Chapter Four #2
Her eyes darkened with the same desire coursing through his veins. “I have craved your touch for far longer than is good for me, I think.”
That was the moment he completely lost all sense of decorum or even honor.
In a twinkling, he wrenched off his gloves and tossed them to the grit-covered floor.
“I’ll show you exactly what’s good for you,” he said with a pronounced growl in his voice as he pounced on her, knocking her backward onto the tick mattress.
The crinkle of straw sounded overly loud in the silence.
Seconds later, he claimed her lips in a forceful kiss he hoped would leave his imprint on her for a long time, and it was like setting a match to dry tinder.
Bloody hell, this was wrong, so very wrong.
She was married, to a bounder of a duke, but still.
However, none of that mattered in this moment when the steady drum of rain echoed around them, and the shadows and the shack hid them from view.
He only knew that if he didn’t fully explore her mouth, her body after so many years of longing, then there was no point in living.
The tension that had always crackled and surged between them was perfectly suited for this moment. Angelica clutched at his lapels, curled her fingers into them before releasing the fabric to slide her hands up his arms to hold onto his shoulders.
“Caleb…” She held his head between her palms, and set out to kiss him back with equal parts enthusiasm and determination. “I want you.” Still holding his gaze, she quickly removed her gloves and tossed them away.
“Don’t say that unless you truly mean it.” He didn’t mind getting beneath her skirts, but he refused to have her cry foul later and ruin both of their lives… and put her in danger from the duke’s temper.
Her eyes fluttered open and she met his gaze. Nothing but truth was reflected there in the gloom. “I give you my enthusiastic permission to claim me, to couple with me. I want… everything in this moment, for I’m done pretending.”
“God, I’m so glad to hear that.” His shaft was fully engorged and pressed insistently into her hip, but he ignored the pulsing discomfort in favor of learning the secrets of her mouth.
To her credit, Angelica gave as good as she got; how much had the duke prevented her from being her true self in such matters? When she buried the fingers of one hand into the hair at his nape, a sigh shuddered from him, for he’d waited for years to be with her like this.
Wanting to explore, Caleb dragged his lips down the side of her throat.
That silky, fragrant skin urged him onward while she danced her fingers over his back and chest, plucking at various bits of his clothing.
His pulse rushed in his ears. A wave of awareness rippled through him, pushing him closer to perhaps the biggest mistake of his life.
He kissed and licked a path to her collarbones then followed the edge of her bodice, licking away drops of rain from her skin, and tossing care to the wind, he tugged the fabric of her yellow gown down, taking her shift beneath with it until her breasts were bared despite the stays.
“Mmm. This is nothing like I’ve felt before.” She nodded, and that was all the permission he needed.
When he covered one of those globes with a hand, she sucked in a breath as he palmed the soft mass, weighed it, rubbed the hardened tip of it with the pad of his thumb. “You’re certain?” It was forbidden, but it didn’t seem that either of them cared.
“Yes!” She tightened her fingers on his nape as he grinned. “I want and need you to continue touching me.”
“There is nothing I would rather do right now.” It wasn’t the most romantic of places, but if he could, he would wipe the memories of the duke bedding her from her mind.
Caleb continued to play with the breast already in his hand while he closed his lips around the other nipple.
Angelica’s back arched, which put her more firmly into his care.
While he teased and tormented that pebbled bud, he rolled the other one, he wanted nothing more than to see her fly.
Each little sound she made drove him closer to the edge of insanity. Needing so much more, when he cupped her breasts in both hands, her quick intake of breath made him so hard that it took every ounce of willpower not to claim her right there.
“Caleb, please, touch me, kiss me… play with me.” She squirmed beneath him. Clearly, she enjoyed this, and it stroked his ego all too much. “Tittleford never treated me to this. He only rutted to get his heir and then he left my bed.”
“The duke is a fool.” As he spoke, he rubbed his thumbs over her nipples to keep them erect.
“Agreed, and I refuse to let him have any more of my life.”
Nearly lost in her, he lowered his head to her breast once more to worry the pebbled dark pink tip with his tongue and lips while he plucked and rolled the other one between his thumb and forefinger. Pinpricks of pain where she lightly dug her fingernails into his arm enhanced his work.
How could something so wrong feel so damned right?
“Oh, yes…” Angelica furrowed her fingers in the hair at his nape as she wriggled her body closer to his.
Need spiraled down his spine, for it was such a trusting, erotic touch, but when her thigh brushed his engorged shaft, he sucked in a breath.
“I want to explore your body, Caleb. I have long dreamed of that.”
Dear God.
“In a moment.” While continuing to pleasure her breast, he trailed his hand down her torso, through the yards of muslin. “First I’m going to explore you.”
“At least remove your clothes.” Her breath came in quick pants, and when she briefly met his gaze, pleasure clouded those depths, nearly hidden in the dim illumination.
“Not yet.”
She drew a hand between their bodies and then traced the outline of his arousal through his breeches. “Then let me see your shaft.”
Christ, but he would surely explode soon if she didn’t stop. “There is time enough for everything.” Perhaps not in this session; that only meant another.
“Spoilsport.” With a half-hearted laugh, Angelica moved her head on the tick mattress as she guided his head once more to her breast. “I want to fly. Tittleford never gave me releases.” With gentle nudging of her fingers, she brought his head up and then she kissed him with a bit more confidence than she’d had before.
It was all too erotic, and his member pulsed with urgency.
As he returned her overture, he urged her lips apart.
Tangling with her tongue brought him more swiftly to the edge between reality and madness.
There was something about being so intimate with this woman that made him crave more, despite the danger and scandal if this was ever discovered.
The longer he teased and tormented her breasts, plucked and lightly pinched the nipples, the more she squirmed beneath him. Those sounds of enjoyment she made, the way she arched her back and had her body crashing into his only enhanced his own pleasure.
“I need more,” she whispered, practically begged him with her voice and her fingers that danced restlessly along his shoulders.
“So do I.” As he wondered if he was going straight to hell for this, Caleb rolled them both over, hauled her onto his body so that she haphazardly went astride his chest. Fighting once more through the layers of fabric that comprised her skirting and shift beneath, he finally was able to slip a hand between her thighs.
“Last chance to bid me nay, Angelica. I’ll leave you untouched. ”
“No, I want this, want you.” Then she leaned over him, kissed his lips, and in her fervor, ended up nipping his bottom one.
Hot need streaked through his veins. “You are quite the vixen.”
“I don’t know about that. Merely a woman who wants what she should have had all along if her husband wasn’t so selfish.”
His shaft throbbed with need, and it was quite the feat to ignore his own needs, but in this moment, Angelica deserved the whole of his attention.
Slipping his other hand beneath her skirting to squeeze an arse cheek, he also caressed the inside of one thigh.
By increments, she trembled and kissed him again before she rose upward and wriggled against his length.
“Well?”
“I was giving you time to acclimate.”
“I don’t need time, Mr. Marsden. I need you between my thighs.”
The fact she knew what she wanted was far more arousing than anything else.
With the knowledge bouncing through his brain, he closed his lips around her nipple, and this time he glided his fingers along her intimate flesh.
Damn, but she was already aroused, and it took every particle of control not to shove into that honeyed heat.
“Mmm!” As her back arched, she pressed her body against his.
In some reverence, he parted the flesh and brought forth that hidden pearl at her center. “Perhaps I should put my mouth on you?”
“If we have another round of scandal.” The duchess put a hand atop his and guided him to where she wanted him. “Here.” She wriggled her hips. “I need to you touch me here!” Her voice went up an octave as he followed her instruction.