Chapter 13 #3
"Your possessive duke," he corrected. "Your completely, obsessively devoted duke."
"Mine," she agreed, and kissed him.
This time, they weren't interrupted. The kiss deepened, became something desperate and needy. James pressed her against the wall, his body caging hers, his hands roaming with increasingly bold intent.
"James," she gasped as his mouth moved to her throat. "Someone could see..."
"The library," he said roughly. "Third door on the left. Five minutes."
He was gone before she could protest, leaving Catherine standing in the ballroom like a figure carved from ice, her heart pounding wildly.
She had to force herself to breathe, to count, as if the numbers might keep her from running after him.
One. Two. Three hundred. Each tick of her pulse made the waiting worse.
By the time she slipped out, no one stopped her; they were all too absorbed in whispering about her betrothal, about the Duke, about them.
The library door stood ajar. Candlelight spilled out in a thin line across the carpet. Catherine pushed it open, every nerve in her body alight.
He was waiting for her.
James stood near the desk, one hand braced on it, the other curled at his side.
His coat was undone, his cravat slightly loose, and his eyes—those grey eyes—were molten, dark with something between fury and hunger.
He didn’t look like a duke in that moment.
He looked like a man barely holding himself back.
“This is madness,” she whispered, even as her feet carried her to him.
“This is necessary,” he said, voice rough velvet. “If I don’t kiss you properly, Catherine, I might lose my mind.”
Her stomach fluttered. He sounds feral.
“Dramatic,” she breathed, but her hands trembled where they clutched her skirts.
“Accurate.”
He reached her in two strides. His mouth crashed down on hers, and every carefully built wall she’d erected over the past two weeks shattered.
This wasn’t a polite kiss; it was command, possession, hunger unleashed.
She gasped against him, shocked at the force of it, at the way her own body arched instinctively closer.
This is what I’ve been craving. This. Him.
Her hands fisted in his coat, clutching him like the only solid thing in the room. He pressed her back into the shelves, his thigh sliding between hers, and she felt it—the unmistakable hardness of him straining against his trousers, hot even through layers of fabric.
He growled against her lips. “My goodness, I’ve missed this. Missed you.”
Catherine’s head spun. This is wrong. This is dangerous. But the thought was thin, weak, drowned out by the heat spreading through her body, by the wet ache growing between her thighs.
His hands were merciless. He gripped her waist, dragged her against him, then slid higher to palm her breasts through the silk of her gown. He pinched one peak, hard enough to make her gasp, then soothed it with a slow circle of his thumb.
“James...James, we can’t...not here.”
“I know.” His voice was a growl in her ear, hot and frayed with want. “But you’re mine, Catherine. I’ve been watching you smile at men, nod at matrons, dance with suitors, and every time I’ve imagined dragging you somewhere dark and doing this.”
He spun her with a single, decisive movement, bending her over the desk. She gasped, palms flat against the polished wood, her heart thundering. He’s lost control. He’s never lost control before.
His large hand pressed between her shoulder blades, pinning her gently but firmly. “Do you feel that?” His other hand slid up the back of her thigh, slow and deliberate, until he reached bare skin above her stockings. “Do you feel how wet you are already? Dripping for me?”
Her breath hitched. He can’t know. Can he?
“James...”
“Your Grace,” he corrected, his voice low and dangerous. He ground his arousal against her backside, and she nearly sobbed at the sensation—hard, insistent, straining against the fabric. “Say it. Say who you belong to.”
Her mind screamed at her to stop, but her body betrayed her. She was trembling, her breath coming in shallow gasps. “You. Your Grace. I belong to you.”
“That’s right.” His fingers found her slick entrance through the barrier of her shift, sliding through heat and wetness, and she bit her lip to keep from crying out.
“You’re so soft,” he murmured, voice shaking with restraint. “So perfect. Do you know what I want to do to you right now?”
“Tell me,” she whispered, hating how eager she sounded.
“I want to spread you open on this desk and feast on you until you scream my name. I want to take you with my mouth, my fingers, my manhood—until you forget every other man’s name but mine.”
A shock of pure heat went through her at his words. She was trembling now, hips tilting back against his hand without thought. This is madness. This is heaven.
Suddenly a burst of laughter echoed from the hallway. Footsteps paused...too close.
Catherine froze, panic crashing through the haze of arousal. Someone’s there. Someone will see. We’ll be ruined.
James’s hand clamped over her mouth instantly, but his fingers didn’t stop their slow, maddening circles. “Quiet,” he hissed in her ear, his breath ragged. “Or I’ll make you scream louder just to let them know who owns you.”
She whimpered against his palm. Her whole body felt like fire, shame and desire twining until she could barely think. He’s going to make me come. He’s really...
The footsteps faded at last, the voices receding. Still James kept her pinned, his fingers stroking lazily but firmly, his manhood pressing insistently against her.
“James,” she gasped when he finally moved his hand from her mouth. “We have to stop.”
“Not yet,” he growled. “Not until you remember who you belong to. Not until you come on my fingers, right here, like the Duke’s little secret.”
Her entire body shuddered, torn between panic and surrender, shame and need. I should pull away. I should stop this. But instead she arched back, helpless, caught between his hand and his body, her breath coming in frantic, broken gasps.
“Not until you shatter for me, here in my arms,” James murmured, his lips brushing the curve of her ear, his voice low and rough.
Catherine trembled. I cannot… heaven help me, I cannot.
And yet she leaned back into him, unable to resist the heat of his body pressing so intimately against hers.
His hand slid higher, slipping beneath her gown, fingers grazing bare skin again until they found her most sensitive place.
She gasped, her knees nearly giving way.
“James,” she whispered, scandal and need warring in her voice. “We cannot...”
“We can,” he interrupted, his tone iron. “And we shall. You are trembling for me, Catherine. Do not deny it. I have dreamed of this for months, and I will not be denied a moment longer.”
His hand moved with devastating certainty, stroking her with a rhythm that robbed her of speech.
Her gloved fingers clutched at the polished desk behind her, her body arching helplessly as wave upon wave of sensation crashed through her.
This is madness. Absolute madness. And yet—oh, how I have longed for him.
“You are mine,” he said hoarsely, his mouth descending to claim hers again. “Only mine. No other man will ever touch you so. No other man could.”
The words undid her as surely as his touch. Her breath broke, her body convulsed, pleasure shattering through her with shocking force. She clung to him, muffling her cry against his shoulder, her body yielding utterly as he guided her through the storm.
When at last the tremors subsided, she sagged against him, spent and shaken. James held her close, his face pressed to her hair, his chest heaving as though he too had been undone.
“My Catherine,” he whispered reverently, though his voice still carried the edge of hunger barely leashed.
“Do you know what you do to me? I could wait a hundred lifetimes and it would never lessen. You are in my blood, in my soul. And when you are my wife…” His hand still lingered at her waist, his thumb stroking absently.
“When you are my wife, I shall take you without restraint, and you will know the full measure of my devotion.”
Catherine’s heart thundered. Her body still quivered from the intensity of his touch, her cheeks burning with the knowledge of what they had just risked. And yet, beneath the shame, beneath the fear, there was a fierce joy.
Three weeks. Heaven preserve me, how am I to endure three weeks more?
"I know." James rested his forehead against hers, breathing hard. "Three weeks?"
"Three weeks."
"You're going to kill me."
"You'll survive."
"Barely." He straightened her gown with gentle hands, fixed her hair as best he could. "You should go first. I need... a moment."
Catherine understood, could see the evidence of his arousal straining against his evening trousers. "I love you," she said softly.
"I love you too. Desperately. Now go, before I do something that gets us both thoroughly ruined."
She left, slipping back into the ballroom where her aunt immediately descended upon her.
"Where have you been? Everyone's looking for you!"
"I needed air."
Vivienne's eyes narrowed, taking in Catherine's slightly mussed appearance. "Air. Of course. Well, come along. We should go. You've had quite enough excitement for one evening."