Chapter Eleven #3
Oh, but he was close. Even now, his length twitched and jerked from her handling.
Pre-ejaculation seeped from his tip, and she licked it away; the salty taste was curious and interesting.
Feeling wicked and wanting to keep on until he broke, Evangeline eased her fingers beneath his stones to massage the thin skin directly behind them.
It was another tip she’d been told by a friend. Would he prove useless afterward?
“Fuck!” The word was propelled from his throat with such force and surprise, and she was hard-pressed not to giggle.
He bucked his hips, sending his shaft deep, while his fingers delved into her hair.
“You are going to kill me.” The statement was graveled; his body taut as he apparently fought against breaking.
“Perish the thought, but I want to see you fall.” She continued her relentless quest to make the duke tumble over the edge.
Again and again, she twisted her fingers about his length while sucking and then soothing with her tongue, followed by taking him deeper into her mouth while he continued to thrust like a man possessed.
Every few seconds, she would massage that highly sensitive skin behind his stones.
“Oh, God yes!” The muscles of his thighs tensed while his grip on her head did the same.
She couldn’t move away even if she wanted to.
“Evvie, ah…!” Darkemore lost the control he prided himself on, and with a muffled shout, he hit release.
Except he pulled out of her mouth. Hot jets of his seed splattered all over her neck and breasts.
That was somewhat less exciting. She frowned. “I don’t appreciate the mess.”
His chuckle was a tad breathless. With a hand, he brought her into a standing position. Afterward, he led her to the tub and encouraged her into the still warm water. “I’ll wash you.”
“That isn’t something a duke should do.”
“Perhaps, but it is something a husband would do.” He moved to a tall, narrow dresser with a pronounced limp, then brought something out of a drawer.
Once he’d joined her again, he showed her a bar of soap, lightly tinted purple.
“The last time I was in France, I brought back a few bars of finely milled soap. It’s scented with lavender.
” Before she knew what was happening, he’d moved the low table to the head of the tub and perched upon it. “It is my privilege to bathe you.”
Unexpectedly, a piece of her heart flew into his keeping. Aside from giving her the settlement and cottage, this was the first time he’d shown that he’d cared for her as a person, a woman—his wife.
She leaned her back against the sloped side of the porcelain bath.
Seconds later, he’d worked the soap into a lather on his hands then skimmed his fingers along her chest, her neck, her breasts.
That gentle glide soothed her, and the water cooled her overheated skin.
When her eyes shuttered closed and she uttered a sigh, he chuckled against the shell of her ear.
“I may be many dark things, but where your welfare, your pleasure, is concerned, I will never fail.”
What of my happiness? Of yours. But she didn’t voice those questions aloud.
Then she gave herself over to his ministrations.
The water and the soap let his fingertips skim along her skin like a dream.
When he took her breasts in his hands, twisted and rolled the nipples, wild sensation streaked through her body.
With a sigh mixed with a moan, Evangeline bent her legs at the knee, slightly opened them in the hopes that he might wish to play.
She needn’t have worried. In this, he and she were well matched. As he pressed his lips to the side of her neck, he eased his good hand between her thighs, spread the sensitive flesh to find the throbbing button at her center. “Michael, please.”
“Such a needy baggage you’ve become since marrying me,” he whispered into her ear, but he indulged her. Soon enough, he circled and strummed his fingertips on that nubbin.
It didn’t take long to achieve release, for she’d already been primed when she’d sucked him off.
The gentle crest, the feeling of flying, of tumbling prompted a soft cry mixed with a moan.
Contractions rocked her core while gooseflesh popped on her arms. As she rode the waves, the duke continued to wash her body, and when he was finally done and had rinsed the last vestiges of the soap from her skin, she was well and truly relaxed.
“Come out of there before you catch cold.” When he stood, he helped her into an upright position.
After assisting her from the tub, he then wrapped his waiting dressing gown about her.
It was yet another layer of caring that surprised her.
“I’ve never met anyone like you, Evvie.” He led her over to a leather winged back chair and sat, regardless of his nude state, and brought her down to perch on his lap with her legs hanging over one of the chair arms. “And I appreciate that,” he added in a soft voice.
“Mmm.” She rested her head on his shoulder. They stayed like that for a long time without talking. Though she was no closer to discovering his secrets, the ability to bond with him in that silence was more than she’d had before.
A cautious hope rose in her chest. She wouldn’t give up.