"Dukes don't play."
"I meant when you were a wee lad."
"I was never a wee lad. I was the Belmore heir." His voice was hard, and his stance became stiffen. She could see the tension in him, but couldn't see the child in him because he had never been one.
She stared at his unyielding expression, knowing he had never sneaked down to the kitchens to raid the pie shelf in the pantry, never skipped stones across a lake, never played hide-and-seek or blind man's bluff or any other child's game. The air grew quiet and a little sad. She looked at the snow splattered on his coat, then at the snowball melting in her hand. Something told her that snow would melt a great deal sooner than her husband would.
With a sigh of defeat, she gave up for now, dropping the snowball into the snow. She could tell by his look that he would become angrier if she continued. She picked up the milk and carried it toward the inn.
As she walked past him, his voice became ice and he said, "You are not some child. You are the Duchess of Belmore."
"Not really." The words flew out of her mouth before she could blink. She walked by and opened the inn door.
He followed her inside and dropped the tub with a loud thud. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
"I am not truly your wife." She set the milk down in the kitchen and turned around, hands on her hips.
She was fed up enough to challenge him. "I think you are afraid of me."
It worked. She caught a quick flash of pricked pride in his face, and a second later he pulled her, none too gently, into his arms.
He looked down at her, still angry. "What can you possibly do to me that you haven't already done? I am not afraid of you."
"There was no love spell, Alec. I cannot control my magic well enough to cast one."
"You made me out the fool?" Suddenly something more primal than anger shone in his eyes, and his mouth closed over hers. There was fierceness in his kiss, and passion. He met her challenge, rose to the bait. But passion rose faster, and their lips did not break apart until he had carried her upstairs. He kicked open the bedroom door, and it crashed against the wall.
"Alec," she whispered against his stubbly jaw.
His answer was to kick the door shut, hard.
"Alec," she repeated softly, and placed her hand on his heart as she looked up at him.
He turned furious eyes on her.
"See?" she said, patting his chest. "You do carry things well."
He was so quiet, didn't move, except to close his eyes. He took deep, calming breaths. He opened his eyes and said nothing. His face was that of a man who was fighting to keep some demon down. His jaw tightened, his hands were tense, his mouth thinned.
Don't fight it, love, please, she prayed, please . . . .
He struggled. She could feel the rhythm of his heartbeat against the palm of her hand.
She touched his jaw. "My Alec," she whispered.
All the anger drained out of his face, melting like snow-flakes in a warm spring rain. He bent over and kissed her, his lips barely touching hers. He tasted her with his mouth the way one might sip fine wine. She had known this tenderness was there, underneath that icy veneer he wore like his pride. He set her gently on the mattress before the fire, and then she was in his arms again.
The Duke of Belmore kissed with the same command, the same confidence and assurance that had first drawn Joy to him. She adored his flavor, the erotic feel of his tongue stroking and filling her mouth. It made her want something more, made her feel as if she needed to somehow get closer to him.
The roughness of his tongue against hers, against her lips and teeth and the roof of her mouth made her warm and tingling. Nothing in the whole wide world could have been more wonderful than being held by Alec, kissed by him, loved by him.
After little more than one passionate kiss his hands opened the buttons on her dress and stroked her back through the torn gap in her chemise the way a breeze might caress the leaves. His mouth moved to her ear, the rough stubble of his beard grazing her cheek and jaw and raising gooseflesh on her neck and arms. He raised one hand and touched the tender skin along the side of her neck. She opened her eyes and watched him.
He answered the question in her gaze quietly. "So soft. Your skin is so soft. Are you as soft and sweet inside, Scottish?"
"Alec . . . ”
"You are my wife, my duchess, in every way but one." He licked her ear and whispered, "Now, Scottish. I want you now."
She moaned a yes, and his mouth wet a path down her neck. At the same time, he pushed her dress off her shoulders. The torn chemise went with it. The air hit her bare breasts. She sucked in a breath and tried to hide her chest against his.
"No. Let me see you." He held her fast while his mouth and tongue moved across her collarbone and down to a breast. "Let me taste you, watch you pearl for me."
His mouth closed over that taut breast, sucking, his rough tongue flicking across the tip. She groaned and held his head against her while he took more of her into his warm mouth, sucking harder and harder, and with each pull of his mouth she felt something deep inside that most private part of a woman. Such unimagined ecstasy, this thing between man and woman. She closed her eyes and let sensation overtake her.
He went on and on until there was little conscious thought left in her, yet she had never been so alive, so aware of things inside her body that she'd never experienced. She could almost feel her blood thicken and flow honeylike through her, feel the differences between them—male versus female.
His skin was rougher, but that roughness was tempered by the stroking tickle of the thick dark hair that curled on his arms. She ran her hands up them, feeling that warm soft hair. His muscles were firm and hard, his skin darker than hers. And there was some kind of exotic thrill in those differences, and an excitement that was as old as time.
His tongue stroked the crest of her breast sending chills skating over her skin. Her breath rushed out like the tide. His mouth created a mist of kisses over her ribs, the undersides of her breasts, her collarbone. Then he sank into her mouth. She didn't know what it was she wanted, but she wanted something and held him tighter, moved against him with some distant yearning.
As if he knew her need, he ran his hand down her thigh, his teasing touches like wind-kisses, then slid up and under her skirt to stroke the length of her inner thigh with his palm, each time moving closer and closer to the heart of her.
He touched her then, and heavens above, she found what she had craved. She buried her face in his neck and whimpered, half embarrassed and half relieved. He moved his fingers through her private hair, combing until he touched a small damp bud. That touch sent a jab of pleasure through her so sweetly that her eyes misted. She cried out.
"Scottish. Spread for me."
She did, and he rubbed more, making fuller circles first, then using two fingers to press against and between her nether lips, fondling her flesh so intimately that she knew he was the only one destined to do this. After an eternal stroke of time, stroke of pleasure from his knowing touch, he cupped her and kept pressure against her most sensitive point with the heel of his hand, fingering and playing with her. Never would she have believed a touch could be so intimate, but it felt so very good that she wouldn't have stopped him for all the magic in the world.
"Unbutton my shirt," he commanded in a whisper, then moved a finger deeper, massaging along and between her nether lips, flickering the point of her with each stroke.
"Alec." She pushed his shirt aside and down his arms. Her sensitive breasts touched the thick curly hair on his chest and it was his turn to groan. In reaction he pushed his finger into her inch by wet inch, pulling back, only to dip deeper the next time.
Her knees began to quiver, and her breath came in hurried pants. Instinctively she rubbed her breasts against his chest.
"God Almighty." He filled her mouth with his ravaging tongue. He used the arm that held her to pull her tight against him. His other hand, the one that was damp with her, tore at the buttons on his breeches. He fumbled with his clothes, kicking off his boots and pants and shrugging out of his shirt, the whole time he held her. He tossed the shirt behind her. "Stand up."
"I can't. My legs won't hold me."
He swore and pulled her clothes down her hips and knees until he could lift her free of them. His hands gripped her buttocks and held her against his waist. He used one hand to lift her leg around him.
"Lock your legs around me."
She did, and instantly felt herself open, felt the coolness of air against the place his touch had melted. He sat back on his heels and she felt his hardness, the full length of him. He reached between their bodies and opened her flesh more, so the hardest part of him nestled along her. Then he shifted, using his male strength, the hard length of him, to caress her as his fingers had, and to rub against that tender bud.
Her arms were linked around his neck, her mouth fused to his, his tongue filling and retreating with long, slow strokes. His hands gripped her bottom, separating and lifting her as he moved his hips, sliding up and down the length of her nether lips in the same rhythm, the same slow movements, the same thrusts as his tongue.
She dewed against him, could feel his heartbeat, and her own sounded like drums in her ears. She strained toward him even though his hands on her bottom were controlling the movements. She wanted something more.
"Please," she begged against his mouth.
He groaned a response she didn't hear. Gone were the senses of sound and sight. She could taste and she could feel, but no more. He followed her down to the mattress, his hard length still spread against her damp womanhood. He pulled back, and she cried out, but an instant later his fingers separated her and she felt the tip of him penetrate her, enter inside her, and widen her with its thickness.
She stilled. "It hurts."
"Don't move." He stopped, and his breathing increased.
Then he filled her more, and more, until something stopped him. She winced when he gently pushed against it. "No more," she said. "It doesn't fit."
He pulled back a bit. "I'm sorry, Scottish." He thrust hard.
She screamed, then bit her lip to keep from doing so again. She shoved at his heavy shoulders.
"Easy. I won't do any more until you're ready."
"There's more?" She couldn't keep the squeak of horror from her voice.
He took another deep breath and swore softly.
"It hurts."
"I know."
"If it hurts you too, why are we doing this?"
He groaned something, then shifted just enough to place his hand between their bodies. He rubbed the very point of her, but it wasn't the same. She still burned deep inside, and she ached from the fullness of him. His mouth moved to her ear where he whispered to her, calmed her with that deep voice. His finger moved in fast circles, and soon she felt a wonderful shimmer inside, building up higher, and she strained against him.
He shifted then, slowly, with purpose, and she thought he was finally going to leave her body. He didn't. He edged back into her, in eternal inches, then slowly out, his finger stroking and flicking against her the whole time. The pain subsided, and only deep pressure remained, pressure and a shimmer of something that grew and grew.
Soon, the more he thrust, the stronger the glow within her, the more it spread until it didn't matter that he no longer used his finger because each long stroke of him inside her was pushing her closer to the edge of something so wonderful she begged to touch it for even one brief instant.