Accidentally Compromising the Duke(34)

Oh! Her heart jerked in trepidation and excitement. The drugging kisses he pressed to her mouth were scrambling her brain. Who knew kisses could feel this wonderful? She fisted her fingers through the thick strands of his hair, and melded her mouth to his. Their teeth clinked, and he pulled from her with a rough pained chuckle.

“Easy,” he whispered, dragging his lips roughly down her cheek, then neck, where he nibbled. The firestorm of sensations that peaked in the low of her stomach were surely unnatural, wanton, and gloriously unladylike.

She inhaled, trying to control the chaotic hunger that had erupted in her body, and the nerves determined to rear their head.

There was restrained power in the touch that gripped her nightgown and pushed it to her waist. His thumb dragged against the inside of her thighs creating little sparks of sensations that shot directly to the throbbing flesh between her legs.

Adel breathed raggedly. Edmond kept his face buried in her neck, his body tight with tension. What was he thinking?

The confusion bubbling inside her was enough to have tears prickling behind her lids. She parted her lips to speak and then he shifted, cupping the most intimate part of her. The breath puffed from her mouth in a painful burst and then she stilled.

It took her a few seconds to realize they were both frozen, and the furious pounding against her breastbone was not only her heart.

His hand moved and one finger slid through her alarming wetness.

He groaned, and she swallowed. Then with a virulent curse, he leapt from her. “Forgive my lapse in control, it will not happen again.” Then he turned to stride from the room.

Disappointment sliced through her. “Is this not your chamber?”

He halted but did not turn around. “You can sleep here for tonight or return to your chambers. The choice is yours.”

Heat stained her cheeks. He was so dismissive. Then he exited.

Adel scrambled from the bed, placing her foot onto thick soft carpeting as she stood in the center of the room, shaking. The pleasant masculine décor of the room with rich colors and dark wood furniture did nothing to ease her stormy emotions. With a great effort she calmed the racing of her heart. She inhaled, and his scent rushed into her lungs. Unable to stay any longer she hurried to the door, opened it, and rushed down the corridor to her chamber. She crawled onto the bed and buried herself in the mound of pillows.

What had just happened? With a frustrated sigh, she rolled on her back and stared at the canopy above her. She felt empty and bereft. Was this how her marriage would be? Should she accept the duke’s edicts, or wait to see how their lives unfolded? It would be useless for her to fervently hope he might come to love her, and while she would not fight for a love he was not willing to give her, she would not remain childless.

She needed to understand his demons, but she knew the maddening man would not allow her close. But…he’d just responded to her with such raw force, surely that must mean he desired her. Should she try and make him fall in love with her as surely as she knew, she would eventually love him? Why would she even want to waste her time, loving such a vexing man?

His empty eyes.

No one should look so lonely and bereft.

She crushed the thoughts with willpower she never knew she possessed and drew the coverlet to her chin, before closing her eyes. Eventually she would know what to do, and prayed she would not muck it up. She was now a mother…a wife, and there was no turning back the hands of time.

In this, she would not fail. Adel had failed in her season, and she had certainly failed to be an exemplary daughter with her conduct, but she was determined to succeed as a mother…and as Edmond’s wife and duchess. She lay on the bed and watched the embers dying on the hearth until she finally succumbed to sleep.





Chapter Thirteen

It was most assuredly not the scotch, but the woman herself. Edmond had held on to the belief that without his drinking the night he visited Lord Gladstone, Adel climbing into his bed would not have had such an effect. It was not pleasant learning he was very wrong. It was not only love he was uninterested in…he wanted distance from this brutal punch of pleasure to his system from a simple whiff of her scent and taste.

He was a damned fool, God help him, for he had been unable to stop the madness of tasting her. When last had he felt such pleasure from a mere kiss? The front of his breeches tightened embarrassingly and instead of withdrawing, the vexing and bewitching lady had stretched up on her toes, lifted her hands, and wrapped them around his neck, her fingers combing through his hair. Her touch had been exploratory, definitely innocent, and it had allowed him to pull back from her when everything in him clamored to devour, to slake a need that had been too long denied.