Taken by the Duke (12 page)

These facts didn’t seem to trouble her. In fact, she cried out with pleasure as he took her, grinding her hips as she reached for her own release. He caught one of her hands, clenched in the bedclothes and guided it down to between her legs. As soon as her fingers found the place where their bodies merged, she began to touch herself and soon she arched her back, thrusting wildly as her orgasm milked him.

It was all too much. His seed began to move and just in time he pulled from her body and spent across her back in a hot splash of release.

He couldn’t be certain of exactly how much time had passed since the entire world seemed to be spinning wildly out of control. They simply stood together, bodies still touching. But then he looked down and saw the evidence of his animal loss of control. He reached into his pocket for a handkerchief and wiped her skin clean.

“My apologies, Ava,” he said, stepping back so that he was no longer wrapped around her so intimately. “I should not have allowed myself to do that on your skin.”

She straightened up and turned to face him. Her eyes flitted down to his cock, and he tucked himself away with a shake of his head. She frowned, but then shrugged.

“I did not mind, Christian,” she said. “I liked the feel of that heat against me since you will not disrobe.”

His lips pinched. Not many women of her position would say they liked a man’s seed splashed across their back. The fact that she smiled as she described it was nearly enough to harden his cock again.

“Christian,” she murmured, catching her lip for a brief moment before she continued. “I—I can’t help but notice you have seemed to be in pain both times we’ve…we’ve…”

He backed away from her.

“Fucked?” he barked, mostly to distance himself from her by using the most vulgar term he could think of for their encounters. But of course she had never heard the word before, and she didn’t react by flinching away.

“The accident was terrible, I know,” she continued, either not seeing or ignoring the way his jaw was tightening. “Is there anything I can—”

“I will not speak of that with you, for it is none of your business,” he snapped. “You are not here to offer me solace, comfort or a falsely friendly ear.”

Her lips parted, and a flash of hurt and anger entered her stare. “My offers are not false.”

He continued as if she had not spoken. “You are here to pay your brother’s debt and that is all. What we are doing is
fucking
, Ava. It is a vulgar term for a vulgar act. There is nothing and will never be anything more to it than that. Is that clear?”

She stood stone still for a moment, staring at him until he was almost uncomfortable from her calm expression. Then she quickly bent and picked up her discarded towel. She wrapped it around herself and bobbed out a nod.

“Yes, Your Grace. Everything is perfectly clear indeed.”

She turned away from him and paced over to the fire. He hesitated a moment, though what he would have said to her, he had no idea. Then he turned on his heel and left the room before he could apologize, kiss her or otherwise ruin any of his plans further.

Chapter Eleven

If during her first full day at Christian’s estate she had felt like a prisoner, on the second Ava felt more like an abandoned charge. After rising and dressing, once again with the help of Matilda’s former maid, Ava had gone downstairs and found a house all but deserted. She heard occasional footsteps of servants, but they disappeared before she could find them.

As for Christian, she had not seen nor heard him at all, and it was nearly time for luncheon. She had a sneaking suspicion he was locked in the big office at the end of the hallway where they had concluded their negotiations for her virginity, but the door was shut and she had not the bravery to knock after his cold dismissal the night before.

She shivered as she turned away from the intimidating door and wandered farther down the hallway. In a parlor across the way, she found a pianoforte beside a great window that overlooked the glorious grounds of the estate. With a sigh, she stepped farther inside and stared out those big, picture windows.

The gardens were well tended to and filled with blossoming flowers of seemingly every color and variety. Beyond them were rolling green hills that went on into the distance for miles. It would probably take months to explore it all, maybe even years. The idea conjured up images of pastoral bliss that called to every part of Ava, who had too long been trapped in London, with its tight quarters and dingy air. She despised it there and would leave it all behind in a breath if she had any choice in the matter.

The only thing about
this
place that troubled her was its mercurial owner.

Her hypothesis that Christian was adverse to emotional exchanges had certainly been proven last night. One attempt to offer help or friendship had been met in cutting fashion meant to put a wall up between them.

And yet the result he likely hoped for was not coming to fruition. She felt no desire to distance herself. In fact, the more he spat at her like a feral barn cat, the more she felt driven to find out what she could about him. To make him see her, and by proxy her brother, as
human
.

Hadn’t women been starting and winning wars this way for millennia?

She sighed.

“Of course, that will only work if I actually get him to talk to me,” she muttered.

“I beg your pardon, my lady?”

Ava jolted as she looked up to find the maid, Laura, standing in the doorway staring at her. She flushed with embarrassment at being caught talking to herself, especially by the one servant in the house who actually interacted with her.

“Just woolgathering,” she said, forcing a laugh. “A silly habit I’ve taken up since my brother became more distant.”

Laura’s frown deepened, but she stepped into the parlor slowly. “You know, His Grace enjoys music a great deal.”

Ava blinked, taking in those words. “Does he?”

Laura nodded. “Very much so.”

Ava stared at the pianoforte. Was it possible Laura was trying to assist her in her attempts to connect with the angry duke? She glanced at the girl, but Laura had her gaze down.

“Is there anything else you need, my lady?” Laura asked.

Ava shook her head. “No, thank you.” She smiled. “You have been very helpful, and I am grateful.”

Laura glanced up, and her thin lips were pinched in something like a smile. “Of course.”

She stepped away, leaving Ava alone again. She placed her fingers on the piano keys and began to play. At first, she merely tinkered, getting the feel of the instrument. It was out of tune, but still had a very fine sound. Finally, she began to play one of her favorite pieces.

At first, she listened for the swish of the door across the hall opening, any creak of a footstep on the floor, but soon she became caught up in the piece and lost herself to the rising swell of the music.

She was so lost, in fact, that it wasn’t until she crashed the keys in the final crowning moment of the piece that she noticed Christian standing just inside the chamber, staring at her.

She rose to her feet and jumped backward, hurtling into the piano bench and nearly depositing herself rather inelegantly onto the carpet.

“I—I didn’t see you there,” she said, lifting a hand to her pounding heart.

He arched a brow. “Clearly not. You were very wrapped up in your music.”

She nodded. “It is a favorite piece.”

“I imagine that is true, for you play it most passionately.”

“I—thank you,” she said, still reeling. She had played the music in the hopes it would bring him to her, but now that he was here, she hardly knew what to say. “It…it is a fine instrument,” she finally managed.

He didn’t answer for a moment, and his gaze shifted from her to the pianoforte. “It was my sister’s.”

Ava caught her breath and squeezed her eyes shut. How she wished Laura had told her that. His sister’s piano, and here she had been pounding away on it without any regard.

“I apologize.”

“No,” he said, stepping farther into the room. “She was a terrible musician. It has never been played so well.”

He smiled, and the expression wasn’t tight and false, nor sensual and wicked. It was…
real
. So very real and so very handsome. It took years off his stern face before he snatched it away from her and returned to his usual stony stare.

“She used to tease that I had bought her a poor instrument, which explained how awful it sounded. This demonstration proves her wrong.”

Ava stepped a little closer. He had, perhaps without meaning to…
certainly
without meaning to…offered her a glimpse into himself. Once upon a time, he had been the teasing, laughing brother. She could almost picture him here, standing by and shaking his head as Matilda played very ill before the two of them shared a conspiratorial smile.

“I should have asked you before I presumed to touch the piano,” she said softly. “If I offended you—”

He interrupted her. “No. You play beautifully. I enjoyed hearing it.”

She swallowed hard. “Then may I play again?”

He nodded. “Any time you would like. Will you do so now?”

She drew back in a surprise. “O-of course.”

Slowly, she returned to her place before the instrument. She smoothed her suddenly damp palms on the skirt of her gown and stared at the keys. After a moment’s consideration, she began to play another piece from memory. This one began much more slowly than the last.

“Did you play for many people in the past?” Christian asked, moving closer and closer with every note.

She faltered a little but continued. “Yes,” she whispered. “At a few parties and other gatherings.”

“In front of men?” he pressed, and now she felt the warmth of his body heat just at her back.

“Y-Yes, there were gentlemen in attendance,” she stammered and tried to remember the notes.

His fingers came down on her shoulders, and he began to gently massage the muscles there.

“I am shocked no man snatched you up for his bride…or his consort. There is no mistaking your utterly passionate nature when one hears you play. Those men were idiots not to long to fit themselves inside you. Of course, they probably did think of your passion, think of taking you as I have. The fact that they did not act upon those thoughts makes them even greater fools.”

Her fingers fumbled again at his pointed and seductive words. She was also taken aback at the very idea that a man might have ever thought of her in that manner.

“Is that truly what men think of when they see a woman?” she asked, her voice shaking and her fingers finding the correct notes only half the time now.

He ended his massage and instead found the top button on the back of her gown. She gasped as his warm fingers slid across the skin he exposed. He sat down on the bench beside her, his legs facing away from the piano, and unbuttoned a second button.

“It is,” he said, his breath now hot on her flesh. “I think of nothing else when I see you, hear you, smell you. Stop playing.”

Her fingers slowed and she trailed off, relieved not to have to think anymore, but now entirely focused on his touch, his breath, his heat.

He leaned into her neck, pushing tendrils of hair aside before he brushed the tender skin there with his lips. Her body twitched, out of control, at the touch and any ability she had to breathe fled in an instant.

He tugged her dress down, revealing the very top of the curve of her breast. She peeked over her shoulder toward the door, which remained partially open.

“A-anyone could see,” she whispered, her voice hardly more than a weak croak.

He nodded. “Oh yes, I suppose they could. See me drawing this gown down. See your beautiful breasts just before I lower my mouth to them.”

He did just that, sliding his tongue around her already distended nipple with maddening slowness. She shuddered as pleasure jumped with electric power through her body and settled between her legs. A slow, steady throb began there, and already she knew it would bring addictive pleasure so intense it bordered on pain.

A few days ago, she never would have guessed she’d come to crave such a thing. Now her body came alive at the thought she would soon explode—
come
—once more with this man buried deep within her aching body.

“If someone saw us,” he continued, his gravelly voice and the wicked words it spoke arousing her even more, “they would see you arching beneath my tongue, squirming as your clitoris tingles.”

She shivered. “My clitoris?”

“That little bundle of nerves I sucked between my lips, that place where my cock rubs just right and you begin to keen with pleasure.”

He grasped her skirt in his fist and tugged it up over her knees, then moved his hand beneath it and maneuvered it up between her legs, through the slit in her drawers and right to the core of her body. He slid a finger along her opening and then pressed the tip to a throbbing place right at the top of her sex.

“Here,” he murmured. “Here is your clitoris.”

“Oh God,” she moaned as he pressed against the sensitive nub. “Please don’t stop.”