The Duke Takes a Bride (Entitled Book 2) (11 page)

J
ulian had
slept the day away. When he woke up, he remembered that he had forgotten to call Maggie. There was a text from her: Talked to Genie. Glad you’re better. Will be in L.A. soon.

He bolted out of bed. He didn’t bother with a shirt. He had to talk to Imogen ASAP. Maggie had the habit of turning up when least expected. He found her in her bedroom, sketching.

“Hi,” he said, halting by the doorway, all at once stumped with what he wanted to say now that he was in front of her.

“Hi,” she said, looking up from her sketchbook. She replaced the cap of her pen and gave him a rather pensive smile. She had her hair tied in a single braid.

The braid prompted a flashback of a young Imogen, crying desperately, trying to get back the sketchbook from his brother. The consequences of that unfortunate day had worsened the uneasy relationship that he and Gray had.

“Were you able to get everything we needed?”

She nodded. “I placed the change in your study. You gave me more than was necessary.”

He leaned against the door post. “I just wanted to make sure you got everything we needed.”

“I did.”

“Something smells good.”

“I’m making pot roast. I discovered you had a slow cooker.” She smiled hesitantly, and Julian felt a strange, tightening sensation in his chest. “I lifted the recipe off the Internet so you’re to be the guinea pig.”

“Feel free to experiment on me anytime.”

Her shoulders became taut and she averted her gaze. “It will be ready in thirty minutes.”

It was a subtle signal of dismissal, but Julian was on a mission and he wasn’t retreating. He advanced into the room and hovered by the foot of the bed. “What are you drawing?”

She shrugged. “Just doodling for an idea I have.”

“Can I see it?” He rounded the corner and sat beside her on the bed.

She handed him the sketchpad. It was open to a page filled with rough, unfinished strokes of a fish with big, protruding eyes and a huge belly.

“It’s Clark.” She had captured the essence of the goldfish perfectly. “It’s very good.”

“I was hoping to write a story and illustrate it myself. I’ve always wanted to do it−” she broke off, embarrassed, and took the sketchbook back.

“Tell me about it.”

“It’s just a silly story.”

Julian quirked an eyebrow. “All the more reason I want to hear it, then. I like silly stories.” He noted that Imogen edged a few inches away from him when she took back the sketchbook.

“Oh, okay,” she said grudgingly, and Julian bit back a smile. “It’s about a Black Moor goldfish who was insecure because he wasn’t gold or orange or pearly like the others.” She ran her fingers down the spine of the notebook, back and forth in a hypnotic rhythm, and Julian felt like it was his spine she was stroking.

“The other goldfish kept teasing him and he was very unhappy. One day, little patches of gold started appearing on his scales. Strangely, some of the goldfish in the tank started dying, too. The goldfish owner was alerted that something was wrong because of the change in the Black Moor’s dark, velvety scales. This led him to investigate. He found out that the acidity of the water had changed. The owner treated the water. Once he did, the fish stopped dying but the Black Moor turned back to black. He lost his patches of gold, but he was okay with that. Because he was different, he was able to save the other goldfish.”

She took a peek at him, as if she was making sure she hadn’t lost him. She turned away immediately; he hadn’t taken his eyes off her since she had started her story.

“He realized it was not his outer scales that was important but who he was inside. In his heart he remained golden, and that was what really mattered.”

She looked again at him askance, and she startled visibly when she found he was closer than she had expected. Her eyes were at a level with his lips. “Told you it was silly.” She sounded a bit out of breath.

Julian placed a finger under her chin and tipped it up. “It’s beautiful.”
You’re beautiful.
The vulnerability and yearning in her eyes made him ache.
Ask her now, you dolt.
But her lips were pink and he wanted to check if they felt just as soft as he remembered. Desire slammed into him full force. Fuck, but he was going to make things really complicated.

Again.

With Imogen, he found it hard to care if things got messy. In fact, he was craving it. He yearned for the delicious, dangerous loss of control he once felt with her. “I’m going to kiss you, Genie.”

Her pupils widened.

Julian thought he heard her mutter “just this once” under her breath. She inhaled deeply as if bracing herself and said, “Okay.” Then she closed her eyes and waited.

Julian meant to go slow, but the second his lips touched her full, soft ones, he was lost. She smelled of soap and nothing else. He coaxed her mouth open with small licks on her lips and he drove into her with restrained hunger, his hands cupping her head to bring her closer, deeper. Just a raw mating of tongues, teeth, and lips. Dimly it registered on him that Imogen wasn’t touching him. He blindly reached for her hands, not breaking off the kiss, yanked them towards him, and placed them around his waist. Her weight teetered them off-balance and they fell back on to the bed ungracefully.

Imogen yelped into his mouth. Julian broke off the kiss. She wriggled, arching her back to remove the sketchbook, its spring binding digging into her skin. “Sorry,” she muttered.

The action brought the tips of her breasts directly against his bare chest. An arrow of lust shot to his groin. “I’m not.”

Her eyes were languid brown pools.

“I’m going to kiss your breasts, Genie.”

She shuddered. “Okay.”

Julian raised her thin, ratty shirt up to her neck, frowned, pulled it down again, and grasped the edges with both hands then tore it right in the middle.

“That was my favorite shirt.” She didn’t look mad, though, merely bemused.

“The rags Mrs. Nero uses in the kitchen look better. I’ll buy you a new one.”

“I like my old one. When it’s thinned out, it feels comfortable.”

“The only thing your ratty shirts have going for them is I can see the outline of your nipples when you’re not wearing your bra.”

“While you don’t own any ratty shirts at all because you go around the condo without them all the time.” She gave a pointed look at his bare chest.

“Shut up and put out, Imogen.”

What the hell was he doing seducing Imogen with sex? He was supposed to talk to her first. Present his case. But he found out he couldn’t wait. His good sense had flown out the window, like her shirts would if he had any say in the matter.

His hands were trembling. She was wearing a cherry-printed bra and he reached behind her to unclasp it, but she stopped him. She undid the clasp herself in front.

“Putting out, Your Grace.” Bloody hell. She was all sass and sweetness.

He was supposed to ask her something first, but all coherent thought fled his brain as soon as he glimpsed her breasts. He stilled, his weight braced on his forearms as he looked his fill. Breasts that had no right tormenting him in his dreams.

He took one hard bud in his mouth and nearly came as she moaned and tugged at his hair. Julian didn’t know how long he nipped, suckled, and plumped up her lush mounds, so lost was he and aroused by the sexy gasps and cries that filled the room. He was not going to last long at this rate. He lifted his head and his breath seized at the passion-drugged expression on her face.

“I’m going to kiss you between your legs now, Genie.”

Her thighs trembled. “Just shut up and deliver, Your Grace.”

Oh, damn right he would. Julian stripped off her jeans impatiently. Her knickers were a serviceable white cotton and it made him unbelievably harder. He divested it efficiently. He gripped her thighs, parted them, slid a finger in, and located her sweet spot. She threw her head back and bit her lip, trying to stop herself from making any sound.

“Let go, darling. I need to hear how you want it.”

“Oh God, Julian,” she gasped. “It’s too much.”

He pinned her with a heavy-lidded stare. “There’s more, Genie,” he said before he bent his head and his tongue joined his finger. She bucked and he laid a hand on her gently rounded belly to pin her down and take the pleasure he was giving her. He saw her hands fisting on the covers. Her breathing was growing labored and she was making small mewling sounds. She was close. With a flick of wrist and tongue, she arched off the bed and became undone.

“Don’t move.”

“I can’t even lift my finger,” she said weakly.

Julian went to his room to get protection and was back in her room in a flash. He was so hard his fingers shook slightly as he tore the foil packet. Imogen was watching him wide-eyed, her jaw slack as he tried to sheath himself. “Imogen,” he gritted out, “you’re not making this easy. Could you look away for a moment?”

He caught the flash of hurt on her face. “I’m so goddamn ready to burst. You watching me is not helping my self-control.”

Mollified, she turned her head away. A few seconds later, he was covering her body with his. He felt her grow taut against his shaft.

“Genie,” he said, and she turned her face to him. “I promise to make it good this time, alright? Trust me.”

She nodded and drew his head down for a brief kiss. “It’s not supposed to hurt the second time around, right?” she said with what sounded like forced conviction.

Second time?
He was already poised to enter her when her words penetrated his sexual haze. He knew his mouth was working, but it took several tries to manage to get the words out. “When you say the second time, you mean the second time around with me, right?” Alarm filled him even before she confirmed his suspicion.

“Er,” she hesitated, peering at him under her long lashes, “it’s second time around in general.”

He reared back in shock, bracing his hands on his forearms. Her second time. Ever.

Julian took a moment to wrap his brain around this fact and then white hot possessiveness streaked through his gut.
Mine alone,
he wanted to crow. He didn’t even want to examine that dark, perverse gratification he felt for being the only man who had ever touched her. And then the logical, sane part of his mind reasserted itself. Hell, she had probably been so traumatized by her initiation to sex she hadn’t been able to engage in intimacies with other men. That was the reason. He flopped beside her and stared at the ceiling bleakly. How could he have forgotten what an arse he had been that night?

He felt her slipping her hand into his. He turned to her and saw her smiling, a wobbly little smile filled with encouragement directed at him. Full of trust for someone who was probably going to hurt her again. A tight knot formed in his chest.

A finger stroked his palm. He felt the knot easing, unraveling. Before it could be fully untangled, he had Imogen under him again in one smooth and sudden movement.

“You can’t back out on your promise, Your Grace,” she said, her eyes dark and luminous. “You did promise to make it good this time.”

“I lied,” he whispered as she gazed up at him uncertainly. “I’m going to make it spectacular.”

F
ireworks exploded
. Multiple times. Imogen swore she heard Beethoven’s Ode to Joy that last time she almost blacked out. And still Julian held back.

“Get on with it,” she demanded, limp as a noodle. “Are you waiting for me to go into a coma?”

“All good things come to those who wait,” he grinned between her legs. His hair was in total disarray. A girl had to have something to hang onto in the grip of such an explosive release, after all.

Imogen’s heart, already overworked, threatened to up and die at that grin. “I say carpe diem−” Before she could finish what she had been about to say, he rose above her with one graceful movement and sheathed himself inside her.

Her initial gasp finished on a throaty moan.

“Am I hurting you?” he rasped, not moving. His weight was resting on the arms flanking her head.

She tilted her hips up experimentally, letting him slide deeper.

“Fuck,” he ground out the same time she cried, “Oh God.” He whitened around the mouth, misinterpreting her, and began to withdraw.

Imogen clamped her hands on each of his butt cheek and held on tight. “You are not going anywhere, Your Grace.”

His laugh sounded strained. “Looks like I have no choice.” He thrust back inside her and sat on his haunches. He hooked her thighs over his and nudged them farther apart, moving in a slow, sinuous rhythm, palming her breasts and rolling her nipples between his fingers. Imogen saw him observing her and she knew he was gauging her reaction, whether he was hurting her.

“Good?” he said in a sexy drawl.

“Mmm,” she replied, barely coherent as he started paying attention to that little spot between her legs, flicking it in time with his increasing thrusts.

“If you could only see yourself now,” he murmured. “I can’t wait anymore.” He slammed into her, and Imogen cried out at the delicious sensation of being invaded so deep and so full. She wrapped her legs around his waist and grabbed his arms as he rode her faster, harder, and deeper. She could hear the wet, slick sounds their bodies made, smell the earthy scent of sex. And then she felt it coming. Another one. She grabbed the sheets as her torso bucked off the bed, and she gave a keening cry followed by a grunt as Julian’s face contorted into a rictus of pleasure and pain. He collapsed on top of her, his chest heaving, careful not to crush her. He didn’t speak and Imogen grew worried.

“Julian?”

He pulled away and rolled to one side of the bed, his eyes squeezed shut. He pressed his temples with a thumb and middle finger.

“What is it?” Did he relapse? They probably shouldn’t have had sex while he was still recovering.

“Just a headache.” His eyes popped open and then that slow, sexy smile broke out. “It’s better now.”

She sighed in relief. “Now that’s what you call mind-blowing sex.”

Julian laughed, drew her into his arms, and flung a leg over her hip. He had sufficiently recovered indeed that he was able to repeat his performance several times during the night. Imogen drifted off to sleep, wearing an exhausted but satisfied smile on her lips.