Page 67 of To Hunt the Hunter

Lucian barely remembered his mother at all, past the fact that she’d been absurdly lovely, like a perfect china doll. She had always been a distant figure in their lives, austerely beautiful, fragile and untouchable. She detested noise or mess, and three small boys who were never anything but noisy and messy had held little appeal, so they seldom crossed paths. His father had been proud of her, Lucian remembered that much, like a fine piece of porcelain or a beautiful painting. He’d rarely seen them together, which made the fact they’d died together somewhat ironic.

It had been a typical aristocratic marriage, which had been considered a wild success by their kind: a marriage of power, money, and breeding that provided three healthy male heirs—for Thomas’s sickly nature was a closely guarded secret. As far as the ton were concerned, they had been the perfect family. No wonder his father had been so damned smug, so bloody proud.

Lucian dared allow himself—as he had never allowed himself before—to imagine Matilda as the mother of his children, and had to slam the door on the image at once as too many unwieldy emotions rose inside of him. He drew in a shaky breath and forced the dream away before it could unravel what remained of his defences. No matter how he loved her, how worthy she was to be his wife, in the eyes of the world she would damage him, she would weaken the proud name that had stood for so many generations, and his father and Philip would turn in their graves.

Guilt clawed at his heart, weighing him down. Why could he not have this one thing—the only thing he had ever truly wanted—for himself?

He reached up to stroke Matilda’s hair, sifting the golden strands between his fingers, and the fine scar across his wrist shone white in the candlelight. Lucian made himself look at it for the first time in almost eighteen years. He hated it, hated the proof of his weakness, feeling the familiar swell of shame. He had thought to escape his duty once before, overwhelmed by loneliness and the burden of responsibility. He had thought he could go through with it, but in the end he’d not been able to betray his family, his destiny, his father’s wishes, even in the depths of despair. So Pippin had patched him up, and his uncle had never known that Lucian had almost done his work for him.

He would not let his uncle win, could not let his father and Philip down, could not let Thomas have died for nothing. There was no escape. The future of the title was both a noose about his neck and the thing he must live for.

Destiny.

He closed his eyes and breathed deep. Orange blossom, the musky scent of a lush female body, and something entirely unique to the woman in his arms enveloped him, chasing away desolation, for now at least. Her body’s perfume was a heady combination that filled his senses and made him taut with longing.

“Matilda,” he whispered, pressing his aching cock against the soft curves of her lush behind. “Matilda, wake up, love. I need you.”

She sighed and turned in his arms, the flutter of her eyelids revealing a flash of blue like the glimpse of a kingfisher on a summer’s day.

“Lucian,” she whispered, tugging at his neck, drawing his head down for a kiss.

He took what she offered, demanding more, deepening the kiss as something like desperation stole over him. His breath caught as her hand slid down his body and curved around his arousal, already slick with his desire for her.

She broke from his mouth and kissed his jaw, trailing kisses down his neck, his chest, lingering to tease at his nipples, nipping with her teeth. He closed his eyes and let bliss steal over him, his mind growing hazy as her sweet mouth moved lower. With no other lover had he ever been anything other than in control. He’d preferred it that way until now, but with her everything was different. He spoke little to his bed partners usually, preferring deeds to words, but now he could not stop. Love words and endearments fell from his lips, and he would not have halted them if he could. She deserved to hear them, even though he had no right to speak them.

She had settled between his legs now, her warm breath fluttering over him, a heady torture she likely did not understand she was inflicting.

“Oh, God, please. Please, love,” he begged her, beyond pride, desperate for her mouth on him. “I want you so much.”

“Like this?” she asked, and gave him a tentative lick from root to tip.

Lucian’s mind grew black and he swallowed a curse, clutching at the sheet beneath him, reacting like an innocent to that timid swipe of her tongue. The words that had fallen from his lips with such ease just moments earlier fled, leaving him stupid with shock.

“Yes,” he rasped, the breath knocked from his lungs. “Oh, yes, just like… Oh, God.”

The decadent feel of her mouth closing over him was so overwhelming that he felt like a green boy, ready to spend at the first touch of a girl’s hand.

“You like that?” she asked, the enquiry a little shy.

Lucian made a choked sound, somewhere between laughter and desperation. How did she do this to him? He’d been bored to death in recent years, the most skilled of lovers only ever bringing release, nothing more. Yet barely a touch of her mouth and he was on the brink, holding on for dear life.

“Yes,” he managed, somehow dredging up the memory of what words were and how to use them. “Yes, I like that very much.”

“Oh good,” she said, pleased. “So do I.”

Her words shot straight to his groin and the little sound of pleasure she made as she repeated the action was almost more than he could take.

“Oh God, oh God, oh, God,” he muttered, praying that he could hold on. He did not want this delicious torture over before it had begun.

“You feel like hot silk here,” she said conversationally, trailing a fingertip over him that made him shiver. “And I like the way you taste.”

Lucian groaned and flung his arm over his eyes, clinging to sanity by a thread. The need to turn her onto her back and lose himself inside her was so powerful he could have wept with frustration and regret at the slightest provocation.

She returned her mouth to him, inexpertly but with growing confidence. Lucian concentrated on breathing, on holding tight to the forbidden, exquisite pleasure of this night that was to be as fleeting as a sunrise, the beauty of it imperfectly remembered, never living up to the stunning reality when it was brought to mind again.

“I want you inside me, Lucian.”

The plea in her voice undid his control, what little of it remained, and he reached for her, pulling her into his arms, plundering her mouth. He rolled her onto her back, moving swiftly between her legs. She opened to him at once, welcoming him into the cradle of her body. Their bodies moved on instinct, ready to fit flawlessly together and he stilled, poised to slide inside, into the perfection he knew awaited him.