Any Duchess Will Do (21 page)

He positioned himself at her entrance and thrust.

When their bodies joined, she cried out—but not in pain. Despite the hurried foreplay, she was ready for him. She’d been ready for days, and waiting on this sensation for years. The size and heat of him were formidable, but she welcomed both feelings. The fullness. The searing pleasure.

At last, she was with Griff. Beneath him, around him, holding him, kissing him, stroking his hair and shoulders.

At last, this was how a man made love—not a fumbling youth, but a proper man. One who understood not only what he wanted, but what she wanted as well. He loved her in a smooth, powerful rhythm, delving a little deeper with every stroke. Just when she thought there couldn’t be more of him to take, he proved her wrong.

At last, his pelvis met hers. He was fully buried inside her. She was stretched to her limits. The tension burned like the sweetest fire.

He lowered his body to hers, and her breasts flattened beneath his chest. Their heartbeats sparred, punching back and forth like pugilists. He began a slow, steady roll of his hips. His firmness slid in and out of her in cautious increments, teasing whorls of pleasure from her center and spreading bliss throughout her body.

He stared into her eyes, looking strangely bewildered. “This is . . . This is good, Simms. I’m no stranger to pleasure, but this is . . .
good
.”

“You did say it’s been a long time for you.”

He nodded. “Months and months. And you?”

“Oh, ages. Years.”

He paused mid-stroke. “I suppose that must be it.”

He bent to kiss her, moaning against her lips as he eased forward. She clutched at his shoulders and back, trying to urge him faster. Deeper. Wilder. She felt sure he wasn’t the sort of man to make sweet, careful love.

“Griff,” she pleaded.

He paused. “I don’t want to hurt you. I’m trying to be gentle.”

She pushed against him just enough that she could meet his gaze. “Just be you. I want you.”

Something feral sparked in his eyes. He rose up on his arms and dug his knees into the mattress, thrusting hard.

“Yes,” she gasped, thrilled by his strength. “Again. More.”

He gave her again. He gave her more. He gave her stroke after stroke of pounding bliss, and she was utterly laid waste.

This was raw, primal sensuality, but the emotions were what made her ache. He could be teasing and nonchalant with words. But each pummeling thrust was a confession of just how much he desired her, how desperately he wanted this—with every muscle in his body, every pulse of his blood.

Oh, and the intensity in his dark, captivating eyes . . . it turned her inside out. She was exposed, vulnerable in the face of such bald determination. He would hold nothing back in pursuit of this pleasure. He would give her everything he had.

She lifted her arms overhead and braced her hands against the headboard, pushing back at him with everything
she
had.

“That’s right,” he grunted, never breaking pace. “Move with me.”

Her body arced off the bed as she strained to meet his thrusts. Their joining verged on painful, but she was beyond any such cares. She couldn’t take him deep enough, couldn’t stretch tautly enough around the smooth, hard curve of his cock.

The contrasts were exquisite. The two of them rutting like beasts amid all the embroidered pillows and clouds of discarded petticoats. The helplessness of her splayed posture beneath him only added to the surge of sensual power she felt. When she wrapped her stockinged leg over his hips, sliding the silk across his bare thigh, he gave a fierce, primitive growl.

He was so animal and so elegant . . . and so powerfully arousing, she couldn’t possibly last.

With every stroke, his body rubbed hers in just the right place. Her head rolled back and her eyes squeezed shut. She felt the pleasure building, drawing tight all through her body. Release was so close.

He groaned deep in his chest, and the sound sent worry shooting through her. Perhaps release was close for him, too.

They hadn’t discussed what would happen at the end. The anxiety was enough to drag her back from the edge.

“Let go,” he said.

She opened her eyes. He was looking down at her, his face a mask of resolve. His rhythm never faltered for an instant.

“I have you. Just let go.”

And that was when she realized . . . he wouldn’t stop until she reached her peak. He just wouldn’t. He would stroke on. And on. And on for hours, if she needed it. Plowing his hardness into her over and over again, just as many times as it took to reduce her to quaking, shuddering bliss.

This man would not be denied.

“I have you.” His whispered words were hoarse. “I have you now.”

He covered her hands with his, pinning them to the bed. And she let go. Her arms went limp and her hips thrashed beneath his. Little sobs began to escape her as each thrust drove home.

Through it all, she stared into his eyes, unable to look away. Those dark eyes were her anchor.

“Come. For the love of God. Come, Pauline.”

Hearing her name from his lips . . . it undid her. Because it let her know this was for her. All this heroic, erotic effort was for her.

Her crisis broke, rocking her with waves of keenest pleasure. The climax went on and on—battering her, body and soul, with fierce, unparalleled joy.

He slid back on his haunches and took her by the waist, lifting her body with those powerful arms.

“Griff . . .” she whispered, hoping she wouldn’t need to say more.

“I know.” He grimaced with pleasure. With a growl and a desperate jerk of his hips, he withdrew and spent himself somewhere in all those folds of sheets and petticoats.

Afterward, he collapsed beside her on the bed, perspiring and working for breath. They lay that way for several minutes, staring wordlessly up at the bed’s canopy and struggling for air.

What now? she wondered. Perhaps now that his desire was slaked, he would feel regret. Perhaps whatever emotions he’d imagined he had for her were obliterated by the force of his climax.

The longer they lay there, side by side but not embracing, the more anxious she became.

She’d known this couldn’t last beyond the week. But was it already over?

Finally, with a soft groan, he put an arm about her. “Come here.” He rolled her close and pressed a tender kiss to the crown of her head.

She couldn’t help it. She wept with relief.

He pulled her tight, tucking her head to his chest and guarding her with his body. He didn’t try to stop her weeping, didn’t chide her for nonsensical tears. He just allowed her to have her feelings, and he held her all the while. As though he understood that all other men had failed her in this one simple way, and he was determined to make it right.

After some time, she laid her head on his chest. “I’d only been with one other man before you. Errol Bright, the shopkeeper’s oldest son. He said he loved me. He said a lot of things, and made a great many promises he never saw through.” Her face pinched in embarrassment. “I’m just telling you this because I don’t want you to think I’m expecting more. I don’t want promises from you, Griff. But I hope you understand that I don’t do this often, or with just any man. Even if it’s only this once, it means something to me.”

Her head rose and fell as he took a slow, deep breath. His hand found hers and clasped it. “Pauline? Please believe I say this in all sincerity. I am honored.”

Her breath rushed out in a relieved sigh. She didn’t know what she’d been hoping to hear—but what he’d said was even better. There was a ring of newness in those words:
I am honored.
Somehow, she doubted he’d spoken them to a woman before. Not in bed, at least.

She turned in his embrace, skimming a possessive touch over his chest. He groaned in encouragement. She loved that she could be free to touch him now, explore him everywhere.

Her fingers found the red, not-quite-healed slash on his biceps, and she traced it. “Are you in pain?”

“No, not . . . not there.”

His words had the deep resonance of a confession. She treasured those two syllables of raw honesty.

“Is it this?” she asked, touching the small bruise on his cheek from where she’d punched him yesterday.

“No.”

“Somewhere else, then.” She dropped her hand to his bare chest, covering his thudding heart. “Somewhere deep inside. You’re hurting.”

He nodded. “Like the devil.”

Her curiosity was intense, but she resisted the urge to press him for explanations or details. He’d trusted her with this much. Perhaps he would trust her with more, in time.

“Can I kiss it better?” She gave him a playful smile.

“I don’t think so.” He thoughtfully brushed a lock of hair from her face. The glint in his eyes went from wounded to wicked. “But I could be persuaded to lie very still while you exhaust yourself in the attempt.”

Chapter Nineteen

I
n another hour’s time they’d exhausted each other.

Griff stroked her hair, forcing himself to relax and surrender to the simple pleasure of being kissed. Her lips touched his chest, his shoulders, his neck, his belly. She was as thorough as she was sweet, covering every inch of him with tender brushes of her lips. She didn’t manage to heal all his deepest, darkest wounds with her attentions—but she made his mind go blank, which was almost as good.

And when her tongue traced a path from his navel downward, he reached a breaking point.

“I need you again.” He took her by the waist and lifted her above him, trapping his hard, aching cock at the apex of her cleft. “Take it in your hand. Guide me in.”

If she felt any trepidation at his bold request, she didn’t show it.

A rosy flush bloomed over her chest as she reached between them. She held him in place as he moved her slowly down, lowering her heat to envelop his full length.

She fit him like a well-made glove, hugging him tight as he guided her up and down, teaching her how to ride him.

Clever girl that she was, she caught the spirit and rhythm of it soon enough. Her palms braced flat against his chest, pinning him to the bed. Her thighs flexed as she dragged herself up and down. Those pert, delicious breasts bounced and swayed. If he’d ever beheld a more erotic view, he couldn’t recall it.

“Simms.”

She moaned, lost in pleasure.

“Simms,” he said again.

Her eyes opened, drowsy and heavy-lidded as she looked down at him.

“How long has it been since you last made love?”

She bit her lip. “Twenty minutes?”

“Right. Same for me. Give or take thirty seconds.”

Laughing, she braced her hands on his chest. “Why do you ask?”

“Because the first time was shockingly good.” He guided her up and down again. “But this . . . this is extraordinary. Even better. I’m trying to understand. It can’t merely be the long drought, can it?”

“Do you always talk this much while making love?”

He shook his head. “No. That’s different, too. Everything is different with you.”

Tighter, sleeker, hotter, wetter, sweeter. Not dreamlike or perfect, just more real. And so damn good, he feared hurting them both in that mad, frantic race to the end.

He struggled to a sitting position. It wasn’t enough to watch. He wanted to feel her breasts’ softness and heat caressing his bare chest. Cushioning the mad beat of his heart.

He wanted to kiss her as he made love to her.

He brought her close, guiding her legs over his hips and locking her ankles at the small of his back.

With one arm wrapped tight about her waist, he guided her in a brisk rhythm. He worked the other hand between them and pressed his thumb to her pearl, working the nub in small, tight circles until she seized and shuddered in his arms.

And he didn’t stop. There would be no laziness with her, no half measures. This woman was going to get his best. He kept up the same attentions, kissing her neck and murmuring words of praise against her ear until she reached another, more devastating peak.

“Oh,” she whimpered in the aftermath, clinging to his neck. “Oh, Griff. Oh, God.”

Her words made him
feel
like a god. Or at least a demigod. A pagan, rutting, immortal being of pleasure.

He would have tried to bring her to a third crisis, but the clasping heat of her sex had pulled him too close to the edge. He lifted her off his cock, and she reached between them to encircle his erection with her small, delicate hand.

“Like this,” he said, demonstrating.

She followed his lead. “This?”

“Ah. Yes.”

Her grip was gentle, but strong. Her thumb rubbed perfectly along the sensitive underside of his shaft, and with each tug, his crown grazed the silky slope of her belly. He threw his head back in surrender, clutching at the twisted sheets. Within moments she had him gasping, growling—and spilling over her fingers in hot, forceful jets.

She smiled, looking very pleased with herself.

He was pleased with her, too. So damned pleased, there seemed no room for any other emotion in his heart. In his life.

And it couldn’t last. It couldn’t last.

God, he didn’t know how he’d ever let her go.

So he kissed her instead, wrapping his arms about her torso to haul her close. Using their closeness to conceal his weakness.

After lazy, lovely minutes of deep, languid kissing, she sighed against his lips. “I should leave.”

“No.” He gripped her tight. “No, no, no. Not yet.”

“I can’t risk falling asleep. You know I must go to my room. We can’t be found here together. The servants . . .”

He shook his head. “The servants are servants. Who cares what they think?”

She pulled back and blinked at him.

He winced. “I beg you. Pretend I didn’t say that. Or at least pretend you didn’t hear it.”

“Never mind.” Moving off his lap, she reached for her discarded chemise. After untangling the shift, she slipped it over her head and pushed her arms through the cap sleeves. “I don’t want to quarrel.”

“Well, that’s a new development.” He tugged at his ear.

“I just don’t want to waste what we have.”

“What is it we have?”

She held his gaze. “A few days,” she said quietly. “And a few more nights together. That’s assuming we’re not discovered tonight.”

He would have liked to argue the point, but in the end he couldn’t. “I’ll see you back to your bedchamber.”

“No, stay. Rest.” She pushed him back against the bed with a hand to his shoulder and a firm kiss to his brow. “I won’t get lost in the corridors this time.”

She gathered her discarded gown and stockings into a bundle, then made her way toward the side door—the one that opened onto his dressing room.

“Are these rooms all connected?” she asked. “If I slip from one to the next, I won’t have to travel so much of the corridor. I’ll be much less likely to be seen.”

He nodded, suddenly drowsy. She’d sapped him of everything. “Yes, they’re connected.”

She plucked a candlestick from the night table, then headed through the dressing room.

He lay back, listening. He heard her opening the door that led from the dressing room to his personal sitting room. From there, she could slip out into the corridor or cross into—

Oh, Christ.

“Wait.” He launched from the bed, stumbling into his trousers in pursuit. As he dashed through the dressing room, he snagged a fresh shirt from a hook. “Wait, Pauline. Don’t—”

Too late.

“I didn’t mean to,” she said, standing in the center of the room.

The
room.

“I’m sorry. I truly didn’t mean to invade your . . .” She swallowed hard. “ . . . your privacy.”

He rubbed his neck with one hand. No getting around it now. He’d have to face this at last. He was seized by the terrible lightness of inevitability. The sense of just having jumped off a cliff.

“Did you paint all these?” she asked, holding the candlestick aloft. “They’re, uh . . . they’re lovely.”

“No, I didn’t paint them.”

“Oh. Good. I mean, not that there’s something wrong with a grown man painting a room with rainbows and ponies. They are quite nice rainbows and ponies.”

“Do you truly think so?” He crossed his arms and leaned against the wall.

“Oh. Yes. How could I not? They’re . . . why, on this wall they’re frolicking, aren’t they? Just look at them, frolicking and—” She swallowed hard. “—prancing.”

Good Lord. She was utterly flummoxed, trying to find some way not to give offense. For no particular reason, she was valiantly striving to spare his feelings. Making a hash of it, but the thought was sweet.

“I so admire the way this one’s mane is rippling in the breeze. Quite majestic.” Her head tilted to the side. “In the meadow, are those buttercups?”

He couldn’t hold back any longer. He laughed. It felt good to laugh in this room. It was a place he’d planned to fill with smiles and laughter, but God had taken all his careful plans and torn them to shreds.

“The ponies are ridiculous,” he admitted. “The artist who painted them specialized in portraits of Arabian racehorses. His patron owed me a gambling debt, so I engaged his services for this room. He got rather carried away.”

“And what do you do in here?” she asked.

“Not much of anything. It was never finished, as you see.” He waved toward the blank southern wall. “The decor wasn’t intended to please me. It was meant to appeal to feminine tastes.”

Her expression battened. “Oh. I see. So you planned to move a woman into your house. Into your suite. A woman who likes rainbows and ponies.”

He rather liked the obvious envy in her tone, and he might have teased it out a bit longer—had the truth been any different.

“Not a woman, Pauline. A little girl.” A knot formed in his throat, and he cleared it with an impatient cough. “My little girl.”

P
auline watched him closely for any signs of teasing. She found none.

“You have a daughter?” she asked.

“No. Yes.”

“Which is it?”

“I . . .
had
a daughter. She died in infancy.”

Her breath left her. She’d known something was weighing on him, but she’d never imagined this. He’d lost a child? The other day at the Foundling Hospital—of course the atmosphere had rattled him. It wasn’t any wonder he’d wanted to leave. And then to have that baby thrust in his arms . . .

The poor man. How the landslide must have flattened him. She’d been so insensitive without even realizing.

“Oh, Griff. I’m sorry. So, so sorry.”

He shrugged. “Such things happen.”

“Perhaps. But that doesn’t make them any less sad.”

She wanted to go to him. But when she took a step in his direction, he began to pace the room, evasive.

“Anyway, that’s why the room was never completed.” He walked about the perimeter of the chamber, stopping at the window. “Never got around to installing the nursery grate. There wasn’t time.”

“Your mother has no idea?”

He shook his head. “She was in the country at the time. I’ve kept this chamber locked ever since . . . Well, ever since it became unnecessary.”

“You should tell her the truth. She’s noticed there’s something going on in here. She thinks you’re sacrificing kittens, or living out perverse fantasies.”

He chuckled. “No wonder you looked so shocked at the paintings. I can’t imagine what you must have thought.”

“I don’t really care to admit to it.” She swept another glance around the room. “So your little girl’s mother was . . .”

“My mistress,” he confirmed. “Former mistress.”

Former
mistress. Try as she might, Pauline couldn’t bring herself to express condolences on that part of things. “Did you love her?”

“No, no. It was purely physical.” He pushed a hand through his hair. “She was an opera singer, and we . . . It’s disgraceful, I know. But it’s far too easy for men of my station to get away with such arrangements. It’s just the done thing.”

“You don’t have to make excuses, Griff,” she said. “Not to me.”

“If I had any excuses, I would owe them to you first and foremost. But I don’t. We weren’t close. I saw her less and less, and I was on the verge of breaking it off entirely. Then she told me she’d conceived.”

“Were you happy to hear it?”

“I was furious. I’ve always been so careful, and she’d assured me she was careful, too.” He paced the room again. “But I accepted my responsibility. I set her up in a cottage a short ride into the country, where she could wait out her confinement. I arranged for a maid and a midwife, set aside funds to support the child. Because that’s what men of my station do, when they impregnate their mistresses.”

“It’s the done thing,” she supplied.

He nodded. “I visited her in the new cottage, to see that she was settled and to make my final assurances of support. And just as I was about to leave, she grabbed my hand . . .” He regarded the blank wall, as though the distant memory were painted there. “That alone was a shock. We never held hands. But anyhow, she grabbed my hand and plastered it flat to her belly.” He held his open hand outstretched in demonstration. “And the child—
my
child—gave me a wallop of a kick.”

He slowly brought his hand to his chest. “So strong. This little life—a life I’d helped create—declaring itself in such fierce, unspoken terms. I swear, that kick split my heart wide-open. Had me reeling for days.”

She smiled a little to herself.

“After that, I couldn’t stay away. I went back, again and again. Visited her more often than I ever had in Town, just to lay my hands on her swelling stomach. Did you know babies can get the hiccups, even in the womb?”

She shook her head no.

“I didn’t, either. But they can. I was enchanted by each little jump. I can’t even explain it. For the first time in my life I was . . .”

Falling in love,
she finished in her mind. Because he wouldn’t say it aloud, but the truth was plain. He’d fallen headlong, irretrievably in love with his own child, and in love with the idea of fatherhood. The loopy joy of it was written all over his face—and frolicking all over the walls of this room.