Page 49 of The Dueling Duchess

“Shut up,” she said, her cheeks flushing at whatever she saw on his face.

He laughed.

Her eyes dropped to his chin, and she winced.

Guy reached up and felt where she’d bitten him. His slumbering prick stirred at the memory.

Her eyelids lowered and he saw the answering hunger in her gaze. Lord. How in the world had he got so damned lucky? A woman who looked like she did, and she didn’t require delicate handling when it came to bed sport.

“Remember that it ends when we get home—whether that’s next week or at the end of the tour, months from now. It ends.”

“It ends when we get back home,” he repeated.

“Good.”

Guy carefully turned his body on the narrow bed and propped himself up on his elbow. She held his gaze with the steady, challenging look that was already becoming a necessity to him. Her skirt was rucked up to her knees and he used his free hand to pull it higher, exposing the dark curls of her sex.

She let her legs fall open as wide as the narrow bed allowed.

“Christ, Cecile. You are trying to kill me.”

“Maybe.”

He smirked, tickled by her wicked, sensual stare. “I can’t think of a better way to die,” he said, loving the startled snort of surprise that slipped from between her shocked lips and the way her body shook with laughter under his hand.

“I think I might take you with me,” he muttered, and then pushed a finger between her swollen lips.

She stopped laughing and hissed when he stroked from her engorged clitoris to the entrance to her body.

“Mmm,” he hummed, gently probing her while massaging her little bud with his thumb. “Too sore to take me again?”

She shook her head.

The gush of slickness he encountered when he shoved his two middle fingers into her tight sheath reminded him that he’d just spent inside her.

Guy paused. “What about—”

The sleepy, sensual expression that had begun to settle on her beautiful face fled and she stiffened like a board. “You don’t need to worry about that—I’ll make sure there are no reminders.” Her sharp tone told him better than any words that there was no more to say on the topic.

Guy resumed his stroking, only relaxing when the tension drained from her limbs.

He should have felt relief that they’d had such an easy meeting of the minds. There’d be neither tears nor recriminations—nor any fear of unwanted children—when things ended between them.

Instead, Guy felt the oddest heaviness in his chest.

It was almost like regret.

Part III

The Present

Chapter 10

London

1816

One year later