Page 45 of Duke with a Desire

“We seem to be making a habit of sheltering from the rain in here,” he said softly.

“We do,” she agreed, aware of so much—the humid air, the press of his lean body against hers, the way he held her against him in a possessive hold.

She was giddy and breathless and she was sure she looked a complete and utter ruin, but she didn’t care. They were alone. And she was tired of pretending she didn’t desire him. He was all wrong for her, but for their fleeting time at Wingfield Hall, she could forget. She could lose herself in him instead.

“I can think of worse ways to shelter from a storm,” he said, giving her a rakish grin that melted any resistance that may have been remaining within her.

“Perhaps,” she began, then paused, gathering her bravado and wits both, before starting anew. “Perhaps I am ready to forfeit that debt you insisted that I owe you.”

His eyes glittered, the intensity in their vivid depths enough to make her catch flame. “Are you saying that you want me to kiss you?”

Prestwick cupped her face with his free hand, his thumb moving, tracing over the curve of her lower lip.

She swallowed hard. “Yes.”

He released her waist, and his other hand rose, taking her face in a gentle hold. They were both slick from the rain, but his touch was hot, so very hot. And she burned wherever their skin met. Breathing felt dangerous. So, too, did blinking. She didn’t want to miss a single second.

“Please,” she added, her voice hushed.

Later, she might feel shame at the way she begged him, at the sheer need for this beautiful man’s lips on hers. But now, all she could feel was a desire so potent her knees nearly gave way and sent her crashing to the floor. It was a heady rush, the freedom to touch him. To ask for his kiss. One she’d never imagined.

His head dipped then, his mouth slanting over hers. His lips were warm and firm, silken yet ardent. She gasped from the sheer delight of it, and he pressed his advantage, his tongue sweeping past her parted lips to delve into her mouth. A moan escaped her. Her hands somehow found his shoulders, her nails digging into the sodden fabric of his shirt.

Ophelia came to life. It was as if a flame had been lit somewhere in the murkiest recesses of her being, and the rest of her was dry kindling. One moment, she had been a perfectly ordinary woman upon whom perfectly ordinary kisses had been visited in her dreadfully ordinary lifetime, and the next, she was a conflagration. A burning blaze. And these kisses were anything but ordinary. Indeed, they were nothing short of astonishing.

Slowly, as if something as mundane as time wouldn’t dare interfere, Prestwick kissed her in a seductive play of lips, tongues, and even teeth. She clung to him, absorbing his heat through the damp fabric of his shirt, his strength and solidness of form, so very different from the other man she had touched before. Corbett had never set her pulse pounding as Prestwick did.

Nor had she known a kiss could be so intimate. But now, she was aware of every detail, from their breaths mingling, to the taste of him, to the slick glide of his tongue. The low, deep sound of appreciation he made thrilled her. It was as if he had been waiting for this kiss for as long as she had. An impossibility, and yet nothing felt impossible with the Duke of Prestwick’s lips on hers.

With this thought, the pressure of his mouth fled, leaving hers aching and tingling and feverishly longing for more. Her eyes flew open—she hadn’t even noticed the moment she had allowed them to close. They had simply shuttered, taking her to a place where only she and Prestwick and the rain pounding on the glass panes above existed.

Now she saw his eyes burning into hers, deepened to a dark shade, like the sea when it churned with frothing waves. His mouth was dark from the kisses they had shared, slightly parted, and as she watched, the tip of his tongue emerged, as if searching.

“You taste even sweeter than I thought you would,” he rasped, as if the confession had been torn from him.

He had wondered? What a heady notion, to think she had so much power over this big, strong man. To affect him so. To take up residence in his thoughts.

But then she had to remind herself that it wasn’t her true self who had done so, but rather the lady she pretended to be, a masked hostess who was well-versed in the sensual arts. Not a widow who had only ever lain with one man.

“No doubt I taste like tea,” she said breathlessly.

“On the contrary, you taste like nothing I have ever known,” he countered, solemn. “Like something rare and true and astonishingly decadent.” He stroked her cheek with the backs of his fingers in a reverent gesture, his voice hushed.

She knew the feeling. But she also knew this was effortless charm, easily and artfully applied. Yet another pigment in his rakish paint box.

“Hardly rare or decadent,” she denied softly, her smile taking the sting from her words. “I am but an unexceptional woman, no different from any other.”

“On the contrary. I suspect there is no other woman in all the world who is anything like you.” He paused, his stare turning pensive as he traced her cheekbone with a reverent touch.

His words were like flames she forced herself to snuff out.

“You are a young man yet. There is time aplenty to continue looking.” Though it pained her to encourage him to look for another, she knew she must not fool herself into believing he would ever wish to carry on anything more than a tryst with a woman of five-and-thirty who was widowed, near penury, and responsible for two children, a depleted phalanx of domestics, and two dogs.

“Ah, but even if that were true,” Prestwick said smoothly, “I find that I have no desire to look, when the only woman I want is right here before me.”

He seemed so earnest. She wanted to believe him every bit as much as she wanted to kiss him again. And why shouldn’t she do either? This was her opportunity. She had anonymity and the empty orangery on her side.

“Then perhaps you shouldn’t waste time talking,” she suggested boldly, hardly recognizing the woman she had become.