No Good Duke Goes Unpunished

Chapter 18

She’d never felt so valued as she did at his bedside, draped in silk, still warm from his touch and the promise of what was to come. His fingers trailed over her cheek and jaw, down the column of her throat, and over her racing pulse.

He traced the line of her collarbone and then the curve of her breast, lingering when she drew in a heavy, ragged breath. His black eyes met hers. “Do you wish me to stop?”

“No,” she said instantly. Wishing he would start again. Wishing he would keep going. Forever.

“I won’t hurt you,” he said.

She stilled at the words, at the way the promise came from deep inside him. She wondered how many times he’d had to make that same promise to other women. To calm them as they stood an arm’s length—closer—to the Killer Duke.

“I know,” she said, capturing his bad hand in one of hers, pressing his fingers against her skin, holding his touch to her. She reached her other hand up, threading her fingers through his hair, pulling his lips down to her. “You’ll never hurt me,” she whispered against his lips.

He groaned his desire, snaking his free arm around her waist and pulling her tight to him. He whispered her name and took her mouth in a powerful kiss, more devastating than any they’d shared before. Where the previous ones had been rivers of temptation, tickling at the seams of her, this was a wide sea filled with wicked promise. It was wanton.

It was wonderful.

His hand was everywhere—lush, stroking sin—and hers followed suit, sliding up the soft wool of his coat and into his hair, holding him close, matching his kiss with her own, not stopping until he groaned his pleasure and pulled away from her, leaving her gasping for air and desperate for more of him.

“No,” he whispered, turning her away from him, to face the massive bed, at once ominous and irresistible. His hands came to the fastenings of the gown, working the buttons and ties.

“Faster,” she sighed as he fumbled at the fabric. “Hurry.”

The buttons were stubborn beneath his touch. Or perhaps it was his choice to move with such slowness. “I will not allow you to tempt me to speed,” he whispered in her ear as he worked, the breath of the words sending shivers of anticipation through her. “I want the whole night.” He pressed a kiss to the curve of her shoulder, his tongue coming out to stroke along the skin there as the fabric of her bodice came loose and she caught it to her chest.

He lifted one of her hands, kissing her palm, then worrying the pad of her index finger with his teeth. Her dress fell to the floor, his gaze falling to her fine-spun chemise and beautifully boned corset, desire flaring hot and wonderful. “I want longer.”

She sighed at the words. Of course, she knew they couldn’t have longer. But they could have tonight, and he was enough to make her forget everything else.

Tomorrow, they would return to their lives—he, to the one he’d too long missed, and she to the one she’d too long deserved.

He guided her hands to the bedpost, leaving her there as he worked at the ties of her corset, his fingers pulling at silken strings, loosening the piece until it dropped to her feet, and his strong touch sent her silk chemise after it.

She was naked in the clocked stockings he’d bought her, the ones she’d imagined him removing when she’d donned them—even as she’d desperately tried to ignore the thought.

And his hands, those strong, wonderful hands that she’d come to love for their gentleness as much as their force, slid over her bare skin as his lips settled on the curve of her shoulder.

Not hands. Hand.

Always one hand. Always the good hand.

She turned to him. “Wait.”

He waited. Because she told him to. And she loved him all the more for it. She lifted his wounded hand to her lips, pressing a kiss to his knuckles, letting her tongue slide out to dip into the valleys between them. He watched, his eyes dark with passion, but something was missing. Something she might not have seen if she had not been looking.

He couldn’t feel her.

She turned the hand over, pressing a kiss to his palm. Whispering there, “What have we done to you?”

He snatched his hand away, but she would not let him escape.

Instead, she lifted his other hand and repeated her ministrations until his breath caught in his throat and he shifted with desire and want and a dozen kinds of lust.

Shock rocketed through her. His hand. They’d stolen it from him.

“Temple,” she said softly, reaching for it. Loving him more for it.

“No,” he resisted, turning her once more, returning her hands to the bedpost. Kissing the spot behind her ear, the place where neck met jaw. Where shoulder met neck. Her spine.

Distracting her with pleasure and wickedness. “You are trembling.”

And she was, too wrecked by his touch, by his nearness, to stop. To return the conversation to his hand. “I can’t—” she started. “It is too much.”

He growled, low and dark and promising at her ear. “It is not nearly enough.”

He kissed his way down her spine, the tip of his tongue licking and swirling as he marked his path. As he marked her, as cleanly and clearly as if he’d done it with a needle and ink.

And when he reached the place where back met bottom, he worried the soft, untouched skin there until she was gasping her pleasure. Only then, once she’d given herself over to his touch, to his kiss, did he turn her to face him.

She should not have been surprised to find him there, on his knees staring up at her once more, but she was, a thread of panic and desperation coursing through her. A desperate desire to repeat the events of the previous morning in the ring. A desperate desire never to repeat them again.

“Temple,” she whispered, reaching for him, letting him catch her hand in his, letting him press it to his cheek.

“William,” he corrected her.

Her gaze flew to his. “But you—”

“You’re the only one who thinks of me as such. The only one who has ever seen me.”

The truth ached. Reminding her of all she’d done. Of all this night could be. Of all it couldn’t be. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered, tears in her eyes. “I never—”

He came to his feet with stunning grace, pulling her to him. “No. You mustn’t regret it. Your seeing me has changed everything. It’s changed my life. It’s changed me.” He kissed her, long and thorough, and added, “Christ, Mara, of course it’s you. It’s always been you. It always will be.”

The words shattered her. “I cannot stand.”

“Then don’t. I have you.”

She fell into his strength, and he laid her back on the bed, spreading her legs wide as he sank between them, draping them over his shoulders, leaving long, lush kisses along the soft skin of her inner thighs, coming closer and closer to delivering on their promise as she writhed on the silk bedcovers and wondered how it was that she had come to be here. Come to deserve him.

She hadn’t.

She hadn’t, and this would be her greatest sin—taking this night. Stealing it from someone who might deserve it. Who might be more for him. Who might be better for him.

Taking it, with no regret.

Taking it for the memory.

For her lifetime.

For his.

And then his mouth was on the heat of her, and her fingers were in his hair, and he was giving her everything she desired, and she couldn’t stop herself from moving against him, from lifting to meet him, from begging him for—

He stopped, lifting his head. “What is it, love?”

The word was enough to send rivers of pleasure through her, if not for the slow slide of his fingers, the way they dipped and teased, the way they stroked, but not deep enough to give her everything she wanted. She raised her hips to him.

“My, that’s a pretty sight,” he said, and she couldn’t stop herself from watching him, his eyes on her, his tongue sliding over his beautiful bottom lip, as though he couldn’t wait to taste her again. “All pink and perfect.” His gaze found hers. “Tell me, when I did this in the ring . . . did you see it? How hot you get? How pink? How wet?”

She closed her eyes at the wicked words. Nodded.

“And you liked it.”

She nodded.

“One day, when I have more patience, we’ll try it again, with a smaller mirror. Closer. More private. I’ll let you tell me what to do. I’ll let you watch yourself come.”

The words sent a thrill through her, even as she resisted the idea of giving herself over to something so unexpected. So unclear. So strange and perfect.

He saw it—the hesitation—and raised one brow in a wicked challenge before he blew a long stream of cool air over her hot, desperate center. “You don’t think you’d like that?”

She exhaled on a shaking sigh. “I—”

“You are so perfect—” He flicked his tongue over the heat of her, sending a shock of sensation through her, her body somehow not her own when he was involved. “So wet.” She gasped as he licked and sucked, working her with unbearable pleasure, sending her spiraling tighter and tighter and higher and higher until his fingers joined his tongue in symphony, exploring and moving in glorious circles, teasing and touching. “I want you like this, open to me, aching for me, forever.”

To punctuate that word forever, and all its temptation, he slid one finger deep, and she could not keep her moan from escaping.

“Now that,” he said, his voice as dark as his gaze, “might be the most beautiful sound I’ve ever heard.” That wicked digit retreated, and she bit her lip, face flamed with embarrassment even as she wanted to clasp him to her and demand he repeat the experience. She did not have to. “Let’s see if we can make it happen again.”

A second finger joined the first on a long, irresistible slide.

Dear God, he was ruining her.

He played her like a virtuoso, as though she were an instrument he had studied for a lifetime. She moaned again, louder and longer, and he rewarded the sound with his mouth, working her in that dark, secret place that was suddenly the center of her. She would never think of pleasure in the same way again.

It was forever entwined with him.

She came apart in his arms once more, lost to his kiss and his touch and the scent and sound of him. Lost to the knowledge that this man was everything she’d ever desired and dreamed and imagined. Lost to pleasure. Lost to him.

And somehow found.

She returned to earth in his arms, all strong, corded sinew, holding her to his chest, where her head rested on his good shoulder and she was easily lost in the heat and scent of him. His fingers stroked through her hair, spreading it long across his massive bed, and he pressed a kiss to her temple, whispering against her skin, worshipping it, “You are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.”

She shivered at the words and curled into his warm body, her hand spreading across the white of his shirt. She spoke to the wide expanse of linen there. “You scare me.”

His touch stilled. “How?”

Her fingers worried at his shirt. “I never thought I would be so drawn to you. So connected. I never thought you would own me so well. That you would have such”—she hesitated over the word—“control over me.”

He captured her hand in his, sliding out from beneath her to face her. To have a better look at her.

She sat up, trying to explain. “Even now . . . with you inches away . . . I can’t help but mourn the loss of you.”

He reached for her at the confession, his hand stopping short of touching her, as though he did not know how to proceed. “Mara,” he said softly, as though he might scare her away. “I don’t want you to ever think that I take pleasure from—”

Her fingers moved to his lips, stopping the flow of words. “No,” she said, tears coming to her eyes. “You don’t understand. I ache for you when you’re not with me.” His eyes went black with desire, and her breath caught at the vision of him. At his promise. “I am in your thrall,” she said. “Of your touch and your kiss and your beautiful eyes. Quite desperately.”

And it will make everything more difficult.

She did not say the last. Instead she said, “You control me.”

He stared at her for a long moment, and she wished he would touch her. Instead, he left the bed, and she thought she might have ruined everything. But he was back within minutes, his shirt and boots gone, clad only in black wool trousers and the black bands of ink at his arms and the stark white of the bandage on his shoulder.

She drank him in, every inch bathed in golden candlelight, and she wondered at him. How had this glorious god of a man, built like a Greek statue or a Michelangelo, come from one of the finest aristocratic lines in all of England? There was nothing mincing or foppish about him. He was the most masculine thing she’d ever seen, all power and grace and strength.

Her gaze rested on his good hand, clutching the cravat he’d tossed away earlier, the long stretch of cloth at once promise and threat.

“You worry about control,” he said.

Her heart began to pound. “Yes.”

He extended the cravat toward her. After a long moment, she took it, and he lay down on the bed, extending his arms up until his hands met the slats of the headboard.

Her mouth went dry at the look of him, spread out before her, broad and beautiful. And he was beautiful. He was perfect in every way.

And then he said, “Take it. Be in control,” and desire coursed through her, hot and heavy and far too powerful to resist.

She ran the cravat through her fingers, eyes wide, and said, “Are you certain?”

He nodded once, his grip tightening on the headboard. “Trust me, Mara.”

She inched up the bed, naked but for those silken stockings, watching his gaze on her, loving it. Kneeling beside him, she said, “You wish me to tie you to it?”

He smiled. “I wish you to do whatever you like to me.”

He was turning himself over to her. To her pleasure. And all she could think was that her pleasure was somehow inexorably tied to his. The thought gave her courage, strength to do the unthinkable, to straddle his torso, the heat of her pressed against his naked skin. He groaned and closed his eyes, lifting his hips from the bed, pressing up against her, his body making promises she hoped desperately that it would keep. His eyes flashed. “But if you plan to blindfold me, love, do it now. Before you torture me with this view any longer.”

Blindfold him. Good Lord. Did people do such things?

She wanted to. Desperately.

She couldn’t help the smile that spread at the words, and she loved the way he laughed when it appeared. “You minx. You enjoy it.”

“You want me.”

“Want does not begin to describe the way I feel about you,” his low voice promised. “Want is nothing compared with the level of desire I have. With the desperation I feel. With the way I long for you.”

She leaned over, unable to resist pressing her lips to his, taking his mouth in a deep, thorough kiss that she’d learned from him—in long, lush strokes that left them both breathless.

When she lifted her head, it was to find her courage. She slid the cravat over his eyes, and when he lifted his head from the pillows, she reached behind him and tied it tightly, loving the way his body tensed beneath her, loving the sound of his exhale, low and harsh and perfect.

She leaned forward, pressing her breasts to his chest, being careful of his wound as she whispered in his ear, “You are mine.”

He growled at the words. “Always.”

Not always, though.

She couldn’t have him always. It wasn’t the life he deserved—married to a scandal, to a woman no one would ever accept, to a woman London would never forget. As long as she was with him, he would be the Killer Duke.

And he deserved to be so much more.

But tonight, she could pretend.

She pressed long kisses to his warm skin, across one shoulder and up his good arm, where his tattooed muscles strained against his grip. She couldn’t resist running her tongue along the edge of that inked spot, worrying the dips and curves until he growled his pleasure and she moved on, lower, along the outside of his chest and then across it, paying special attention to the scars dotting his chest and stomach. Kissing them. Tracing their raised surfaces with her tongue.

He hissed at the sensation, and she lifted her head. “Do they hurt?”

“No. It’s just—” She waited for him to finish. “No one has ever wanted to touch them before. Not like this.”

She wanted to touch them. She wanted to touch every inch of him, and the realization made her bold. She lifted herself up and slid down his body, working at the fall of his trousers, sliding buttons from their moorings—instinct and desire overtaking experience. He lifted his hips from the bed, allowing her to slide the trousers down, revealing him, long and hard and perfect.

And hers.

She sat back on her heels, taking him in, spread out upon his bed, his good hand locked at the headboard, knuckles white, straining to stay there. Eager to give himself up to her.

Turning himself over to her.

Giving up his control. For her.

She reached for him then, hand trembling, uncertain. She stilled, an inch from him. Closer.

He sensed it. “Mara,” he said, teeth clenched, anguish and desire making the words thick and lovely.

She wanted to give him everything he wanted. But—“I don’t know what to do,” she confessed, the words somehow easier because he was blindfolded. “I’ve never—I want to do it correctly.”

His breath came in a short, panting laugh. “You can’t do it wrong, darling. I promise. I want you too much.”

She leaned forward, taking her confession with him. “I’ve only ever dreamed it,” she told him. “In the dark of night. I’ve wondered what this would be like.”

He shook his head. “Don’t tell me. I don’t want to think of you dreaming of another.”

Shock coursed through her. “It’s never been another,” she said. “It’s always been you.”

And it was her turn to touch, her hand settling on the length of him, feeling him leap and harden even more—if it were possible. He groaned his pleasure, long and loud, and she reveled in the pure, masculine sound. “You’re so hard.”

“I am. For you.”

“And soft, too,” she said. “Like velvet over steel.”

One hand released from the headboard, coming toward her for a split second before he seemed to recall his promise. Before he forced it back to its position. “Not as soft as you.”

“You seem to be having trouble,” she said, her hands running up and down the hot length of him, loving the way his hips moved with her.

He tilted his head. “Are you teasing me?”

She grinned. “Perhaps.”

He scowled. “Remember, Miss Lowe, turnabout is fair play.”

A thrill shot through her. “What a pretty promise.”

The growl again. He couldn’t help himself, the glorious man. “Harder,” he said.

“I thought I was in control,” she said.

“Love, if you don’t think you are in control, you are mad.”

She smiled again, increasing the pressure of her touch. “How could I know I am in charge?”

“Because if I were in charge, we would not be playing silly games.”

She laughed at that, and he said, “I love the sound of your laughter.” She stopped. “It’s so rare. And I want to hear it every day.”

It was the most beautiful thing anyone had ever said to her.

She rewarded him with a long stroke, down and then up his shaft, until his breath was coming hard and fast. “Tell me . . .”

“Anything,” he promised.

“Tell me how you like it.”

He moaned at the words, long and low. “I like it however you wish to give it.”

She leaned forward, kissing him on the lips, surprising him briefly before he reciprocated, the kiss wild and wanton and wonderful. She pulled away and whispered, “Would you like it if I used my mouth?”

He swore, harsh and dangerous, and she took the foul word as a yes, sliding back down the length of his body and considering the length of him . . . wondering what might feel best.

She hesitated too long, evidently, because he called out her name, the word an agonized plea. She pressed a kiss to the tip of him, loving the way he leapt in her hands, against her lips. “Tell me,” she whispered to the most private part of him.

He did as he was told. “Suck it.”

The instructions were scandalous, utterly improper.

And all she wanted.

She did as she was told, following his harsh, aching direction, experimenting and learning with tongue and lips and pressure until he prayed and swore and moaned her name, his head rocking back and forth, his hands desperately clinging to the bedposts as she gave him everything for which he asked.

As she worshipped him.

As she loved him.

Until she realized that it wasn’t enough. That she wanted everything. And she stopped.

“No . . .” The words panted from him as she pressed a final kiss to the throbbing, crimson tip of him. “Why?”

She lifted herself over him then, spreading her legs wide over his hips. Holding him straight until the tip of him touched the curls that protected the most intimate part of her.

The part she would give him.

The part she would never give another.

He shook beneath her. Literally quaked. “Is that— Oh, God. Mara.” She smiled, spreading herself wide, letting the tip of him slide through her secret folds. “Love, you’re so wet.” He swore, the words blasphemous and beautiful. “So hot. So beautiful.”

She smiled, working herself over the head of him. “You can’t see me, how would you know that?”

“I always see you,” he said. “You’re burned into me. I could be blind for the rest of my life, and I would still see you.”

The words took her as much as his body did, as she slid down the hard length of him, and he fit inside her so perfectly that they both sighed, half prayer, half blasphemy. He stilled at the sound of her pleasure. “It doesn’t hurt?”

She shook her head. “No.” It was glorious. “Does it hurt you?”

He grinned. “Hell, no.”

“I shall move, then, if that’s all right with you.”

He laughed. “You are in control, love.”

She was in control, lifting and lowering herself on him, testing the pressure and speed, pausing every now and then to revel in a particular angle. A specific pleasure.

He let her guide the moment, whispering his encouragement, lifting his hips to meet her when she found a particular cadence or rhythm that he enjoyed. She memorized those, coming back to them over and over, loving the way they seemed to destroy him with desire and sensation.

It was glorious.

But there was something missing.

Him.

His touch. His gaze. The piece of him that she desperately wanted. She didn’t want to control him. She did not wish to take this moment for her own.

She wanted to share it.

So she did, leaning up to remove his blindfold, pulling it over his head and flinging it across the room, not caring where it fell. His gaze was hot and heavy on her, and she nearly swooned when he instantly captured the tip of one of her breasts in his mouth, worrying it. Loving it.

And still, he kept his hands locked on the headboard. Until she released him with simple, honest words. “I am yours.”

Free, his hands fell to her hips, his strong, gentle grip guiding her hips in perfect rhythm, changing the angle, giving her the chance to find the movement that brought her immense pleasure, and she was suddenly rocking hard and fast against him, crying out as his fingers found the heat of her, pressing and rolling in that secret place until she could not bear it any longer.

His gaze was on hers, his lids heavy with desire, and she placed her hands on the bed by his head and whispered, “Don’t stop.”

Don’t stop looking at me.

Don’t stop moving in me.

Don’t stop loving me.

He heard it all. “Never,” he promised.

She gave herself up to ecstasy. And to him.

And only once she had taken her pleasure did he take hers, rocking once, twice, three times against her, and crying out her name, releasing high inside her, holding her to him—still joined together—until their heartbeats calmed as one.

After long moments, she stirred, the chill from the room making her shiver in his arms, and he pulled one edge of the massive coverlet over her, refusing to let her out of his arms.

Instead, he buried his nose in her neck and said, “I can’t get enough of you. Of that scent. You make me want to buy every lemon in London so no one can get a whiff of you. But it’s not just lemons. It’s something else. It’s you.”

The words warmed her. “You’ve noticed my scent?”

He smiled at the words he’d used with her a lifetime ago. Repeated her reply. “It’s impossible to miss.”

They lay there in silence, his good hand stroking over her skin, up and down her spine like a benediction. She wondered what he was thinking, and was about to ask when he broke the silence with “What if I cannot fight again?”

His arm. She turned to kiss the warm expanse of his chest. “You will.”

He ignored her platitudes. “What if I never regain the feeling? Who am I then? Who will I be? What am I if not unbeatable? If not a fighter? If not the Killer Duke? What is my value then?”

Her heart ached at the questions. He would be everything she’d ever wanted. He would be all she’d ever dreamed.

She lifted her head. “You don’t see it, do you?”

“What?”

“You are so much more.”

He kissed the words from her lips, and she was desperate for him to believe her, so she put all her love, all her faith, into the caress. And when he ended it, she whispered. “Temple, you are everything.”

“William,” he corrected her. “Call me William.”

“William,” she whispered the name against his chest. “William.”

William Harrow, the Duke of Lamont.

The man she’d destroyed. The one she could restore. She could give him back the life she had taken. She could return him to his former glory—to the world he’d loved, the women and the balls and the aristocracy. The world he could not have if he did a stupid, noble thing and married her.

No. This was the greatest gift she could give him, even if it would take the greatest sacrifice she had ever made.

The one where she gave up everything she wanted.

The only thing she wanted.

Him.

She wasn’t his dream. She wasn’t his goal. She couldn’t be the wife, the mother, the legacy. “We cannot marry,” she said, softly.

He kissed the top of her head. “Sleep with me tonight, and let me convince you tomorrow why it is the best of all my ideas.”

She shouldn’t. She should leave him now, while she had the strength. “I can’t—”

He interrupted her with a long, lush kiss, one filled with something more than passion. With something she did not wish to identify, for if she identified it, she might never do what needed to be done.

“Stay.”

Her heart broke at the word, dark and graveled on his lips. At the desire in it. At the promise in it. At the knowledge that if she did, he would do everything in his power to keep her. To protect her.

At the knowledge that if she did, he would never have the life he deserved. One free of scandal and ruin. One free of the memories of his past and his destruction.

He was too perfect. Too right. And she was all wrong.

She would only ruin him again. Only destroy everything he ever wanted. She had to leave him. She had to leave before she was too tempted to stay.

And so she told one final lie. The most important one she’d ever tell.

“I will.”

He slept then, and once his breathing was deep and even, she told the truth.

“I love you.”