The Unclaimed Duchess (17 page)

If he sensed that, he didn't seem in any mood to tease. He pushed her legs open, holding her wide with rough hands, and dragged his tongue over her again and again.

She lifted her hips to meet him, sobbing out incoherent encouragement as he sucked and licked and tasted her in every way. And then, like a bolt from the sky, her release crested over her. Powerful waves of pleasure came one after another, never allowing her rest, never giving her peace. Nor did Rhys as he sucked and sucked her clit until she was weak against the pillows, unable to respond except to tremble when another blast of pleasure moved through her.

Rhys withdrew as the last shivers shook her, pressing a wet kiss to her thigh before he moved back up her body. She lifted into a passionate kiss and wrapped her arms around him, tasting her own essence on his lips.

“There is nothing better than seeing you come,” he murmured as he pressed his lips to her temple.

“Nothing?” she teased as she rubbed herself against him gently. “I think there are some things.”

Her heart throbbed. From excitement, yes, but also from nervousness. The time had come to enact her plan. Once she started, she wouldn't be able to go back. This was her final opportunity.

“I cannot think of one right now,” he teased as he moved to his side next to her.

“I can,” she murmured, then she rolled over, moving him to his back as she kissed him once more. She felt the tension leave him as their tongues tangled, the guardedness he so often possessed. Yes, she wanted his surrender.

He gave it when she did as he had done not a moment before. She glided her mouth down his body, nibbling on his flesh, tasting and sucking until he was arching and moaning beneath her. She reached his cock, thinking of the last time he'd been in her mouth. She had been able to steal his control, just a little, that day.

Tonight she needed it all.

She drew him between her lips, feeling the heat of him on her tongue, tasting the first salty drop of his essence that had leaked out while he pleasured her. Above her, Rhys let out a curse and clenched his fists at her shoulders while she took his entire length into her mouth and slowly withdrew.

“God, Anne,” he murmured.

She looked up, watching the tension line his face. With a pop, she let his cock exit her lips.

“Let me give this to you, Rhys,” she whispered. “Please.”

He hesitated a moment, but then he nodded. When he flopped back on the pillows, she no longer felt resistance from him. He completely surrendered while she pleasured him.

With careful movements, she built his desire, bringing him closer and closer to the edge. But she never allowed complete satisfaction. Not yet. She kept him at the ready with her pace and the pressure of her tongue until she knew he was almost there. Ready to explode.

And then she executed her plan. With a swift movement, she slid up his body, spread her legs, and lowered her wet slit over him, taking his cock into her body for the first time since their honeymoon what seemed like years before.

He shuddered when her sheath squeezed over him and she couldn't help but do the same as his thick length stretched her. It had been so long, and the last time he took her the relationship between them had been so different. Then she'd been nervous, thinking about being right and “perfect” as he seemed to expect. And
he
had appeared distracted, not fully engulfed in the moment, but more fulfilling a duty.

Now she felt the true power of being joined to this man she loved. And the pleasure of that was more powerful than any she had ever known.

But the moment passed too quickly. When Rhys's eyes cleared and then widened as if he just realized what was happening between them, she knew she had to hurry, for he was beginning to remember all the reasons why he couldn't allow for this wonderful joining. She rolled her hips over him, thrusting his member in and out of her welcoming body with a swift, utterly intoxicating rhythm.

“Anne,” he moaned, reaching for her hips, though she wasn't certain if that was meant to draw her closer or to push her away. It seemed he didn't know, either, for when his fingers closed around her flesh, he simply held there.

“Please,” she gasped, continuing to jerk over him. “J-just for a moment, Rhys. Please.”

He let out a strangled sound, but then he nodded. “A moment. God, you feel so good.”

His hips began to lift beneath her and Anne gasped as the pleasure he'd brought her with his tongue mounted within her womb once more. Only this time it was different, more intense because they were joined as a man and his wife should be. He was hers. She was his.

The orgasm hit her hard and her hips increased their pace immediately as she cried out.

The veins in Rhys's neck began to throb and he shouted, “Anne, I must pull away.”

The order drew her from the fog of her pleasure. But instead of removing her body as he requested, Anne locked her thighs at his sides. She collapsed over him, kissing him hard as she continued to thrust, thrust, thrust.

“Anne,” he gasped into her mouth.

But it was too late. Every fiber of his being tensed and then, as he shouted a roar so loud it seemed to shake the bed, his essence pumped within her.

She collapsed over him, panting and sweaty as exhaustion and relief overtook her.

There. It was done. And it had been magnificent. Everything she'd ever dreamed she could share with her husband and more.

Rhys lay beneath her for far too short a time. Then he gently rolled her away and got to his feet. He said nothing, simply paced across the quiet room, his back to her and his shoulders shaking as he stared at the fire crackling in the hearth.

“That should not have happened,” he finally moaned, pain evident in his tone of voice. “
That
was a terrible mistake.”

A
nne flinched. The words Rhys said were painful, of course, but the tone of his voice hurt her even more. He sounded empty. Broken. Defeated. And all because of what she had done in the name of her love for him.

When he sank into a chair near the window and placed his head into his hands, her torment increased. He was naked, and not just in body. His emotions were naked as he sat there, for the first time, she saw them all. All the anguish, all the heartbreak, all the anger that had been caused by whatever secret he kept from her…they were alive on his crumpled face and in his shaking shoulders.

“You shouldn't have done that,” he said once more, but this time it seemed it was meant for himself, not her. “I shouldn't have been so weak as to allow it. But it felt so good,
you
felt so good.”

Anne slipped from the high bed, gathering a sheet
to wrap around her body as she did so. She moved toward him slowly, well-aware that she was now approaching something akin to a wounded animal. She would have to tread carefully.

“Rhys,” she whispered as she reached out a hand for his bare shoulder.

He wrenched his arm away, his dark gaze flashing up as if he had only just remembered she was still in the room with him.

“No!” he cried as he returned to his feet and moved away.

She stared as he snatched up his trousers from the floor beside the bed and stepped into them, covering himself from her gaze in more ways than one.

But when he turned back, his wild eyes still glowed in the fire. In fact, Anne was shocked by how stormy they were.

“Please don't touch me, not now,” he said, his breath coming in deep pants and his voice shaking. “You
shouldn't
have done that, Anne. You knew I couldn't have you this way.”

She stared at him. Somehow she'd convinced herself that if only she could force Rhys to take the pleasure it was obvious they both desired, she would soften his stance toward her and their future. At the very least, she had reset the clock on whether she could
be carrying his child. Certainly he couldn't withdraw from that.

But she'd underestimated the depth of his pain. His face did not reveal a softness toward her now or even a resignation that they might be forced to remain living as husband and wife.

No, she saw only betrayal and horror as he stared at her.

“Rhys,” she whispered, her voice breaking just as his had. “I-I am
yours
. Tonight I hoped to remind you of that.”

He shook his head. “No. You took advantage of what I told you in the countryside.”

She opened her mouth, but he didn't allow her to speak.

“I told you then that I couldn't make love to you for fear of creating a child who would suffer from the events surely to come. A child who would only complicate those events further.” He stared at her, his face blank again, his eyes no longer wild. But the dead emptiness of them disturbed Anne almost as much as his emotionality of before. “Isn't
that
why you made love to me?”

She fisted her hands at her sides and forced herself to draw a deep breath.

“Yes. Part of why I did this tonight was because
I knew if I became pregnant it would complicate your plans to abandon our marriage. But don't you understand? I can't allow you to separate from me without a fight! I love you, I love—”

“Stop!” he cried out in a rough tone that raked over her flesh and up her spine. With a long step, he grabbed her arms and shook her gently. “I
can't
! Why don't you understand when I say that?”

“Because you won't tell me why!” Anne shook free of his hands. “If this is to be our end, then you owe me that! And I won't give up on you or on us until I understand what drives you to do and say these terrible things.”

He stared at her, as if he had never seen her before. He stared and stared until Anne shifted beneath his focused regard and fought the urge to turn away and run from the room. She could
not
back down.

“You want to know why,” he murmured.

“Yes,” she whispered. “If you truly want to send me from your life, I fear
that
is the only way to obtain what you desire.”

A muscle in Rhys's cheek jerked. “Very well. If you want this secret so badly, if you want to carry this with you, I leave you to it. You can taste its bitterness and feel its sting just as I have since the moment it was laid at my feet and destroyed everything I ever thought or hoped for.”

He returned to the chair he had first sat in and sank back into its cushions, almost as if he could no longer bear his own weight. Anne shook as she watched him in silence, on the cusp of finally understanding what had started this heartbreaking mess that threatened to destroy her life and her future.

Rhys looked up at her, his stare even and fully focused for the first time since he left her in his bed.

“Anne, I'm not the man you think I am. That fact has dictated my every action from the moment we returned from our wedding trip.”

Anne's brow wrinkled. This wasn't an answer, only a deeper riddle. Her tone was sharp when she snapped, “I don't understand what you mean. Explain yourself.”

He flinched. His naked shoulders had begun to shake and he swallowed hard before he said, “I tried so hard to protect you.”

“I don't want your protection!” she cried, the anger she'd been repressing bubbling free once more. “I want the truth! Tell me now.”

His gaze flashed up. “I have obtained irrefutable proof that my father was
not
the Duke of Waverly, Anne. It turns out I'm a bastard, and with that fact comes only utter ruin and scandal.”

 

It was the first time Rhys had ever admitted what he knew out loud. Even when he spoke to Simon, he'd never laid out the facts in such clear and undeniable terms. Hearing them again made his stomach turn in disgust and his heart race.

Slowly he lifted his gaze to judge Anne's reaction to the awful truth she'd pursued with such dogged interest and focus. She stood rooted in the same spot, staring at him. But her expression was no longer one of frustration or anger or even love.

No, now all he could see when he looked at her was the absolute horror that glittered in her gorgeous, dark eyes. There was no room left for anything else now that she had heard the truth.

Rhys looked away. He'd expected as much when she found out what he was…or what he wasn't. What he hadn't anticipated were his own feelings in regard to her reaction. It hurt to see her look at him with such an expression of disgust. Actually
hurt
wasn't a strong enough word. Deep within his chest, down into his stomach, it was as if he had been lit on fire from within. The feeling was like a death.

But he supposed it was. The death of her love for him. An emotion that had been unasked for, unwanted when she first expressed it, but now…

Now that it was gone he realized how much he'd
come to depend upon her love for him. To want it, for it felt like the only true and good thing in his life.

Silence hung between them for a long time before Anne finally stepped forward. She moved with jerking steps, but eventually she reached him. To his surprise, she dropped to her knees on the floor before him and then her arms came around him. She held him, stroking his hair and wrapping her warmth about him.

“Oh Rhys, oh my dearest,” she whispered, her tone so soft, so gentle that it felt like a caress. “How terrible for you to have carried this secret with you. I cannot imagine how its weight must have choked you. I'm so very,
very
sorry for the pain you're enduring.”

Rhys stared straight ahead for a moment, confused by her reaction, but also undeniably warmed by it. He drew back from her a fraction and looked down into her upturned face. In the soft firelight, she was more beautiful than ever. And there was no censure in her gaze. The disgust he had thought he read there at first, he now realized was a deep and powerful pain on his behalf.

“Do you not understand me?” he asked, shaking his head in disbelief. “I'm not legitimate, Anne.”

“I understand,” she said softly, but her expression didn't change.

“I don't truly belong to the Waverly line or deserve all that comes with it,” he insisted.

Still she did not falter. “Yes, I heard you.”

He frowned, uncertain if she fully grasped what he'd revealed. “I'm not the man you married!”

Now her expression changed. She tilted her head, shock flooding her features, but then she lifted her hand and pressed it to his cheek, caressing his skin with her warm palm. He couldn't help but lean into the touch briefly.

“Of course you are. Because of the way you were raised, I know it's hard for you to understand, but I didn't marry your name or family history.”

“But those things are why your father arranged this marriage for you,” he protested.

She shook her head. “But I married
you
. You
are
my husband.”

She smiled, and for a brief flash Rhys forgot his every trouble. For the first time since Simon had torn his world to shreds, he didn't feel the throbbing sting of disappointment, anger, and heartbreak. In fact, he felt a strange surge of hope when he looked into his wife's face.

She was a lifeline. And in her eyes, he could almost see a world where he could let all this go, where he could take her offer of love and acceptance. Where he could stay with her forever and never give
a damn about bloodlines or blackmail again.

But the hope faded and reality returned within a few moments. With difficulty, he pulled away, rising from the chair and pacing to the window. He stared outside into the dark night, as mysterious as his own life had become.

“No, Anne,” he said softly. “I'm not that man anymore. I can't be, and you must understand why now that you've heard the truth.”

“Please look at me,” she said from behind him after a long pause.

Slowly he faced her. Although she was clad only in his bedsheet and her dark hair was tangled around her face, she didn't look any less the powerful duchess. He had never seen her look so much like she fit that role. She was regal now in the way she stood and in the strength of her tone when she spoke.

“You can tell me anything you like, Rhys,” she said in a voice that brooked no refusal. “But you cannot change certain facts. You and I were married. Our union was consummated, not only physically, but in the deep bond we developed in the countryside. And”—she looked around the room with a slight blush—“and in this very room tonight. You cannot deny those things.”

“No, but—” he began.

She moved toward him. “There is no
but
. When
we wed, I vowed to stand beside you through all your triumphs and your pains, no matter how complicated or deep they were. I meant that promise.”

Rhys shook his head with a growl of frustration. “And on the day we wed, I vowed to protect you, Anne. The only way I can do that now is to have you leave my side forever. If we're apart when this truth comes out, people will see you as a victim of my scandal, not a partner in it. Perhaps that will shield you in some small way from the pain and agony about to be rained down upon my head and the heads of all who are near me.”

Anne stared at him, her eyes wide and mouth partly open. It was odd. In this moment she seemed more shocked than she had been when he told her of his unfortunate parentage. Finally she swallowed hard and seemed to gather her composure.

“And is that true?” she asked. “
Did
you make me a victim of your scandal? Did you somehow know the facts of your parentage before we wed and kept them from me as some kind of strange trickery?”

Rhys hesitated. He could lie to her, tell her that he'd been fully aware of who he was before they exchanged vows. But in the end, he wasn't sure it would matter to her. In fact, he wasn't entirely certain she would believe him. It seemed she could read his emotions even when no one else could.

So he slowly shook his head. “No. I found out the day I left London.”

The color drained from Anne's cheeks. “Simon revealed your parentage to you when he came here that day.”

Rhys squeezed his eyes shut. That afternoon seemed like years ago now, but the pain was as alive as if it had been five minutes before. He relived the encounter in a swift flash and shuddered as he forced himself to look at his wife.

“Yes,” he whispered, and his voice broke.

Her bottom lip trembled slightly, but her tone was one of pure anger when she said, “Why did he tell you? If he knew something so horrible, something that would surely break your heart, why would he hand it over as a weight for you to bear?”

Rhys dipped his chin. She was only repeating the questions that had flowed through his own mind that terrible afternoon Simon had come to him. He'd been furious with his friend, until he knew the whole truth. He owed Anne the same.

“Don't judge our old friend too harshly,” he said softly. “It's a complicated situation. For one…”

He trailed off, the next sentence almost too difficult to speak out loud. Slowly he composed himself as Anne waited, unspeaking and not pushing.

“Anne, my true father is the late Duke of Billing
ham. Simon and I are brothers, not just in the sense that we are close friends, but the same blood flows through our veins.”

There was a long, shocked silence, not that Rhys blamed Anne for her stunned expression. Simon's father had hidden his true nature from everyone, pretending a kindness and honesty he didn't possess.

“But—but Billingham was revered as so pious, so faithful and true a man!” she finally stammered.

Rhys shook his head. “While we were in Billingham for Simon's country party, the two of us uncovered a great deal about his…
our
father that belies that exalted reputation. Apparently the duke hid a great deal about himself, including his penchant for producing some number of bastards. I'm not the only one.”