More Than a Duke(111)

Harry groaned. He shifted away and she moaned in protest at the loss of him, but he merely shed his breeches and tossed them aside.



Her mouth went dry and she stared unblinking at the enormous shaft stretched eagerly toward her. “What are you going to do with that?” she blurted. Because the much needed lesson given her that morning by her two sisters seemed vastly more daunting and…quite impossible.



Harry grinned. He took her hand and guided it to his manhood. His smile faded as his flesh leaped involuntarily at her gentle caress.



Anne’s reservations slipped aside as she explored the length of him. She ran her fingers over the length of him then took him in a fist and worked him. Up and down. Up and down. Harry’s head fell back and he arched into her hand.



“Ah, God, you need to stop, love.” His voice came out garbled, desperate and pleading, and hot desire flooded her center at the sight of him finding his pleasure at her hands.



She continued to work him and her efforts were rewarded when he reached between them and found her center once more. Then Harry shifted his weight atop of hers. He braced himself upon his elbows and thrust a knee between her legs. “Forgive me, Anne,” he whispered.



She brushed back the moisture from his brow with a tremulous hand and gave him a soft smile. “There is nothing to—”Her eyes flew wide as he thrust deep inside her. “Bloody hell,” she gasped. She gave his shoulders a nudge. “That is quite not well-done of you, Harry,” she charged as pain throbbed at her center.



He remained frozen above her, his eyes clenched tightly. A faint muscle ticked at the corner of his mouth and her annoyance fled in the face of Harry’s tenderness. She touched his cheek until his eyes opened. “It will be all right, Harry,” she promised. She couldn’t be absolutely certain of that, but… She frowned. “Are you laughing at me?” His shoulders shook and it certainly appeared as though he were. She gave him another nudge. “How—?”



Her words ended on a breathless gasp as he flexed his hips and began to move inside her and all the earlier discomfort melted away to be replaced by the most exquisite, desperate rightness of his loving. His strokes grew deeper, longer, and she arched her hips aching to know…something…that her body would know once it found it. Harry’s brow remained furrowed as if in deep concentration as he thrust inside her. Again. Thrust. And again. “Oh, dear, Harry.” She bit her lip.



“Yes, love, come for me.”



She wanted to. She really wanted to. Except she feared if she plunged over the precipice she now clung to, she’d dissolve into a puddle of nothingness she could never recover from. Then he stroked her center. “I love you, Harry,” she whispered and then shattered in a fiery explosion of color and light.



Harry groaned and poured himself into her; his hot seed flooded her center and she wanted the moment to go on and on. Their cries blended together in a sweet song until he collapsed atop her. His chest heaved up and down from the force of his release.



Anne folded her arms about his broad back and stroked her fingernails lightly over his sweat-dampened skin. A smile played about her lips. “That was quite splendid.”



He rolled off her and carried her with him, pulling her into the curve of his arm. “Indeed it was.” He touched a finger to her lips. “I love you, Anne,” he whispered, raising her hand to his mouth. He kissed her wrist. Delicious shivers raced from the point of contact and spiraled throughout her body. He fixed his gaze on the heart pendant he’d gifted her that she now wore about her neck. “I know you desired the heart of a duke. I know Crawford, or any other duke, would have made you a better husband and yet, selfishly, I could not live without you.”



How could he possibly believe that? She swallowed hard. How could he not realize he was all she wanted? All she’d ever wanted? Losing him to Lady Margaret would have sucked the very soul from her and left her a wispy shell of a creature who’d once loved and lost. Anne touched her fingertips to his cheek. “Oh, you silly man. Surely by now you realize?”



Emotion roughed his voice. “Realize what?”



A smile played about her lips. “How could I have ever wanted Crawford, when I have more than a duke?”



He touched his brow to hers. “And what is that?”



She brushed her lips against his. “I have you,” she whispered.