Page 66 of The Devilish Pleasures of a Duke

He groaned. “As your husband-to-be, I would like nothing more than to oblige your wishes.” He angled his head and caught her hand. “But it’s ladies first, isn’t it? You see, I do take instruction…”

He slid his gloved hand beneath her robe. Then, with taunting deliberation, he stroked his way up her ankle to her bare knee to her belly. Her breathing deepened. She turned her face into the cushion, murmuring, “Gloves, my lord,” with a spellbinding laugh that stirred his predator’s instincts. “A gentleman must remove his gloves when touching a woman intimately.”

“Is that an unbreakable rule in your manual?” he asked, idly easing his leather-clad fingers between her folds. “Or are you inventing new rules as we go along?”

“Adrian,” she breathed in shocked delight as his gloved forefinger slipped inside her. “This—”

He leaned closer, inserted another finger into her tight passage. “I’ve never gone by the book myself. I seem to be an animal of instinct. Forgive me.”

“This”—she shifted, her gaze widening in anticipation; her shoulders arched—“isn’t civilized. This is, well, I don’t know what it is.”

“I don’t either, but I like it very much and suggest you wait before deciding.”

She laid her hand on his strong wrist, her inner muscles gripping his leather-gloved fingers. It was decadent. It was desire. And she felt the purity and power of it to her soul. “How long must I wait?” she whispered.

He drew the rest of her robe up to her midriff. His heavy hand lay possessively between her sleek thighs and the gold-tinged curls that daintily concealed her cleft from his ravenous stare.

To be her lover he would have gone down on his knees and begged. He was besotted. Bewitched. He whose skills for fighting had made men plead for mercy would forever lay down his sword and dedicate his life to pleasing her if she would allow him.

“There hasn’t been a moment since we were first together,” he said hoarsely, “that I haven’t thought of you.”

Her quiet sigh of pleasure encouraged him. Slowly he finished untying the ribbons that lay against her shoulders. She made no attempt to dissuade him. His hands eased the thin muslin down her graceful back. Her breasts hovered above the sheer fabric, her nipples silky pink and luscious. “Oh, Emma.” With her aristocratic features and flowing hair, she looked like an elegant concubine. He felt his erection bulging against his trousers, straining the tight seams to the bursting point.

Slowly, he told himself. She deserved his time, the best he could give her after their initial awkward indiscretion. “I am trying to control myself,” he explained. “I’m afraid I feel a little wild at times.”

“My wild wolf.”

“Tame me, Emma.”

“Why?” she whispered. “Sometimes a lady knows when to appreciate what nature has unleashed. A storm over the mountains. Rain at a summer picnic. A duke who does not follow the rules of his realm…”

His heartbeat raced so that it hurt to draw a breath into his lungs. Sexual tension gripped his muscles, thickened the very air he shared with her. His cock ached heavily in his trousers. How he craved this woman.

She pressed herself into his hand.

With a low growl at this unexpected enticement, he pulled off his damp glove and sought the sweet tenderness of her flesh. Her submission. He had waited for her capitulation, knowing that he was hers from the first time he’d seen her.

“You must think me a devil,” he said in a raw voice. “I have deliberately enticed you to abandon those principles you esteem.”

“And what,” she asked in a voice even deeper than his own, “if I admit to you, my devil, that it is you I esteem most dearly? That I would give up everything to be yours?”

He rubbed his free hand over his face. “Then I am yours to do with as you wish. Polish me. Instruct me. Turn me into one of those mincing Englishmen you admire. I care not. Just don’t refuse me, Emma. Make me into whatever you wish, but I beg you with all my heart, make me yours.”

The Boscastles, Heath reflected in annoyance, had never exactly been known for their patience. Drake had practically drummed a hole in the library desktop. Gabriel had gone through three of Heath’s best cigars. Devon kept wandering back and forth to the window until at length he had settled in his chair to nod off.

It was, therefore, a relief when the eldest Boscastle brother, Grayson, graced them with his domineering presence. “Did you hear a suspicious noise when you entered the house?” Heath asked, not one to waste words.

Grayson shrugged out of his cloak. “It was probably me slamming the door. Am I too late?”

“That depends,” Heath said, sitting back in his chair. “Does Jane know you are here?”

“Of course not,” Grayson said. “Have I not always been the soul of discretion? Jane is preoccupied with some new Italian shoemaker. At least that’s what she said.”

Devon started to laugh. “She knows.”

“Precisely what does she know that I have not been apprised of?” Grayson inquired with a dark look around the room.

“Sit down,” Heath said. “And I shall tell you the facts as I understand them. It started less than a fortnight ago at a wedding…”