Page 48 of The Duke and the Darkness

She didn’t stop him when he tugged down her bodice and placed his mouth to her breast—she didn’twantto stop him. His lips closed around her nipple through her chemise and sucked. At first, the sensation was so light she barely felt it, only for the pull of his lips to increase its intensity, little by little, until he’d taken her nipple completely into his mouth and was laving it hungrily with his tongue. A wet circle formed in the cotton fabric. When he blew a stream of cold air through it and onto the nipple beneath, she let out a startled gasp that transformed into a low moan when he closed his warm mouth over her again.

A liquid heat bubbled low in her belly.

Then he moved to the other breast and began the sweet torture all over again. The heat in her belly sank lower and lodged achingly between her legs.

“Can’t you feel it?” His deep voice rumbled against her breast and into her chest. “All that life in you, all the promise of wonderful things to come… Embrace it, Peyton. Take comfort in it.”

She couldn’t find her voice to respond. All she could manage was a breathless, “Show me how…”

He placed a kiss to her lips that was so filled with reassurance that her eyes stung with emotion.

His hands slid tantalizingly down her body to the hem of her skirt and slipped beneath. When his palm changed directions and moved back up her calf, a shiver stirred in its wake that blossomed goosebumps over her bare thigh above the lace of her stocking. His fingers stroked along the curve of her calf and teased at the back of her knee. As with his kisses, he was in no rush, and the desire he roused inside her wasn’t so much a flaming need but a decadently slow burn. He emphasized that by the unhurried sweep of his finger beneath her garter and a torturously slow circle around her leg.

She knew he didn’t want to frighten her, didn’t want to hurry in this first encounter after all the secrets between them had been revealed. But sheneededhis touch in a way she’d never needed another man’s comfort before. She wanted exactly what he’d promised—to feel alive again.

“Devlin,” she whispered and shifted on his lap to part her legs as far as possible beneath the confines of her skirt in invitation to be touched.

Even then, though, he didn’t rush. The slow brush of his hand up her inner thigh was simply torturous, compounded by the ever-gentle assault of his lips on hers in featherlight kisses that were barely kisses at all, in whispered words only slightly more than mere breaths.

A whimper fell from her lips. He lightly squeezed her inner thigh in a wordless urge to be patient. His hand drifted upwardin slow caresses toward the throbbing ache at her core, moving so agonizingly slowly… The anticipation aching inside her became unbearable.

“Please,” she whispered and closed her eyes as she rested her cheek against his.

When his fingertips finally touched her core, she shuddered against him. He caressed her as gently as he had kissed her, the tease of his fingertips as light as his lips. Thank God it was, or she might have shot right out of her skin from the sheer joy of it. Good Lord, he was barely touching her! Yet desire pulsed through her with a wanton need that left her panting.

He leisurely stroked the length of the damp cleft between her legs, fanning both heat and wetness beneath his fingertips until her folds were silky smooth and slippery. With every pass, his fingers delved slightly deeper, until one slipped inside her tight warmth.

The gasp on her lips faded into a throaty moan. She knew he could feel her wetness with every slow, slippery caress in and out of her tight core, knew he could feel her aching arousal, but she simply didn’t care how wanton he thought her. He was right—she felt alive. For the first time in years, she could feel her blood coursing through her body and reveled in the pulse of electricity out to the ends of her hair and the tips of her fingers and toes, and she didn’t want him to stop.

When she was a girl, when she’d been so infatuated with Devlin that she turned scarlet if he did so little as glance in her direction, she never would have imagined him doing such a thing to her. But now…oh, now she wanted this—wantedhim—with every ounce of her being.

Her body shamelessly bore down on his fingers as they continued to thrust inside her, coming faster and harder now to feed her growing desire. Soft mewlings of yearning andencouragement rose from her lips, and she arched herself against him to meet each wonderful slide inside her.

“More,” she begged, her arms wrapped fiercely around his neck and her fingers grasping at his soft hair. “Oh, please, Devlin…more!”

A second finger joined the first and stretched her intimate lips wider. The sensation of being filled shivered deliciously through her, and she writhed against his hand, unable to sit still. Biting down a cry of pleasure, she rolled back her head as he pumped harder and faster into her.

She was barely aware when his second hand slipped down between them and spread her folds open wide, exposing her most sensitive place to his touch. His thumb teased the hard bead he found there, flicking against it lightly like the flutter of butterfly wings, then squeezing—

Her hips bucked as a jolt of electricity sparked through her so intensely that she gasped for breath. She was so close to shattering in his arms that a begging whimper for just that fell unbidden from her trembling lips. She could do nothing more than cling to him as he gave her what she so desperately craved and stroked her a second time, this time holding her open wide as he simultaneously rubbed the hard heel of his hand against her clitoris and thrust his fingers deep inside her.

A fierce cry tore from her. As blinding pleasure rushed over her, she threw back her head, and her body spasmed uncontrollably against his. He held his fingers deep inside her tight heat while her folds quivered around his hand, drawing out her sweet release even longer. She collapsed against him and panted hard to catch back her breath. Only when the tide of pleasure began to fade and the roar of her heartbeat in her ears faded did she realize that he was whispering sweet words of reassurance into her ear.

She shifted back only far enough to stare down into his eyes as they looked back at her in the shadows, as filled with desire as her own must have been. There were so many more pleasures they could give each other, so many more intimacies to share. She craved exactly that. She wanted nothing more at that moment than to continue to feel alive. With him.

When he slowly slipped his fingers from her warmth, the loss of him flooded through her and left an emptiness in his place, and she realized for the first time that the carriage had stopped. Her desired-fogged mind faintly registered that they had arrived at her townhouse and that he was now buttoning up her bodice and fixing her dress so she could look presentable to leave the carriage.

But leaving him tonight was the very last thing she wanted.

Come inside with me, come to my bed…She brushed trembling fingertips along his jaw.Make love to me in every possibly wicked way you can imagine.She rested her palm against his chest and felt the fierce pounding of his heartbeat beneath her fingertips.Make me burn with need for you, then bring me to tears with agonizing release, over and over…

She threw all caution to the wind by whispering, “Devlin, I want you to—”

An ear-shattering explosion tore through the townhouse. The carriage team startled and bolted a few feet down the street until the coachman could wrestle them back under control, tossing both Peyton and Devlin to the floor. But Peyton didn’t wait for the carriage to stop before darting out the door and racing toward the house.

Chapter Twelve

Devlin let outa curse and charged from the carriage after her. But she was too fast and had raced into the burning house before he could catch her.