Page 63 of The Duke and the Darkness

She gazed at him between the crossed foils. “As long as you keep secret what our fathers did, you’re doing exactly that.”

He let out a fierce growl and shoved her away, disentangling their foils and sending her staggering back a few feet until she regained her balance.

But he didn’t claim the advantage and attack. Instead, he waited at the edge of the rug for her to regain her stance before charging. His control was snapping, his thrusts and parries less carefully measured than before.

She was winning the fight. Now she had to win the war. “I’ve lived too long with their secrets. So have you. I’ve made up my mind. I don’t want to live in secrecy any longer.”

The clash of foils punctuated her words as he went on the attack, never giving ground, never retreating. All Peyton had to do now was wait for his guard to slip, for just enough room in the movement of his arm to expose a vulnerable space—

“What you want isn’t to reveal secrets. It’s to continue your revenge against my father,” he huffed out between rapid breaths. “But you can never have that.”

She skillfully parried his thrust. “Dartmoor shouldn’t be allowed to get away with what he’s done.”

“He’s dead!” he half-shouted, his control slipping more with every passing moment. “You can’t punish a dead man, but youwillhurt the ones who are still alive. Give up your revenge before you’re hurt again.”

He lunged, and she retreated another step, then ground out, “Haven’t I already surrendered enough to the dead?”

“But you’renotdead, and you owe a debt to the living.” He paced her around the room, relentlessly on the attack and seemingly not caring that they’d long ago left the boundaries of the rug. Each thrust was less controlled than the one before. “Is that the kind of revenge you want, Peyton—the kind that harms innocents? Then you’ll be no better than our fathers. Including yours.”

She halted in mid-retreat, stunned at his accusation. She froze for only a moment, but a moment was all he needed to knock her foil from her hand. It clanged against the stone floor at her feet.

Instead of taking the winning touch, Devlin locked eyes with her and threw his foil away. When he stepped forward, she retreated again, this time hitting her back against the wall behind her. But he closed the distance between them, placed his palms flat on the wall on both sides of her shoulders and leaned in until his blazing eyes were level with hers.

His mouth was so close that his warm breath tickled her lips. “You arenotthat person.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do.” His rough voice trembled with the same intensity that shook his body. “Because I would never want someone like that as much as I want you.”

Her pulse spiked, sparking a fierce ache between her legs. “You…want me?”

“God, yes.”

Beneath his hungry admission, all the anger, retribution, and doubts she’d carried about him for the past ten years vanished, leaving her nothing in this moment but the man standing in front of her. A desperate need blossomed inside her, one she could no longer fight back. She ordered on a soft breath, “Then take me.”

He lunged forward and seized her mouth beneath his in a blistering kiss that left her boneless. Heat sizzled her skin everywhere his front touched hers, and she returned the kiss as fiercely as he gave it.

When she tore her mouth away to gasp back her breath, the final threads of his control snapped. He dropped to his knees, yanked her skirt up to her waist, and buried his face between her thighs.

A cry of raw need tore from her, and she grabbed onto his hard shoulders to keep from falling to the floor as he kissed her intimately with the same intensity he’d captured her mouth only moments before. His tongue plundered her folds, licking and flicking against her. Just when she’d regained her breath, he spread her intimate lips wide with his fingers and then plunged his tongue deeply inside her.

She shuddered against his mouth, and the little muscles inside her wickedly tightened around his tongue to draw him even deeper. The pulsating ache he stoked inside her with each hot, wet thrust overwhelmed her. But she didn’t want him to stop—please, don’t stop!—and silently begged for more by wrapping her leg over his shoulder and opening herself wide to his wanton kisses.

His answering groan of pleasure thrilled her. She pushed herself back against the wall for leverage and tilted up her pelvis to bring his mouth as hard against her as possible. Oh, heavens, how wonderful the sensations he flared right there beneath hislips! How desperate she was for even more of him. A string of senseless encouragements fell from her lips, and she fisted his silky hair in her hands. The same man who was making the earth slide away beneath her was also her only anchor, and she clung to him to keep from losing herself completely.

His lips closed around the little bead of her clitoris and sucked.

“Devlin!” Her hips bucked shamelessly against his mouth.

Giving her no quarter, he slid his hands up the backs of her legs to cup her bottom in his palms and keep her pulled tightly against him as she arched out from the wall behind her. He sucked again, longer and harder, relentless in his pursuit to drive her over the edge.

Sheer joy shattered her as she found her release. Too quickly,fartoo quickly, the cry of bliss on her lips faded to a whimper of disappointment as residual waves of pleasure lapped at her toes. She didn’t want the encounter to end, not this soon. She wanted him inside her, filling her completely, bringing her sheer bliss.

Knowing what her body craved, he lifted her in his arms as he rose to his feet and deftly unfastened his fall. He wrapped her legs around his waist and stepped forward to plunge himself inside her.

The cry of surprise on her lips transformed into a shuddering moan as he pinned her between the wall and his body. He began to move inside her in fierce, hard thrusts of his hips, his thick, hard length buried deeply inside her. Right where she longed for him to be.

“Let go, Peyton,” he cajoled, his soft words contrasting against the hard thrusts that rocked her to her soul. “Stop fighting…for once, surrender.”