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He stepped toward her in a trance and then reality intruded as the two men on the floor interrupted his vision. Reaching into his coat pocket, he removed the set of handcuffs he always carried and secured the much bigger Larry to a pipe along the floor. Then he found a leather lead from a nearby bridle hanging on a hook and used that to tie the unconscious Wentworth to a post.
There. Neither of them was going anywhere anytime soon.
Slowly, he turned to face Bronwyn, who had not moved a single inch, her eyes glued to him. “Did you have those handcuffs on your person all along?” He nodded, and her throat worked over an indelicate swallow, pupils dilating. “Do you have another set at home?” Valentine nodded again. “Can you restrain me sometime?”
Every single drop of blood in his body descended south.
If his erection didn’t kill him, she certainly would. “Come with me.”
Twenty-four
The tiny tack room he’d led her to could barely qualify as a room, but it would do. Apparently the duke thought so as well because within seconds of the door closing behind them, Bronwyn was nearly bent over in half, face mashed up against a worn sidesaddle hanging over a bench.
The position was lewd and everything she needed as her throbbing pulse points rubbed on the rounded edges of the saddle. The warm scent of leather filled her nose, but she could barely appreciate it, her attention caught by the man lifting handfuls of her skirts. He kicked her knees wide, yanked down her drawers, and she moaned when air kissed her bare behind.
Within seconds, he thrusted into her, hot and thick, a groan pulled from the depths of him when he seated himself to the hilt. “I love being inside you.”
“Yes.” It was the only word she was capable of. No, wait…there was another. She pushed back against him with impatience. “More.”
A breathless chuckle left him as he moved, filling her with hard, glorious strokes she felt so deeply that she wasn’t sure where he began and she ended. Pleasure coiled along her nerves, spiking and gathering, as each powerful thrust rubbed her sensitive nipples against the saddle. Bronwyn’s eyes nearly rolled back into her head when he tilted her hips even more, one hand flat at the base of her spine and the other reaching up to wind in the mass of her hair. She groaned.
“Is this what you want?” he demanded, never once slowing his desperate pace.
“Yes.” It was practically a sob.
“You want me to fill you?”
She whimpered. “God, yes.”
“Are you thinking of Tremblay? Or Herbert?” The strange question pierced through her lust-fogged senses, cold washing over her even as the sudden loss of him made her gasp. He lifted her from the saddle in those strong arms as though she weighed nothing and turned her to face him, eyes scouring hers. “Are you?”
What kind of a question is that, she wanted to retort, but somewhere deep, she recognized the shine of despair in those golden eyes as if it had torn him apart to ask. To expose himself thus…to be so vulnerable. This proud, hard man who had never bent before anyone.
“No,” she answered honestly. “I only think of you.”
His reply was to ease between her spread legs and push back into her, but the stark gratitude in his eyes was worth the bit of honesty. They both groaned at the fit from the new angle, and her eyes fluttered shut when he hit a particular spot inside of her that made her vision go white. “Open your eyes, Bronwyn. Look at me.”
She did. His eyes blazed gold as they held hers. He was so handsome, it made her heart hurt. She loved his face. All harsh lines and slanted hollows, heavy slashes of brows, bold nose, prominent cheekbones, and that lush mouth that was so spare with sweetness unless she was tasting it. She loved all of him, and he could never know how weak she was when it came to him. If he asked her to marry him now, she wouldn’t prevaricate. Bronwyn felt him where they were joined, and she felt him moving in her heart and under her skin.
His stare drilled into hers, taking something from her soul that she wasn’t sure she was willing to share. Not yet.
Something inside of her gathered and built, even as his control started to become ragged. He kissed her, his mouth claiming hers as if there wasn’t a part of her he meant to leave unconquered. They might still be fully clothed, but every single important part of them was bare. “Stay with me, Bronwyn. Choose me. Please.”
The whisper lanced through her, making tears prick her eyes. “I can’t… You know—”
“I love you.”
Bronwyn’s world exploded in a shower of fireworks so bright that her body felt like it would bow in half from the force of it. She squeezed her eyes shut, muffling her cries with her own hand. Valentine rode her through it, strokes changing to something slow and delicious as the pleasure rolled and ebbed through her. Dear God, had she imagined what he’d said? Had he said it in a mindless haze?
His pace slowed and he withdrew from her, while supporting her boneless body against his. Confused, she glanced down at his obviously unsatisfied state and blushed. “You didn’t… You haven’t…”
“No.” Valentine ran a hand through the damp tendrils of hair curling onto her cheeks, the touch so tender, sounlikehim that she blinked. “I don’t want you to think my confession was in haste or in the throes of passion,” he said softly. “I meant it. Iloveyou, Bronwyn. When I realized you’d been taken and that I might lose you tonight, I’ve never felt a fear so deep. And worse, I never told you how I really felt.”
“Oh.”
Everything inside of her started to tremble. Her lover, the very handsome, very virile Duke of Thornbury, had just declared his love in the most incongruous place in London. While in the middle of sexual congress. In the tack room of a public mews. With two vigilantes tied up in the next chamber.
Bronwyn could not help it. She burst into soft laughter and ran her nose down his jaw, inhaling him. “Hardly the place for a romantic declaration, Your Grace,” she whispered with a smile.
