Page 16 of The Duke Decides

He lifted her by the waist and settled her rump on the balustrade, pulling her hips so she tilted back, and then he was between her legs, one arm clamped around her back, one hand gripping beneath her knee.

“You,” he said, his voice ragged as he pressed a kiss to her lips. He sounded almost surprised. “It’s you.”

“Come to me.” She curled a hand around the back of his neck, urging him closer.

This was nothing like the rough fumbling of her marriage. He slid a hand between her legs and found her entrance, and with a few strokes of his fingers, she was wet and ready. She opened her mouth to tell him how different this was, how she wanted him inside her, but then he was inside her and she couldn’t form words. She was nothing but one leaping flame of heat and light.

He moved, and she catapulted to a place she’d never known, a place of pulsing stars and swirling dark and radiant, obliterating pleasure that rippled through her, wave after wave.

He moved some more, shuddering, made another low sound, and then lay against her, heavy and solid and present, a force in the world. Louisa wrapped her arms around him and closed her eyes and decided to stay in this perfect moment forever.

If only she could. After a long moment, he stirred and withdrew. He produced a cloth from somewhere and patted himself with it, then reached between her legs.

“You will tell me if there is a babe.”

“A bay…” An arrow speared her, the pain taking her by surprise. There had never been the least sign of a babe in the years of her marriage. She had put aside that hope long ago. “There will not be a babe.”

“I spent inside you. I meant to pull out and…I didn’t.”

His voice was tight, his body taut, as if he hadn’t a moment earlier been lying against her spent in bliss, swirling softly with her among the stars and outer planets. The tide was receding, that glorious pleasure already turning into an echo. She would never have that again.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said, her voice hollow. She didn’t sound like herself. The old Louisa had been blown away, just like she’d once shed Eloisa.

Who was she now?

“It does matter. You will give me your name and direction,” he said, his voice gruff as he refastened his falls. She had only to drop her skirts and it was as if the moment had never been. As if he had never been inside of her, his body joined to hers. As if they hadn’t together drunk from that exquisite cup.

He did this all the time. He felt this all the time. Only she was changed, her own body strange to her as she pushed her bosoms back into place and refastened her stomacher.

“Ah, yes. Now you will help me, because I paid your price.”

“Reinette.” Suddenly he was close again, his body pressed against hers, crowding her against the pillar. She wanted to throw her arms around him and kiss him again. She wanted to bite him and push him away.

“I wanted this. You. I want you again.”

“How convenient for you.” She’d wanted it too, and now she’d tasted this devastating pleasure. Been obliterated by it. She was surprised her feet held her as she pushed away from the balcony.

He reached out for her arm. “I promised my help.”

Louisa stared at his hand, and every particle of pleasure and joy she’d felt turned to ash.

He wore a ring. A signet ring. A carved ruby in a setting of gold, and though the porch was in shadow, she saw the flaring lines and the points of claws.

The seal. The blackmailer’s seal.

“No. We are done here. No one can help me.” She wanted to weep, to scream, to rage. She was so alone. The only person in this world who knew her name, who had just taken her soul with him to the most glorious heights, was her enemy.

“It is over,” she said, grateful that her voice was somewhat steady, as were her legs as she walked down the porch, into the gardens, and away. Leaving behind the dream of the one thing she’d ever truly wanted in her life, seeing that dream dashed and broken and stolen from her.

Again.

Chapter Six

For two days, Louisa’s mind romped round in the same endless, disbelieving circles.

She’d been approached by her blackmailer. He’d made an impossible demand.

Then she’d let him toss up her skirts on a balcony in the moonlight.