The Unexpected Duchess (Playful Brides #1)(80)

He’d asked her to do it quickly. She intended to do just the opposite.

She started out by pulling the garment up above her knees with both hands. “How should I do it?” she asked him. “Should I pull it up over my head or down over my hips?” The fabric was tantalizingly bunched at the juncture between her thighs. She held it just there.

Derek scrubbed a hand over his face. “Lord have mercy.”

She pulled it up just enough for him to see the sleek side of her bare hip before dropping the fabric. Derek groaned. “Changed your mind?”

She smiled coyly. “I haven’t decided yet.”

She leaned down, bracing both hands on the mattress and affording him a view of her heaving breasts pushing anxiously against the fabric of her shift. Derek’s eyes riveted to that spot. Lucy put a hand to one of the sleeves, caressing her shoulder. “Perhaps this is the better choice.”

She slowly pushed the sleeve over her shoulder with the tip of one finger. Derek closed his eyes and groaned again, but only briefly. “I do like where you’re going with this.”

She stood up and ever so slowly pushed the other sleeve over the other shoulder. Then she pulled out both arms, still holding up the décolletage to cover her breasts.

Derek scrubbed a hand over his face again. “I survived Waterloo, but this is going to be the death of me.”

She wagged a finger at him. “Ah, ah, ah, Your Grace. Don’t be impatient.”

She undid the ribbons with one hand and stepped out of the garment, still holding it up in front of her where it covered her breasts and hung in a tantalizing drape between her legs. She gave him a sultry look and watched with fascinated pride as his eyes flared with lust.

“I can’t stand it anymore,” he groaned, just before he reached out and grabbed Lucy’s hand, tugging her into the bed with him with one solid movement. He grabbed her shift in both hands and ripped the garment out of her hands, tearing it apart. He tossed it on the floor in an ignominious heap. Lucy gasped against his mouth.

“I’ll buy you another. I’ll buy you a hundred others. But I have to have you now.”

She wrapped her arms around his neck. “As you wish, Your Grace.”

Derek leaned up on an elbow to get an unimpeded view of Lucy’s lush, ripe body. She was perfect, gorgeous, a man’s dream. Her breasts were round and full. He cupped them both in his hand, weighing them, feeling them, savoring them. Her hips were narrow and straight. Her thighs had the perfect bit of plumpness. Her legs creamy and long.

“God, you are gorgeous,” he breathed against her ear.

“So are you,” she said as his lips descended again to own hers.

He smiled against her mouth. Then he stopped, pulled back, stared deeply into her soul. “Your eyes, they’re so unique. I love them.”

“I’ve always thought they made me different. I didn’t like them.”

“They do make you different. But that’s what’s fascinating about them. They’re like you. Like mirrors into you. You’re different and depending on your mood, your eyes change colors. Did you know that?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“When you’re happy, they’re light.”

“And when I’m angry?” she asked with a smile.

“They turn dark and stormy.”

“Stormy?”

“Maybe not stormy.”

“Which way do you like best?”

He kissed her again. “I like the way they look right now.”

“How’s that?” she barely whispered.

“Beautiful and staring up at me. They’re luminous.”

Lucy wrapped her arms tighter around his neck and kissed him.

Derek pulled back and looked into her eyes again. Searching for any sign of fear or unhappiness. “Lucy, you’ve never…”

Lucy blinked at him. Was he truly asking her if she was a virgin? “No. I’ve never.”

The look on his face was half relief and half pain. He pulled one of her hands from behind his neck and kissed her knuckles. “I don’t want to hurt you, love.”

She reached out and traced the line of his dark eyebrow with her fingertip. “You could never hurt me.”

His mouth found hers again, stroked her tongue, stoked the fire that was a roiling mass below her belly. All she could think about was wanting his hand there at that private spot between her legs. The spot that ached for him.

“I’m going to make this good for you,” he promised, just before he slipped his head under the covers and began to descend her naked body. First, he stopped at her breasts, a hand kneading one while his tongue found the soft pink tip of the other. He tugged gently with his lips, letting his teeth scrape lightly against the sensitive peak.

Lucy couldn’t help herself. She arched her back off the bed. Whatever he was doing, she didn’t want him to stop. Her fingers tangled in his dark hair and she held him to her. “Derek.”

His hand came up to pluck at her other nipple. He scraped his short nail across it. The roughness combined with the heady sensation of his mouth still tugging at her other breast made her groan. “Derek,” she called again, her fingers still tangling in his dark hair.

His breath was a puff of hot air against her sensitive breast. “I could make you come like this, do you know that?”