Page 55 of The Duke of Deceit

Oh, she would! Since their encounter in the garden, she’d scarcely thought of anything else except the feel of his hands and mouth on her, and once again, that wonderful ache stirred inside her. What would he say if she asked him to touch her right there, between her legs, where the ache throbbed the strongest? He’d think her a wanton, although with the way his handsslipped behind her back and made quick work of unbuttoning her bodice, she didn’t care as long as he kept touching her.

“I’ve thought of you constantly since the garden party,” he murmured against the side of her neck as his mouth teased at the delicate flesh behind her ear.

Her hands tightened on his shoulders. “No, you haven’t.”

A low chuckle stirred from him as he nudged down her loose bodice and focused his attention on unfastening her front-tie corset. “Are you always so contrary, even at moments like this?”

“Yes.” When he pushed down her chemise and revealed both breasts to the shadows, the cool evening air tightened her nipples into hard points despite the heat of his gaze. As if mesmerized by the sight, he slowly stroked them with his fingertip. She moaned softly, “Oh, yes… Please, Lucien.”

“As you wish.” He lowered his head and captured her right nipple between his lips.

The gentle suck pulled all the way through her and curled her toes in her slippers. She lost her breath, never before feeling as sinfully wonderful as this.

Taking her reaction as encouragement, he pulled her deeper into his warm, wet mouth, then began to flick the tip of his tongue playfully against her nipple while his hands slipped down her back and squeezed her bottom. The dual sensation was overwhelming, and she sagged against him, so bonelessly that he encircled her hips with his large hands and lifted her to seat her fully on the ledge. Not for a moment did his mouth leave her.

She ran her fingers through his hair and reveled in the silky softness of his dark curls, then caressed his cheek when he slipped her nipple from his mouth and gazed longingly up at her.

“What else do you wish for, Jessamyn?” he murmured as he traced a delicate pattern across her bare breasts with his fingertip. “What other pleasures can I give you?”

She swallowed, hard, yet it wasn’t enough to quash the nervousness inside her. “If you touch me,” she began, her voice far huskier than she intended, “if you caress me where…” Her voice trailed off. Her body knew exactly what it wanted from him—no, what itneeded—but how did she ask for such a wanton thing?

“Caress you where?” he prompted rakishly and punctuated that by darting his mouth down to nip her bottom lip. Then he soothingly slid his tongue across it. The pleasure-pain he gave her was just as torturous as his sweet kisses to her breasts had been earlier. “Tell me.”

Heat flared in her cheeks. Good Lord, he was going to make her say it! But she also knew that if she did, he would reward her for it.Deliciously.So she whispered, “Between…my thighs.”

“Does it ache?”

She closed her eyes and nodded.

“Is it throbbing in time with your heartbeat?” To make his point, he touched the tip of his tongue to her racing pulse in the hollow at the base of her throat.

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Then let me soothe it for you.” He sealed that promise with an open-mouthed kiss that left her breathless and her head spinning so rapidly that she was barely aware of his hands on her legs, sliding her skirt up across her thighs until the fabric puddled in her lap.

He glanced down at her legs, bare except for stockings tied with red satin ribbons. Oddly enough, she wasn’t at all embarrassed to be sitting there in front of him, nearly naked except for her layers of clothes encircling her middle. No, when he raked his hot gaze over her, what she felt was…

“Beautiful,” he rasped out, then silenced the reflexive denial on the tip of her tongue with a kiss to her lips, one that soon turned plundering and possessive. She thrilled in the sensationsthat washed over her, in the strangely proud feeling that a man like Lucien Grenier would stare at her like that, would touch her and kiss her as he’d done. As he’d promised to do even more.

“Touch me,” she reminded him. “You promised.” She sent him a crooked smile she prayed hid her nervousness. “And a gentleman always keeps his promises.”

He paused with his hands resting on her legs, just above her knees. “I’m not feeling very gentlemanly right now.”

She clasped his lapels and leaned up toward him. “Then let me have the rake.” She brushed her lips along his jaw. “I’m certain he knows what to do with me.”

He gave a faint groan at her challenge and massaged her bare thighs, as if fighting with himself over giving the intimacy she craved. “You want me to touch you…like this?”

He slid his hands up only an inch, barely a movement at all. She whimpered in frustration.

“Not like that,” she forced out, resisting the urge to grab his hand and put it where her body yearned for it to be. “Higher.”

“Here, then.” Anticipation pulsed through her, and she held her breath. But his hands only moved incrementally higher, frustratingly stopping at mid-thigh.

She slapped his shoulder. “You impossible devil!”

“Don’t blame me.” He chuckled as if at a private joke and captured her hand. “Teasing a woman to the point of distraction, then denying her satisfaction, is what we rakes do.”

“Then bring back the gentleman. Surely, there’s one somewhere inside you.”