Four Nights With the Duke(38)

Mia froze, horrified. "The boys spoke to you about your mother's behavior?"

He grinned as if she had asked the silliest question imaginable. "They  generally didn't speak; they just called me names. And I answered them  with my fists."

"Oakenrott," she said with disgust. "That loathsome little toad."

"How did you-" He stopped. "I forgot that you know precisely what Rotter is like."

His hand had reached the roundest part of Mia's thighs and she was  fighting an impulse to moan. Anything that would encourage him to move  his hand higher, to the place between her legs that was waiting for his  touch.

He smiled as if he knew what she was thinking, and his fingers slid  right between her legs. Mia squeezed her eyes shut and concentrated on  the aching darkness behind her eyelids, and the fact that her hands  clutched arms hard with muscles.

She wondered for a second if this touch was permissible between a lady  and gentleman, and pushed the thought away. She had no one to ask. And  she didn't want him to stop.                       
       
           



       

In fact, she thought of allowing her legs to fall open and pulling his  large body on top of her. That image was so shocking that she stayed  absolutely still, not moving a muscle.

"I love touching you, Mia," Vander growled, his voice low, guttural but sweet. "I intend to kiss you there too."

Her eyes flew open. "No, you will not!"

He laughed, and his fingers swirled and pressed. Mia's head fell back  again and she let out a sound that no lady would allow to pass her lips.

Vander rolled on top of her, all his delicious weight holding her down.  He began kissing her so fiercely that his hunger soaked into her body,  taking all her restraints, taking away her claim to be a lady.

Before she knew it, she was shuddering all over, her hands clenched tight around his forearms, begging without words.

And then begging with words, because she was bursting into flames and he was the only person who could help her.

But he stopped. Why had he stopped? She whimpered, looking at him  through eyes dazed with desire. She was wound tighter than a spool of  wire, vibrating like a note so high that it barely struck the ear.  "Mia," he growled, "ask me for one of your four nights."

"Wh-what?"

His hand took up that rough caress again.

"Don't stop," she whispered.

"Is this to be one of your four nights?"

Something unraveled in her heart, destroying the last of her defenses,  the final shard of sanity she possessed. "Yes! It is, it is."

What he said in response . . . what he did . . . was blasphemous.  Miraculous. She felt like a river, liquid, rushing to a destination  outside her control. She clung to him, crying out, her body clenching  around his probing fingers as his thumb dragged over her soft flesh,  setting it on fire.

The only thing that mattered was the stark lust that shimmered in the  air around both of them. Vander was driving her to a pleasure greater  than she could have imagined.

She hadn't quite got there when he bundled her skirts around her waist  and, as if he were her maid preparing her for bed, began swiftly  undressing her. As she would to her maid, Mia mindlessly obeyed his  requests, her breath coming in little pants, her brain muddled by  desire. Raise your arms, Turn on your side, Twist the other way.

Her corset was tossed to the floor. It was only when he tried to remove  her chemise that she came back to herself and clamped her arms across  her chest.

"No." She'd used the word thousands of times, but never under these  circumstances. It came out with a kind of sultry intimacy that she'd  never heard from her own lips. Or anyone else's, either.

In response, Vander stood and pulled his shirt over his head. She pushed  up on her elbows, openly staring. When she was a girl, she used to sit  on the fence and watch him working with horses, surreptitiously feasting  her eyes on his chest. He hadn't even been fifteen years old.

It was all different now.

What had been a youth's sinewy leanness had filled out into a grown-up  male beauty that made her tremble. His face was set in ferocious lines  of need and his eyes roamed over her body without the slightest  distaste. He bent down and pulled off his breeches, standing squarely  before her, flaunting himself.

Her eyes widened. This was entirely different than seeing him in his smalls, when she proposed marriage.

Vander grinned at her with a purely male pride. "Is it the first time  you've seen a man in the flesh?" he purred. He came down on all fours  over her. This was truly happening.

Vander was about to make love to her.

She had the vague sense that she was expected to exhibit virginal  apprehension, but she felt none. She wanted to touch him all over, wind  his thick hair around her fingers, pull his mouth down to hers.

Of course she couldn't behave like that. She had to rein in this  unfamiliar wantonness. So she reached up to him, but in a ladylike way,  putting her hands delicately, loosely around his neck, sliding them to  his shoulders with the hope that caress was appropriate. "Shouldn't we  douse the lamp?"

Warm muscles slid beneath her fingers as he shrugged. "Why?"

Because darkness was more modest, she thought. But what part did modesty  play in bedding, when a man put his fingers in such private places, and  teased those pleading sounds from a woman's mouth?

Who could be modest after that?

It was too late.

Mia abruptly decided to abandon her plans for ladylike restraint. She  surrendered to curiosity and slid her hand down his chest to reach the  part of him that strained toward her.

He stifled a groan as she ran a finger down his length and, with a quick  glance at him for approval, curved her hand around him. He was thick,  hot and silky.                       
       
           



       

A curse, dark and guttural, wrenched from his throat. Likely every man  thought he possessed the largest tool a woman had ever seen. And because  society demanded that a lady never admit to intimacies of any sort,  these delusions of grandeur were never dispelled.

Still, she could hardly imagine anyone larger than Vander. It would be impossible. It was impossible now.

The thought brought a chill down her spine and she felt a pang of fear.  "What do we do now?" she asked, bringing her hands back to his  shoulders. She was on her back, legs together, and he had a knee on  either side of her hips.

The whole situation was embarrassing, and the lovely warmth she had in her stomach began to drain away.

"Is the rule about not touching your breasts still in place?"

Mia withdrew her arms from around his neck and crossed them over her  breasts. Maybe she would start to wear her corset under her chemise to  hold them in a bit. Glancing down showed that her breasts looked even  larger from this perspective. She felt a lurch of disgust in her  stomach.

He sighed. "I've never made love to a woman wearing clothing before."

Her turn to raise an eyebrow. "Really? I thought that gentlemen were  always taking women into back alleys and tupping them against the wall?"  She meant her tone to be sardonic, but somehow it came out a little  intrigued.

"I have not had that particular pleasure," he said, after a telling  moment of silence. "But I'd be delighted to experiment, Duchess."

"No!" she spluttered.

He lowered his head and his lips drifted across hers. "Fair warning: in  lieu of a back alley, I propose to make you scream my name. I'm tired of  being Your Grace'd."

Mia felt another chilly bolt of panic as Vander pulled her legs apart.  He lowered his head, and dropped a kiss on her inner thigh. "That's  inappropriate!" she whispered urgently.

He lifted his head, eyes devilish. "How do you know?"

"I . . ." His lips caressed skin, closer to the heart of her.

This was too intimate. It was one thing if he put that part of himself  inside her. She could turn her head, or-or something. But she had a  terrible feeling that if he kissed her there, she would lose what  remained of her self-control.

It would be worse than when he touched her. She wouldn't be herself; she  would be turned inside out by desire, ravished, begging him . . .

She was not wrong.

Without warning, he lapped at her and she screamed. His mouth was wet  and ravenous, and set Mia on fire like a spark landing on a pile of dry  kindling.

She couldn't think. She could do nothing but twine her fingers in his  hair. Even his warm breath against her flesh made her shudder. She let  go of Vander's hair because her fingers curled, and her toes curled.  Everything in her was tightening, launching her like a boat to some  distant shore.

And then it was happening; she slammed out into deep water, sensation  rushing over her. Vander was urging her on, his voice smoky. She heard  him dimly, realizing only later what he was saying.