A Duke by Any Other Name by Grace Burrowes Page 0,75
on his mouth. “We’ll start with me kissing you, and then you may comment on what our destination should be, assuming your powers of speech have not deserted you.”
She wrapped her arms around his neck and snuggled close enough to learn that despite his gentlemanly misgivings, Rothhaven was already impressively aroused.
He untied the bow of her chemise and planted a slow, sweet kiss on her shoulder. “So be it. Here and now, so be it.”
Althea barely gave him time to get the words out before she pulled his shirt over his head and recommenced kissing him.
Nathaniel’s first impression of Althea’s lovemaking was that she had the wisdom to demand a leisurely exploration when he would have galloped past the preliminaries.
He wasn’t ashamed of himself for calling on the widows in York, but something about that whole business had annoyed him, even as it had eased his appetites. The result was an exchange of frustrations. Erotic satisfaction on the one hand, but on the other, an acknowledgment that sexual gratification alone wasn’t all he craved.
Althea, with no expectation of a costly gift or anything beyond the moment, offered him so much more of what he sought. Her hands slid around his neck while she gently pressed his forehead to her throat. This close, she smelled of roses and the lavender sheets. She was wonderfully warm, and her slow, sweet touch unraveled a tension Nathaniel had carried for years.
“I could devour you,” she whispered, biting his ear gently. “Gobble you up over and over.”
She kissed him, sparing him the effort of replying with words. Her kisses were tender, a promenade of mouth upon mouth that invited a mutual tasting.
“I could kiss you endlessly,” she murmured, stroking her fingers through his hair. “But I want you out of these damned breeches.”
Nathaniel was so absorbed with kissing her back and with shaping the contour of her ribs, waist, and hips that her meaning took a moment to sink in.
“And I want out of my damned breeches.”
Althea sat up, he scooted, she helped, and soon he was naked. “The dressing gown,” he said. “Please.”
She shrugged out of it, sniffing at the flannel lining. “I like wearing your scent.”
“The things you say…” Honest, erotic, un-self-conscious. “I like wearing you.”
She kept her chemise on even as she resumed her place straddling his lap, likely the better to tease him with full breasts straining against delicate linen. He glossed his thumbs over her nipples and she arched like a happy cat.
“Good hands,” she said. “I love that you have good, knowledgeable hands.” She brushed her sex over his arousal in a maddeningly slow, hot caress.
Even as desire spiraled upward, Nathaniel was aware of a discontent separate from bodily yearning. The pleasure was most exquisite and soon to surpass even that superlative, but Althea would be intimate with him only this once, only here and now.
That was wrong. Unfair to them both, and no amount of racing on horseback over the darkening moors would ease that sorrow.
So here and now must be worth a lifetime of recollection. Nathaniel eased Althea’s chemise up and over her shoulders, leaving her wonderfully bare and rosy.
“You are…magnificent.” In appearance she might not be remarkable from an artistic perspective—she was beautiful to him—but her direct gaze, the lovely listening quality of her touch, the intensity of her lovemaking made him ache.
Her smile became devilish as she took him in her hand and slowly, slowly slid her body down over his arousal.
“If I am magnificent, what is this?” she asked, when she’d hilted him inside her. She did something, a little feminine caress from within, and Nathaniel nearly came undone.
“That is almost more delight than I can bear. Take your pleasure swiftly, Althea, for I won’t last worth a damn.”
“Neither will I,” she said, cuddling down to his chest. She moved at a deliberate tempo, and Nathaniel tried to hold the sparkling heat loosely as it built, but his restraint was barely equal to the challenge.
Fortunately, Althea wasn’t interested in a contest of delayed gratification. She let go with a soft laugh against Nathaniel’s shoulder, yielding to pleasure vigorously. He held her until he was certain she’d wrung the last ripple of satisfaction from him, then lifted her up far enough to withdraw.
She must have known what he was about because she immediately tucked close again, giving him weight, heat, and her body to finish against. Very soon he would doubtless find the mental resources to resent withdrawing, but as satisfaction overcame him, all he