A Chance in a Million (The Chances #5)

Chapter Thirteen

H er words rang out in the drawing room and Victoria almost took a step back from Thomas, releasing his hands, at the way he froze stiff, a sudden look of shock on his face.

Ah. Well, she could hardly be blamed for going too far. She was… What was it she had once overheard? Yes—all riled up.

She was all riled up, and it was his fault, Thomas’s fault—and she had managed to orchestrate a completely empty house for them. Surely, he would not walk away from—

Thomas released her hands and walked away. He had gotten as far as the door, his hand on the handle, before he spoke. “You don’t know what you’re asking of me.”

And anger flared, roaring through her stomach and settling between her thighs. What I’m asking of him?

“I don’t think you know what you’re asking of me !” Victoria said sharply, jutting out her chin defiantly as his eyes fluttered rapidly. “You can’t just go around enticing ladies to pleasure and then abandon them before—before you’ve shown them what it is to be loved!”

Thomas’s jaw dropped. “That isn’t what—”

“You had your fingers on my—and my breast in your hand, and you were kissing me with—with everything you had,” Victoria said, heat scalding her cheeks but determinedly pressing on. “You owe me, Thomas!”

“This is ridiculous. You can’t force me to ravish you,” he pointed out.

“I…I suppose I can’t,” said Victoria, her voice lowering along with her shoulders.

And she had never thought she would have to. Oh, this is so humiliating. The man had undoubtedly bedded countless ladies and none of them had been forced to beg for it. Yes, she was a debutante, someone no gentleman would ravish lightly, but she was more than willing to marry him after. Clearly, Thomas Chance, Duke of Cothrom, had no real interest in her. If he did, surely, he would…

Something caught Victoria’s attention. It couldn’t be… Could it?

It was. Thomas was eyeing her up, even in the midst of this wild conversation. He wanted her. So what did he need to push him over the edge?

“So… So you don’t want me, then.”

The words had slipped out of her mouth before she could stop them.

Thomas’s eyes widened. “You think that?”

“I don’t think I could offer myself more plainly, yet you are rejecting me,” Victoria pointed out, doing her best to keep anger from her voice. “I am no fool, Thomas. How much more blatant do you wish me to be? I have rid my entire house of company for you, offered you myself on more than one occasion—”

He took a shattered breath. “But I thought… I mean… Why?”

She swallowed hard. Ah . Well, this wasn’t precisely the direction of conversation she had expected, and therefore, she had no clever quips or meaningful looks prepared.

“You are so…so beautiful.” Thomas’s voice was low and he released the door handle, though he did not move away from it. “So beautiful, and young, and innocent—”

Not innocent for much longer, if she could help it. “You think a lady cannot be attracted to a gentleman?”

“Not to me—I mean,” he corrected hastily, as though she would not have paid attention to his words. “It’s just… Ladies of the ton don’t—”

“And why not? Because they are afraid of this, of revealing their desires and then being rejected,” Victoria said quietly.

The pain in her voice felt evident, and perhaps Thomas heard it. A shadow certainly flickered over his face. “‘Rejected’?”

“What else do you call it?” asked Victoria with a shrug. “Thomas, other than stripping off all my clothes and lying here on the floor”—his eyes widened—“I don’t think I could make myself more available to you. The actions I’ve taken, I’d be called a hussy, a—”

“So why?” he whispered.

Did he truly believe himself to be that unlovable?

“Because I want you,” she said simply.

“No one has ever wanted me…me, for me, I mean,” Thomas said, sweeping a hand through his hair. “You—God, I want you like I have never wanted any other woman, but, Victoria, you can’t… I mean, I get things wrong. I’m wrong, I make mistakes. I’m not perfect. I’m not the son or brother my family want… What if I make a mistake with you? What if I’m not the duke you need? What if… What if after tonight, you don’t want me ?”

Victoria’s mind whirled, countless thoughts streaming through it, until one rose to the surface and threatened to overwhelm them all.

If Thomas was not in love with her already…then he would be, surely, after they had lain together as man and woman.

It was not the certainty she wanted, but it was close.

“Love me,” she whispered. “Love me like…like you said I deserved. Do you remember, Thomas?”

Perhaps it was the way she whispered his name, or the fact that she had reminded him of his own words.

“Your first time, your first pleasure… Damn it, Victoria, that deserves to be in a bed surrounded by candles, with rose petals strewn about the place…”

Whatever it was, the fight disappeared from Thomas’s eyes, replaced by a heady need she had seen before. Optimism flared in Victoria, a need building she could only hope he would satisfy.

“You really mean it, don’t you.” His voice was low, factual. He was not asking her—he was stating the truth in wonder.

Victoria stepped toward him and did something she had dreamed of but never permitted herself to do. As a yelp gutted in his throat, Victoria grabbed Thomas’s wrists and pushed him against the drawing room door.

“I really mean it,” she whispered, leaning forward and permitting her not insubstantial chest to press against Thomas’s own. “Take me, Thomas. Wholly and completely.”

He captured her lips in a frenzy of need, his tongue worshiping her own before Victoria could catch her breath. Not that she needed it. His touch gave her life in a way nothing else had and she leaned into him, whimpering at the intensity of his ardor.

There was something deeply erotic about the way she was forcing him against the door, and those feelings only heightened as Thomas struggled against her and she kept him pinned.

Well . Victoria was almost certain that if he had truly wanted to get away, he most definitely could. He was a man after all, tall and broad, with all the strength youth and vigor could give.

Which meant he wanted this. He wanted her. He truly cared about her.

As sparks of heat roared through Victoria’s body, Thomas nibbling expertly on her lower lip to heat the furnace within her, Victoria gloried in the knowledge that he cared for her, perhaps as strongly as she cared for him.

The sham was over. The trick was no longer necessary.

Thomas Chance was in love with her.

How long they stood there, kissing passionately, Victoria was not sure. All she knew was that in a sudden movement she could not have predicted, Thomas somehow had wrenched his arms free of her, captured her wrists with his strong fingers, and twisted her hastily.

Victoria blinked. Now her back was the one against the wall, and her wrists—dear God, her wrists were now clasped together by one of Thomas’s hands, held up above her head, and that left her—

Vulnerable.

She swallowed. “T-Thomas—”

“I think you’re going to like this,” he said softly, lowering his head to nuzzle her neck. “It’s something I’ve wanted to share for a long time. A long, long time…”

Victoria’s eyes closed, unbidden, as the sensual thrum of Thomas’s voice vibrated down her throat and into her breasts. How did he do that? Find a frequency that made her body respond in such a way? It was surely—what, a million-to-one chance?

“I trust you,” she gasped.

Thomas lifted his head and stared into her eyes, his expression hungry yet curious. “You do?”

Victoria was not sure she was up for a philosophical debate at this point. Not based on the way her knees were quivering with longing. “Touch me, Thomas.”

The quiet curse only heightened her anticipation, and Victoria was well-rewarded when his free right hand moved to scrape a thumb over her breast—a breast that was swiftly released.

Victoria moaned, leaning against the wall for dear life. Straining against the hold he had of her, there was something charged about the surrender she had to give him.

But then, as she saw the devotion in Thomas’s expression, the reverence with which he lowered his head and began to suckle at her nipple, she thought perhaps she was not the only one surrendering.

That was the last coherent thought she had for a while. The absolute devastation of Thomas’s tongue laving her nipple, the teasing tugs his teeth wrought around the sensitive skin, was almost too much to bear. Victoria was aware she was moaning, that her gasps were coming fast and few, but there was no way to control herself.

No need to.

And no chance of it. Somehow, Thomas’s attention was split, his mouth worshipping her breast while his right hand—

“Oh, Thomas,” Victoria whimpered, shifting her feet to widen the gap between her legs.

His hand knew what it wanted and she wished to give it to him. Shivers of anticipation pouring through her, Victoria moaned in sweet ecstasy as Thomas’s fingers at first brushed along the secret place between her legs, then more confidently—

Victoria’s eyes widened. “Thomas!”

It was unlike anything she had ever felt before. Her whole center was melting, her core molten as Thomas slipped a questing finger into her warm wetness.

Try as she might, Victoria could not arch her back nor push her hips forward sufficiently to take him deeper—Thomas was controlled, controlling her, controlling the pace, controlling himself.

It was so wildly attractive to see him resist the urge to just take her then and there that a jolt of sensual delight roared from her breast to her loins.

“Yes, more, please—”

And he obeyed. Victoria’s head fell back as Thomas’s thumb slipped inside her, brushing against a sensitive nub within that made her cry out his name even as his finger started to stroke a rhythm—a rhythm that was swiftly echoed by her heartbeat and the way Thomas’s tongue twisted around her nipple.

Her hands strained against his hold, but only because she wanted to touch him, feel him, reward him somehow for the intense pleasure that she was receiving. The strength in his hands and his utter dominance of her inexplicably heightened Victoria’s gratification of the whole thing.

“Oh, God, I’m… I’m…”

Precisely what she was going to do, Victoria could not tell. There was a pressure building in her, building between her thighs, and if she didn’t feel its completion soon, she was going to—

Thomas’s fingers stilled as he lifted his head. “I shouldn’t do this—not here, not like this. I promised you—”

She snapped her eyes back to him. “Thomas Chance, give me what I need or I swear—”

He groaned, leaning his head against her shoulder as his fingers inside her started up their hypnotizing rhythm again. “God, I love it when you command me.”

“Then I’m—I’m ordering you to…to…” Victoria blinked, trying to keep a hold of her words, but it was impossible. Who could possibly be expected to speak when their body was arching, arching upward, up toward the sky, the sensual connection between them building so much, it was going to—

Thomas crushed his lips against hers as his thumb pressed, hard, on that sensitive nub and Victoria came undone.

Every part of her was on fire and the flames did not burn, but satisfy. Her body was exploding, but every part of it was being loved by Thomas, and she would sacrifice herself, again and again, to feel this way, to feel this ecstasy, to know herself well and truly loved by this man. Oh, this man .

When Victoria was finally able to open her eyes, the room had grown shadowy and Thomas was breathing deeply.

“I… I did not hurt you, did I?”

Victoria’s eyes widened as she looked into the handsome and exceedingly concerned face of a man she could never give up. “Hurt me?”

“I know that sometimes, when a woman—I mean, when it’s the first time—”

“You c-could do that to me day in, d-day out, and I would have no complaints,” Victoria said in a shaky voice.

Only when Thomas gave her a lopsided grin then released his grip did she realize that he’d still had her pinned to the wall.

Her wrists fell to her side. They felt empty, somehow, without him. Lonely.

But not for long. He’d grasped one of her hands, his fingers interlocking with hers. “Are you ready for more?”

Victoria swallowed, her throat dry. “‘More’?”

Thomas’s expression was wicked, but there was still an understanding there, something deep, a connection they shared.

To think what she had shared with him—what she had allowed him to do. How could she ever look at another gentleman again? How would she ever look at the world in the same way, now it was changed forever?

“Where’s your bedchamber?”

“‘Bedchamber’?” Victoria’s mind was whirling. She could barely take in what he was saying.

Hot lips crushed against hers, just for a moment. Then—“Lead me.”

It was quite a new experience, to be taken by the hand by a handsome gentleman before leading him through her own home, up her own stairs, and toward her own bedchamber. But then, the evening had already given her a few new experiences Victoria had never expected.

Not in the drawing room, anyway.

Her confidence failed her, however, when they reached her bedchamber door. Her feet locked together, halting on the carpet.

Thomas looked around, his brow furrowed.

“This…” She cleared her throat. “This is my bedchamber.”

“Yes, I rather gathered that.”

This was it. There was no going back. Once a gentleman had been in her bedchamber—this gentleman in particular—she would never be able to go back to being Miss Victoria Ainsworth, an innocent young woman.

She would be… Well, not a ruined woman, whatever Society might say if it knew. She didn’t consider this being “ruined.” Not when she was about to experience the heights of pleasure, again, with the man she loved.

But she certainly could not return to being the person she was.

A hand cupped her face. Victoria blinked and looked up into Thomas’s understanding eyes.

“This is why I was hesitant,” he whispered. “Because you have so much more to lose than I.”

How, precisely, he understood her concerns, she did not know—but his disquiet somehow revived her.

Victoria reached out and opened the door. “I have nothing to lose, and everything to gain.”

She laughed, her merriment echoing around her bedchamber, as Thomas pulled her inside. A few candles had already been lit, probably by Abigail before she’d departed, and as the door closed, they flickered, casting golden shadows over Thomas’s face.

Over Thomas’s chest. What the—

“You don’t mind?” he asked, halting as he was about to drop his shirt on the floor.

Dear God, how did he manage to do that so quickly? And how had he kept all that muscle, that skin scattered with blond hair, hidden?

Victoria reached forward and placed her palms on his chest, reveling in the softness of his skin and the scratch of his wiry hair. This was, in a way, more intimate than what they had already shared. A piece of him she had never seen before.

“Victoria?”

She lifted her chin to look up at the soft brows, the trembling lips of the man she loved. “Thomas.”

When he kissed her this time, it was reverential. The heat was still there, yes, but it had become a white, burning-hot, steady flame, a flame that built between them as Victoria twisted her hands up Thomas’s neck and clutched at his hair, pulling him tighter.

“You’re so beautiful,” she whispered, hardly knowing how a gentleman should be described but knowing she was completely right.

Thomas’s chuckle against her neck was accompanied by his questing fingers finding her gown’s ties at the back of her bodice. “‘Beautiful’?”

“You know what I mean.” Victoria gasped as he nuzzled her neck, kissing that delicate part of her just behind her ear that made her knees quiver. “You are. You must know—”

“Not as beautiful as you.” Thomas sighed, the tie of her gown falling to the floor as the garment slipped past her shoulders. “Victoria, you—you are everything I could have dreamed of. Everything I hoped for and knew I would never deserve.”

The words washed over her like water, like a hot stream, but Victoria could not pay attention to them. Not with her gown now cascading to the carpet, pooling around her feet as she stood here—

Well. Practically naked.

She saw the gleam of desire in Thomas’s eyes and stood up a little straighter. It just so happened that this brought the top of her breasts and décolletage right into his eyeline.

Thomas groaned. “I’ve got to get this corset off you.”

“But—”

“I want to see you, all of you,” he said, his voice ragged now, his fingers working faster than she could have believed possible. “There we are—and another catch—there.”

Victoria gasped as the corset was released in an explosion of boning. The support it gave, the comfort it offered, was gone. Gravity greedily took hold of her breasts, which sagged. The petticoats and undergarments were wrenched from her body, Thomas pulling them over her head in a swift movement that made her breathless.

And there she was. Standing, utterly naked, before a half-dressed duke. Her half-dressed duke.

Thomas stared.

And said nothing. For a few heartbeats, Victoria wondered what he had found fault with. She glanced down. It was her body, and she loved it because it was her own. But no gentleman, no person had ever looked at it like this. What flaw had he discovered?

“You… You’re exquisite.”

Victoria tilted her head as she looked at Thomas, heat searing her cheeks. “You don’t have to say—”

“I don’t think I have any choice,” he said quietly, reaching out to cup her face in his two large hands. “You are one in a million, Victoria, and I’m not going to let you go. As long as you want me to, I won’t ever let you go.”

She whimpered in delight as he pulled her flush against him, her nipples grazing his chest, the warmth pooling between her legs, desperate now that she knew what she was missing, feeling his—

Oh, that was definitely…definitely him pressing up against her hip, wasn’t it?

“Victoria!”

“What?” she said defensively, looking up into Thomas’s astonished face as her fingers continued to attempt to undo the buttons of his trousers. “Well, I’m naked, aren’t I?”

“You are incorrigible.” He growled, pushing her toward the bed so rapidly, she fell onto it.

Victoria tried to catch her breath, but it was difficult while watching Thomas slowly undo his trousers, all the while never taking his eyes from hers. “Does… Does that mean I don’t need encouragement, or that you won’t encourage me any further?”

The growl in Thomas’s throat did not really answer the question, but it did not need to. Not when he had practically ripped his trousers and boots from his body, throwing socks to the floor and swiftly covering her body with his as he struggled to put something long he’d pulled from one pocket upon his manhood.

Oh, this was… That was…

Nothing could have prepared her for it. Victoria had thought what they’d shared before had been intimate, but having his skin touching hers, touching hers all over, the weighty press of his manhood against her thigh, the way his hands moved, first at her hips then tracing her waist then touching her—

“Oh, you’re ready for me.” Thomas stroked a finger through her slickness. “Stop me if it hurts.”

“If it…?”

The cry Victoria gave out was accompanied by her back arching and Thomas froze immediately, partly inside her as he hovered over her.

“Victoria? Victoria, talk to me. Are you—”

“More,” she gasped, looking up through fluttering lashes.

He blinked. He looked stricken, confused, utterly lost.

“I said more ,” Victoria said in a stronger voice this time, shifting her hips so she could take more of him in. “Oh, Thomas, I want, I need—”

He understood. Kissing her deeply, his tongue questing inside her mouth searching for more ways to gratify her, Thomas plunged himself into her, sheathing himself to the hilt.

Victoria hissed through her teeth, but it was not pain she felt, but a mingle of intrusion and intimacy. Having him inside her, literally deep within her—it was a depth of connection she had never expected, never believed possible.

“Ready?”

She stared, hands clutching his shoulders, as though only that would keep her pinned to the earth. “Ready? For what?”

Thomas grinned and her hopes broke into a thousand pieces. Oh, this man. He could do anything to her, anything at all, and she would thank him on bended knee.

“This,” said Thomas quietly as he slowly pulled himself away, almost until he was no longer inside her, then thrust into her with a precision and depth that quite literally took her breath away.

“Oh, God, that’s—”

“I wanted to have you that first time we kissed,” Thomas murmured, his voice rough and desperate against her throat as Victoria tried to accept the sensual decadence he was sparking through her body. “Not just because you’re beautiful, Victoria, but because I can’t… God, I can’t stay away from you—”

“Don’t.” Victoria gasped, her hands leaving Thomas’s shoulders, but only so she could cling on to the bedsheets. Oh, this is heaven, this is—

“You’re everything—everything I want, everything I never thought I deserved.” Thomas’s lips pressed a kiss onto her neck, then his tongue was flicking around her nipple, then he was back to her neck. “I could spend the rest of my life searching the world, but I would never—Christ, you feel good—never find someone like you. You’re… You’re…”

Victoria moaned, unable to help the interruption as Thomas quickened his pace. His thrusting was harsh now, deep inside her, yet each movement gave her not pain but an exquisite heat building in her core.

And she knew where that led.

“One in a million you said.” She panted, arching her back and tilting her hips to welcome him in deeper. “Oh, Thomas!”

Perhaps it was crying out his name that did it. Thomas fisted the blanket beside her, throwing back his head as his whole body shuddered, his wild thrusting now rapid and purposeful and—

“Yes, yes, yes!”

Victoria knew it was coming this time, but that did not detract from the ecstasy that poured through her body. Again she was falling apart, again her body was exploding, but this time, she was with Thomas and he was exploding inside her.

Together, together, they rode the wave of pleasure. And when it came crashing down and Thomas collapsed into Victoria’s arms, she knew she’d done it.

She’d made him ravish her. She’d made him fall in love with her.