggled against him, tried to pull her hands away, but it would have only been for show and of no use. The man was twice her size and powerful and rugged. Instead she pushed up her chin, offering him her neck. He kissed it then, bit her softly. She should scream at him, tell him to stop, but the truth was that him pinning her down like this made her melt. Blast it. This overbearing man knew exactly what he was doing.

His other hand traveled down to the bottom of her skirts and tugged up the fabric. Oh, God, what was that for? She desperately wanted to find out. Lucy shuddered. His hand traced a fiery hot path up her leg, over her silk stocking, up her bare thigh. He grasped her ankle and pulled it around his hip, bringing their intimate parts into closer contact. Lucy moaned and arched her back. Her aching breasts pressed against his hard chest. Derek’s mouth dipped lower again to nuzzle her breast as his free hand moved slowly, inexorably between her legs. She bucked against him, wildly trying to free her hands but also desperately scared he would let go and stop. His lips returned to clash with hers.

She tore her mouth away. “What are you doing?” she whispered against his rough cheek.

His eyes bore into hers. “Giving you something you desperately need.” His finger found her then, and her mouth fell open. She gasped. Her head rolled to the side.

His finger slid inside of her and Lucy’s thighs clenched, her breathing hitched. She shut her eyes and moaned.

“Yes,” he whispered hotly into her ear.

When his thumb touched the nub of pleasure between her legs and rubbed her in a rhythm that matched the slow slide of his finger in and out of her, Lucy went completely limp. She did not thrash, did not fight, she just spread her legs wider and let the overwhelming feelings course through her. He was playing her body like a finely tuned instrument, and she was helpless to resist.

He moved his head back down to her breast and the brush of his slight stubble against the soft skin there made her tremble.

He kept it up. The rough bite of his tongue against her nipple. The slow slide of his finger in and out of her. The masterful glide of his thumb over the most sensitive spot on her body. Lucy shuddered again. Her entire body tensed and she panted into his ear, breathing heavily, helpless to control the spasms that began in her most intimate spot and then spiraled out and up, making her entire body quake and shiver. She closed her eyes. Then her hands went limp in his embrace. He’d just given her the most incredible experience of her life and she’d wanted it.

“You’re a good kisser, too,” he whispered with a roguish grin against her lips.





CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE


Lucy rolled over on her bed and jammed her pillow over her face. This was all Jane’s fault. All right, very well, it was not Jane’s fault. But if she’d had a chance to speak with Jane in the last day or two, she might not have got into this untenable position. Kissing the Duke of Claringdon? Passionately? At his house? In the middle of the day? Unthinkable. But true. And doing … more. Much more. That was the only word she could conjure to classify the other things that had happened between them. Just thinking about them made her hot and left her wanting. She couldn’t help the little smile that popped to her lips.