The Duke's Holiday (38 page)

Astrid dropped to his side and clung to his arm, her eyes
filled with tears.

He was furious with her. “Get away from me, or you’ll fall
too!”

“No, I’ll not let go!”

“You’re not strong enough. I’ll drop down. If I gauge it
right …”

She tugged on his arm. “No! It’s too far. Come on, swing
your leg up. I’ll pull you back.”

“Damn it, Astrid, let go!”

She shook her head, a stubborn expression passing over her
face. He knew that look. A week in her company had taught him that there was no
crossing her when such a look took up residence on her face.

“Foolish woman!” he seethed, clawing his way over the edge.
She tugged his arm, falling to her backside and digging her heels into the
planking. He swung his leg up and heaved his weight forward.

For a moment, he thought he’d failed. He listed
precariously on the edge, but she seized his loosened cravat and jerked him
forward. She cut off his air supply, but other than that the move was quite
effective. He fell forward, right on top of her, knocking the air out of the
both of them.

She was all soft, warm curves beneath him, her spiraling
hair tickling his face. She smelled of lavender, horses and hay. Only his near
brush with death – or at the very least a good maiming – recalled
his floundering senses. He lifted his head and peered over the edge of the
loft.

It was a long way to the bottom.

She looked with him, grimacing.

“You nearly killed me!” he breathed. He swatted her hair
away unsuccessfully. It floated back as if it couldn’t resist torturing him.
“Do you really hate me so much?”

Her features softened. The fight went out of her. “No, I
don’t hate you,” she said in a quiet voice. “I want to, mind. I want to hate
you.” She shifted beneath him and brought her hand up to the side of his face.
She squeezed her eyes shut and turned her head away. He watched her heartbeat
flicker wildly against the delicate skin of her throat. “It would be so much
easier. But I can’t.”

His own pulse pounded through his veins, but it was no
longer on account of the danger he’d been in. He guided her hand down, over his
waistcoat, and pressed it to his heart. It was beating frantically against his
ribs, struggling to jump free of his body. “For you,” he said thickly.

Her eyes opened wide, a mixture of fear and what he was
certain was desire crowding her expression.

He could restrain himself no longer. He bent his head down
and brushed his mouth over hers.

She sighed and for a moment went limp beneath him. Then in
the next instant she sprang away from him, sliding back into the pile of hay
behind her, trembling, her breath coming in gasps. Hay tangled through her
fallen hair and drifted through the air between them, glinting in the sunlight that
drifted in through the slats in the walls.

He had lost his mind to think this was the happiest moment
of his life, but it was. He could think of no finer moment in all of his years
than the present one, aching, disheveled, and up a hayloft with no way down, in
the middle of bloody Yorkshire.

He came up on his knees and pulled off his cravat. Then he
tore off his jacket and began on the buttons of his waistcoat. He yanked his
arms free of that and fumbled with the ties of his lawnshirt.

Her eyes were as wide as saucers. “What do you think you’re
doing?”

“Seducing you. What does it look like?”

Her fingers tightened around clumps of hay, her jaw
clenched. “Put your clothes back on.”

“Make me,” he said mildly, flicking the buttons at his sleeves.

“I’m warning you, I’ll push you over the edge yet, if you
don’t stop this nonsense.”

“You could try.”

She looked ready to do him murder. “I’ll scream.”

“No you won’t.”

She attempted to push herself further into the hay, as if
she could disappear into it. She shut her eyes, then almost immediately cracked
one open to watch him. She couldn’t seem to help herself.

He tugged the tails of his lawnshirt free and pulled it
over his head. He held it in one hand for a moment, then let it fall away. She
gasped. He knelt before her, naked from the waist up. Her eyes flicked over his
body, her cheeks darkening with a fierce blush. She licked her lips and tried
to speak. No sound came out.

He thought for one awful moment she would reject him, and
he would be worse than humiliated. He didn’t think he could survive if she did
such a thing.

That night in the drawing room, when he had so lost his
head and nearly taken her against a desk, he had pulled back out of fear. The
power she could wield over him if he succumbed was unfathomable. Something
about her – something beyond the physical – pulled at him, demanded
its pound of flesh. He could not let her go, and only now he realized why.

She had already taken that part of him he feared, and he’d
never have it back from her. He’d never be whole again without her.

No, that wasn’t true. He’d never been whole to begin with,
which was much, much worse. He’d found something in Astrid Honeywell, of all
people on earth, that filled the emptiness inside, the hunger he’d always felt
without even knowing it. It was terrifying and exhilarating, and he’d never
understand it. He’d never understand
her
.

She raised her quixotic eyes to his own, and they were
filled with resignation and something else that made his blood run south.

“This is so unfair,” she murmured, then she launched
herself from the pile of hay and threw herself at him. She caught him off
guard. She wrapped her arms and legs around him and kissed him of her own
accord, clumsily, roughly, and without pretense. She stroked her arms down his
aching back, and he cried out, setting her from him.

“Easy, for God’s sake.”

“Oh, I’ll not make this easy for you, Montford,” she said
against his mouth.

He laughed hysterically. This was much better – and
much worse – than he could have envisioned.

She smiled up at him wickedly. “Got more than you bargained
for?”

“I never bargain. And I always get what I want.”

“So do I,” she countered. She tugged his head down and
kissed him hard again. She attempted to retreat, but he caught her by the nape
of the neck and held her in place. He took his time kissing her this round,
exploring her with his tongue, willing her to kiss him back, though she shifted
impatiently against him. But he would not be rushed. He wanted to savor every
moment of this, but more than that, he wanted her to savor it as well. He’d
make
her savor it, damn her eyes.

“Montford,” she murmured, her mouth opening beneath his,
taking him inside. Her iron grip on his shoulders eased. She raised her hands
to his face, stroked his cheeks with a tenderness that left him completely at
sea.

She clung to him as he pressed her back into the hay,
settling his weight between her legs. His hands moved down her body, over the
swell of breasts and hips and thighs. She was soft and burning with heat. He
buried his nose in her hair and inhaled her scent, drowning in it.

He fumbled with the buttons on her shirt, tore apart the
fabric in the end. He stripped away the garment, exposing her naked flesh. He’d
seen paintings of luxurious, fertile Renaissance Madonnas before. Indeed, he
collected such masterpieces and displayed them at one or other of his
residences. He thought of them as he looked upon Astrid’s naked body, and how
they paled in comparison to her magnificent voluptuousness. She was creamy
white, the freckles fading out at her shoulders, though he spied one or two in
unusual places he intended to explore at length. Her stomach was rounded, like
the rest of her lush body, and rising and falling with her haggard breath. Her
breasts were full and rose-tipped, quivering. They hardened to points under his
touch. He hardened as well. He wanted her so much he wasn’t sure he could last
another second.

He stopped thinking about the history of art at that point.
He stopped thinking at all and knew only sensation, the itching need to join
himself to this woman, the friction of their skin, the pant of their breaths
growing faster, louder with every intake of air. His world was reduced to a
pair of lush female breasts, undulating with the nervous rise and fall of her
chest. Breasts that had tormented him for what felt like eons.

He lowered his head and took one of those glorious peaks in
his mouth. She arched beneath him and moaned. “What are you doing?” she cried.

He didn’t answer her absurd question. He cupped her other
breast in his hand as he continued to suckle her, squeezing the fullness
between his fingers, a groan escaping from deep inside his body. Her skin was
salty and lavender scented, and softer than silk. He wanted to sink into her
and never surface again. He shifted his head to the other breast, flicking her
nipple with his tongue, and she dug her hands into his hair, pulling him
closer.

His hand left her breast, traveled down her stomach, to the
fall of her trousers. He jerked the buttons free and slipped a hand inside,
feeling the crinkle of hair and the soft dewy warmth between her legs. She was
already aroused. She pushed against his hand urgently, instinctively, nearly
unmanning him. He tried to pull back, to do something to rein himself in, but
he was adrift in a sea of lust so fierce he feared he would drown. It had
never
been like this before, so
unreasonable.

“Oh God, Astrid. Astrid, I am lost,” he murmured.

She tugged his hair, but the sting of this gesture did
nothing to dampen his ardor. His fingers stroked her, and she arched against
him like some feral creature. “For God’s sake, Montford … please! Please do
something! It is unbearable,” she hissed. Her hand came down over the front of
his breeches, cupping the length of him. “Tell me what to do,” she cried.

This got his attention.

Things were moving too fast, he decided in a burst of
clarity. He’d not let her drive him to spill himself as he’d done upon that
blasted horse. He had some amount of self-respect left. No, he planned to be
buried inside of her, with her screaming his name, when he came again.

Sooner, rather than later. He threw her hand away before he
exploded and jerked her trousers down her legs. He managed to get one of her
feet free before he made the mistake of looking down at her.

Sweet, merciful, God in heaven. He was a believer now.

She had red hair.
Everywhere
.

She stared at him urgently, confusedly, seeing the pain in
his expression. “What are you doing now?” she asked with a touch of worry in
her voice.

He could not speak. He groaned, then pushed her legs apart
and lowered his head, claiming her with his mouth.

She stiffened underneath him, not understanding, until his
tongue tasted her. “Oh, Good Lord!” she groaned, melting.

She tasted salty sweet, her flesh smooth and slick. Her red
corkscrew hair, heavy with her scent, tickled his nose and drove him to the
brink. He felt her begin to fall apart, her body trembling, her fingers
wrenching his hair. He broke away from her with effort, some cruel part of him
enjoying tormenting her. And he wanted to see her face. He
needed
to. He came over her body.

She stared at him, wild-eyed, her cheeks pink, and his
heart flipped over. “What have you done?” she breathed.

She asked far too many questions.

“Kiss you?” he offered. He brought his lips down upon hers,
letting her taste what he had. He kissed her and kissed her until they were
both insensible. “I could kiss you. Everywhere.”

“So it would seem,” she managed.

“You are
red
,” he
said, sliding his hand back between her thighs, staring down at her in wonder.

“Stop being an idiot!” she cried, burying her head in the
crook of his neck, clinging to him. She was mortified, he realized. And he
liked it. He liked it even more when she bit his shoulder hard, reached down of
her own accord, and undid the buttons of his breeches. She glanced down between
their bodies, and it was her turn for her eyes to widen at the sight of his
cock. She touched the tip of him tentatively.

He laughed wildly, then he groaned, as her hand closed around
him. “Don’t,” he warned, his voice strangling.

“Why?” she asked with an innocent expression. “Don’t you
like it?”

“You’re going to kill me yet,” he grit out.

“I told you, I’ll not make this easy for you,” she said.

He captured her hands above her head and lowered himself so
they were flesh to flesh. “Stop talking,” he commanded, before kissing her
senseless once more. His hands ran down her side, molding her flesh, curving
over her backside, pulling her up to him, until no air was left between them.

She wrapped her soft, rounded body around him without any
instruction, opening herself up to him, like a flower to the sun. She was
radiating heat, damp, sweet. His heart thundered, his body shuddered, and his
skin broke out in a cold sweat as he guided himself inside of her. He tried to
go slow, but she wouldn’t let him. She was frightening in her ardor. She rose
up to meet him, and he slid all the way inside of her almost by accident.

“Damn it, Astrid,” he breathed, clenching his teeth.

He felt her gasp of pain against his throat, and her
fingers dig into the flesh of his back as she tried to absorb the shock. He was
relieved and ashamed all at once. And so caught up in his lust that nothing
else mattered but finishing what he started. She was so hot, so tight. It was
killing him to remain still.

“Is that it?” she asked, startling him out of his trance.

He raised himself on his elbows and studied her face. The
face of a minx. She was smiling gently, relaxing around him, and his heart
responded, though he couldn’t find words. He shook his head and moved his hips,
just a fraction, to test her response. Her smile faded, replaced by a look of
startled wonder. “Oh!” He moved again because he couldn’t contain himself. “Oh,
Cyril
!”