The Duke in Question, page 14
“I know what they are.”
She smiled. “Then you take my meaning.”
The breath left her in a gasp when he took her by the arms and ushered them both around the sternpost and then into some kind of crew alcove where a ladder led down to the engines. His much bigger frame crowded hers in the narrow space, but she did not cower or back away. No, the little minx reached for his lapels and erased any space between them. Her face tilted upward. “Are you going to kiss me, Your Grace?”
No. He had absolutely no intention of doing so.
His hands trembled on her elbows and slid over her arms to her shoulders and up in a slow, measured glide until he cupped her slender nape. His thumbs grazed over the sides of her delicate jaw. Her lips parted in invitation, and he had to force himself not to sample them for the sake of it. No, he wasn’t interested in those lips.
“Lift your skirts, Bronwyn.”
Twelve
Bronwyn’s throat dried at the explicit command.
Every time she thought she held the reins and was in control of the seduction, he demonstrated so easily that she wasn’t. Because, dear heavens, he was going to debauch her out here in public view where anyone could come upon them, and she couldn’t stop from shivering with equal parts of excitement and alarm. This wasn’t like their coupling in an abandoned shelter in the woods, even though this part of the ship seemed to be mostly abandoned. Any and all crew would be readying for the dinner service. At least, she hoped.
The duke stared at her with hooded, expectant eyes and removed his gloves. The sight of those long bare fingers did something to her… Would he use them on her? Graze their calloused edges over her goose-pimpled skin? Touch her beneath the skirts he’d commanded her to lift? Her breath hitched with desire. With tentative hands, she tugged at the satin of her gown, grabbing handfuls of the thicker petticoats beneath until her stockings came into view, then her garters, and the embroidered edges of her drawers.
“All the way up,” he said and she complied. “Loosen the tapes of your drawers,” he said, voice so guttural her own core clenched with need.
In silence, she did as bid, feeling the material sag from her waist to her knees, cool ocean air kissing her heated skin beneath her thin chemise. He knelt and dragged her drawers down further, lifting each leg out of them. Watching her, he held the fine-spun silk undergarments up, fingers easing over the slit in the middle. Bronwyn shuddered in mortification when his eyes dilated. “So damp already.”
It was a fact—she could feel the slickness between her thighs.
Her mortification grew when he lifted them to his nose and inhaled deeply before folding the voluminous silk and tucking it into his coat pocket. Hissing a raw sound of arousal, the duke placed his hands at her waist and lifted her to the low metal ledge that snaked the circumference of the space, before dropping to his knees.
“I am going to kiss you.” Warm bare palms skated up her thighs just as she’d hoped. She trembled when he widened her knees and caressed her dewy skin with the backs of his knuckles. “Here.”
Oh God.
She rolled her bottom lip between her teeth and bit down hard when he settled those broad shoulders between her splayed legs, baring her to him. Bronwyn wasn’t a prude, but she didn’t dare watch, the feeling of him staring at her too much to handle. Her eyes fluttered shut when she felt his breath on her. He was having none of it though. “Look at me.”
The sight of him perched in front of her was decadent, but the hungry expression on his face even more so. Fabric pooled over her hips, her thighs spread indecently wide, his face so close to her most intimate parts that she quivered.
“You’re so pretty and glistening,” he whispered, and she didn’t even have the wherewithal to be embarrassed at that. Golden eyes burned into hers, his nostrils flaring with lust as he breathed her in and licked his lips in anticipation. She’d never seen a man look so…ravenous. So full of desire and wicked intent.
Keeping his eyes locked on hers, he leaned in for a long, slow lick with the flat of his tongue. Bronwyn couldn’t help it; her eyes rolled back in her head, her hips nearly coming off the ledge at that first scintillating touch. Gracious, it was filthy and incredible what he was doing to her. He licked her again, swirling at the top of her sex in a move that had her whimpering.
“Perfection,” he pronounced. The growl of approval that burst from his chest was primal when he set himself to her, as if that first taste had been his utter ruin. His tongue licked and laved, swirled and sucked while pleasure built along her nerve endings. It was near intolerable, the feelings surging inside of her, her veins going molten as he stoked the fires of her arousal with every flick of his tongue and scrape of his teeth on her wet, throbbing flesh.
“Valentine,” she begged.
“Yes?” he said, a deeply feral gaze catching hers, though he did not stop in his ministrations.
“I need…” Her voice trailed off when his lips closed around the peak of her sex, the soft suction making her writhe. She couldn’t form a single articulate thought.
“I know what you need,” he promised.
She almost toppled off the ledge when his finger probed her entrance while his tongue continued its sensual assault on her body. He slid inside, thrusting once and then twice, and suddenly, the combined sensations were too much. With a gasping moan, Bronwyn felt her entire body seize, her core clenching around him as pleasure crested in waves upon crashing waves. Her head slumped back onto the porthole, stars in the sky merging with the stars going white in her vision as she rode out the storm he’d ruthlessly wrought upon her.
***
Damnation, the taste of her was to die for—all silken, tart sweetness, much like the apples she smelled like. Their coupling in the woods had been fierce and frantic, and there’d barely been any time to appreciate her form. But now, he reveled in the beauty of her feminine shape, the fragrant scent that lit his body on fire, and the sublime banquet that would send him quite happily to his maker with that as his last meal on his tongue. He’d seen her beneath the water in her bath, but those glimpses had only hinted at the perfection of her.
Valentine’s cock was so distended, it hurt to move, but he stood anyway, wincing as his sensitive shaft grazed against the constraining fabric. He was certain he’d soiled the crotch of his trousers with the amount of fluid he’d leaked while gorging himself on her.
Languid, passion-drenched dark-blue eyes met his, even as reality intruded between them, the haze of lust clearing somewhat. It didn’t diminish his arousal, but his ardor retreated. Valentine had no reasoning or excuses for what he’d just done—the untenable position he’d placed them both in, and this time, with no acceptable justification. They had both known exactly what they were doing.
He exhaled. He’d come out here to clear the air, to remove her from her vexing sycophants, and instead he’d made yet another unspeakable mistake. Ever his fate, it seemed, whenever he was around her. He opened his mouth at the same time she spoke, probably to make the same apologies he was about to.
“I need you inside me.”
Valentine blinked. Had he heard that right? “I beg your pardon?”
“You gave the orders before,” she said huskily. She lifted one heel and swung it around his legs. The other wrapped around the back of his thigh, propelling him forward so that his swollen groin pressed right up against her center. When she hooked her calves over his hips, they both groaned. “And I obeyed you without question. Now it’s your turn. Unfasten your trousers and fill me.”
Heaven help him, her words.
“Bronwyn, we—”
“Damn it, Thornbury, if you’re about to tell me that we can’t do this, so help me, I will pitch you over the side of this ship and let the sharks have their way with you.” She tightened her muscles, dragging her core over him again. “And I guarantee you that it won’t be as pleasurable as if you let me have my way.”
Nimble fingers reached for the fastenings, and with a few quick snaps, he sprang free. Blue eyes widened at the sight of him, lips parting on a gasp of air. It would be her first look at him as well. Glancing down, he winced at the sight of his engorged cock, fluid glistening over the crown, veins lining a shaft that was angry and pulsing and excruciatingly hard.
He let out a grunt when her palm slid over him, thumb spreading the moisture over his skin. “Sorry, I’ve changed my mind. The sharks can’t have this. It’s mine.”
“Is that so?”
“It is.”
A dark laugh left him, one that was quickly throttled to a groan as she pumped her hand down and then back up. At this rate, he wasn’t going to last. She drew him back to her, lining the tip of him up with her body, and when her calves pulled tight against his buttocks, he had no choice but to slide into her warm, willing heat.
“Oh, fuck me,” he groaned as the exquisite pressure enveloped him.
She felt like goddamned paradise.
“Are you well,” he whispered when he was fully seated, her walls clenching around him in erotic, needy pulses. He definitely wasn’t going to last.
“Harder,” she said. “Like in the woods, but keep your eyes on me. I want you to do this as if it isn’t a mistake. Like you know exactly who I am and whose body is bringing you to pleasure.”
He froze, his confused gaze meeting hers, trying to read her expression and failing. His cock didn’t soften, but cold logic was present in his mind, ever lurking. She was right. This was different. This would change everything, and yet, he couldn’t stop. He didn’t want to leave the haven of her body, logic and sensibleness be damned.
“Who am I, Valentine?” she asked softly, rocking her hips up and making him lodge deeper into her.
She was a liar. A spy. A cheat. The bloody Kestrel.
She was a woman. A siren. A warrior.
His lover.
“Bronwyn.” Valentine pulled back from the clench of her body and thrust back in, the slick glide making them both gasp. “Bronwyn,” he said again before his mouth took hers in a drugging kiss, their bodies grappling below in a race to completion. One hand wound into her hair, cupping the back of her head and tugging just enough for her to gasp into his mouth at his handhold. His other hand went to her hip, securing her to him down there.
He felt as though he could never let her go.
Would never let her go.
Her pelvis ground up against him as if she couldn’t control herself, whimpers leaving her each time he stroked deep. Hell if it didn’t feel as though she were made for him. They both froze as faint voices filtered toward them, but not close enough to convince either of them to stop. They were out of the way as it was, and the risk of being seen in this little nook was low.
“Kiss my breasts,” she panted.
He lifted them from the confines of her bodice, his mouth closing over one of her dusky, taut nipples as a fresh surge of lust poured through him. She whimpered, arching toward his mouth and crying out when he bit down gently. He soothed the abused flesh with his tongue, and then turned his attention to its twin until she was writhing in his arms.
“I’m close.”
So was he.
Valentine slid his hand down between their straining bodies to where they were joined and angled his thumb to circle her firm peak. His hips pistoned faster, the sound of their frantic coupling loud in the narrow space as she cried out and dug her heels in harder. “Yes, yes!”
Heat lit the base of his spine while she convulsed around him, her mouth parting on a soundless scream as she shattered. It didn’t take long for him to follow into bliss, her release spurring his into completion. With a labored groan, he pulled from her body and yanked her drawers from his pocket before spending into the soft fabric.
Panting, she stared at him, laughter in those sated blue eyes. “Did you just soil my drawers?”
“They were already soiled,” he said with such a prurient look that she blushed.
***
“I cannot go back to the dining room without undergarments, Your Grace,” Bronwyn said primly, when he helped her off the ledge and tucked himself away. She smoothed her skirts and tried not to look. It was odd to see his cock in such a flaccid state, when he’d been so huge and hard and intimidating only moments before. Then again, her own body seemed to bloom and contract from pleasure in a matter of minutes as well.
She wasn’t going to lie. The sight of his male organ had snatched the breath clean out of her lungs. She’d taken him without any issue, obviously, but seeing his over-engorged length had sent her body into a mild state of panic. Thank God she hadn’t seen his size their first time. She might have had second thoughts about offering up her virginity.
But the feel of him when he was inside her had been sublime. So thick and long that the fullness of him had penetrated everywhere. A twinge throbbed from her well-pleasured center and a blush heated her cheeks at how wanton she’d been, propped up on the ledge like a doxy on the docks while a gentleman had had his carnal way with her.
Not that she was complaining. She’d wanted him, too, with a hunger that had shocked her. The salacious images in her head during their walk had been summarily banished for her own sanity, but they’d seen her bent over the ship’s railing with him plowing her from behind. This way had been infinitely better.
Bronwyn secured the pins in her hair that had come loose when his fingers had been buried in the strands. Heavens, had a little hair-pulling ever felt so wickedly divine? She sniffed and smoothed the tendrils away from her flushed cheeks.
Desperate for space and clarity, she cleared her throat and exited the alcove, walking to the rails at the rear of the ship to enjoy the cool sea air coasting over her hot, damp skin. “That was an interesting way of marking your territory.”
“I beg your pardon?” She felt him join her and she glanced up at him, a shuttered stare meeting hers.
“Your jealousy could not have been any more obvious, Your Grace.”
Those eyes narrowed. “I was not jealous. I simply did not think that a woman who is a prisoner and a traitor to the Crown should be surrounding herself with fawning admirers who have no idea of her true identity.”
“Oh, so you were concerned for their well-being? How generous of you. What was this, then?” She hooked a thumb over her shoulder to the nook they’d just commandeered, brows rising as anger tore through her. “Punishment? Your way of putting the prisoner in her place as judge and executioner? Seems rather self-serving to me, Your Grace, considering the gratification you gained from your methods.”
That muscle ticked to life in his cheek, a hint of his own ire flashing over his features at the awful accusation. “You know damn well that was not what this was.”
“Then what was it?” Bronwyn swallowed, her eyes falling to the glassy ocean and the white swaths left in the wake of the ship. Moonlight sparkled over the surf, the beauty of it distracting from the certain deadly hazards that lay beneath. That was what Thornbury was to her—attractive on the surface, mortal danger underneath. Like a deadly iceberg. She’d always known that, and yet, she’d been drawn to it…drawn to him.
“I can’t control myself around you,” he muttered and raked a hand through his already mussed hair. “I don’t know why.”
Neither did she, for that matter. It was raw and consuming, whatever this connection was between them, but Bronwyn had no earthly definition for it. Lust at its most base? Primal attraction? Whatever it was, it was powerful enough to not stop him from condemning her and craving her at the same time. Or vice versa, considering how he’d brought her back on the ship like a lowly criminal. She should hate him.
“Well, at least you are honest about that.”
“When have I not been truthful with you, Bronwyn?” But even as he replied, shadows descended over his face. His whole life had been a lie, just as hers had become. There was no room for truth, not when one’s existence depended on the fabrication of false identities.
“Who is your contact in the Home Office?” he asked. “If you even have one.”
Her gloved fingers clenched around the metal of the railing. “I cannot tell you.”
“Cannot or will not?” he asked.
“Whichever suits your narrative, Your Grace,” she replied. “You’ve pegged me as a traitor who is deserving of your contempt in your less-than-humble estimation.”
“The Kestrel is a rogue operative, Bronwyn, acting beyond any official capacity that I am aware of, and that person, astonishingly, is you. The sheltered, highborn sister of my friend. How else would you have me respond? If you were any other, I would have you locked in the brig. Contempt is not even close to what I feel. I am furious you’ve put yourself in this position!”
“And again, that is my decision,” she said quietly.
“Yes, you’ve said. It doesn’t stop me from worrying about your safety, and it won’t stop Ashvale from fretting about it either. You do understand what’s going to happen when we get to London?” He exhaled. “Your brother will be the worst of it, and with his new position in the Lords, the repercussions upon him will be challenging.”
“Repercussions?” Bronwyn asked with a frown.
“Come now, my lady. Clearly, you have a very intelligent brain in that head of yours. What do you think will happen when the sister of a mixed-race duke is accused of treason? How do you think that will reflect upon him?”
“This has nothing to do with Courtland!” she retorted.
“Doesn’t it?” he asked softly. “He’s your brother. A duke many still don’t recognize as the rightful Duke of Ashvale because of his heritage. They will say your actions are obviously reflective of his character and his influence, and all the work he has put in to change ignorance and biases will be lost.”
