Page 37 of Distracting the Duke

Comfort? This was the second time he’d claimed to give her such.

Other than this man holding her, no one in her life had ever offered her comfort. It had been her duty to put up with her unhappy lot without complaint. Her duty to conceal the family’s shameful secret. Her duty to hide from everyone the ghastly purgatory of her marriage to Simon Tinniswood.

How sick she was of duty!

But she’d never asked for comfort. Not from a soul. That would have meant revealing to the world why she needed it.

“You’re taking liberties,” she said, but there was no conviction in the words.

“I don’t like to see you suffer,” he countered.

“Unless you’re the one creating my torment.”

And such torment. Wants and desires she’d never felt before warred with harsh experience…and what she knew was right. It was so easy to feel at home in this man’s embrace, but she mustn’t let her unruly body overcome the dictates of her head.

“I would never deliberately torment a woman. Not even one who’s tried my patience as much as you.”

Her heartbeat sped up unaccountably. “Yet you still want to hold me?”

He nuzzled his cheek against her hair. “Everyone needs to be held. My mother and father never—” He let out a bitter laugh. “But no, I won’t bore you with the sorry tale of my youth.”

She tilted her head up to examine his face. “I’d be happy to listen.” It would deflect attention from her own problems, at least.

“I must ask, Clara, if I should regard you at this moment as friend or foe?”

While he was holding her like this and calling her by her given name? Friend. Definitely friend.

When she didn’t answer, he said, “Do you at least feel able to trust me?”

She smiled bleakly into his chest. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to trust a man again.”

He increased his grip when she said this, as if attempting to shield her from all the ills of the world. The Duke of Ulvercombe, indeed, had compassion. A trait Simon had utterly lacked.

“Probably wise,” Ulvercombe said. “We’re an evil sex and many of us behave in deplorable ways. But if you could see me as a friend first and a man second…perhaps, then, we could share our secrets?”

One of his hands had come up to stroke the back of her shoulder and, though she knew it was meant to be comforting, it had quite the opposite effect. Her body was instantly aflame, and parts of it she barely knew had feeling in them suddenly awoke and expressed an interest.

In him.

How could this be happening? Never trust a man. Never let a man get close to you again. Yet here she was, ignoring her own advice in the arms of a devilishly attractive specimen of his sex…and thoroughly enjoying herself.

How had he wrought such a profound change in her? It was hard to credit.

But he’d almost certainly had his fill of women. He’d know how to handle a woman, exactly what to say, exactly what to do. He was clearly a master in the art of seduction. He had broken down her barriers so subtly, she hadn’t even been aware he was doing it.

The stroking didn’t cease, and her sensitized skin tingled. The urge to rub around him like a cat was powerfully strong. There were other places she would like to be stroked like this…

Good Lord. What had come over her?

“You’re trembling again. Please, put my jacket on properly and we’ll see if we can push a little farther into our rocky shelter.”

She raised her head, and her gaze snagged on his mouth. A firm, masculine mouth, full of secrets and promises, smiled down at her.

Which was not what she wanted that mouth to be doing, at all. But she’d never before asked to be kissed.

She took in a shuddering breath and then another, feeling her breasts rub against the solid barrier of his chest.

Oh God.