The Duke Effect (The Rogue Files #7) - Sophie Jordan Page 0,62

and bound for failure. What if she was bad at it? She suspected there was skill involved with kissing.

She’d heard two maids tittering in the kitchens at home, giggling about the handsome and virile stablemaster’s prowess as they simultaneously mourned the fact that he had fallen in love and married. Both lasses had agreed that Blackthorne was a good kisser whose lips would be heartily missed by all. If the stablemaster was a good kisser, then that meant bad kissers existed. What if she was one of them?

What if Nora was a bad kisser?

“Kiss me,” he repeated, lifting his head up from the bed. “Nora. Please. Will you?”

Her gaze fastened back on his face. Gone was the composed duke’s heir. There was no dignity in this man. This man pled for her lips, his face contorting and twisting with emotion as though he might die if he did not have them.

It’s just the tonic. Not you.

“Nora,” he said again. “Kiss me so that I don’t feel as though I’m taking this from you. As though you are doing me a service with not a bit of enjoyment in it for yourself.”

She jerked. Was that what he thought? That she was performing some regrettable chore?

Did he have no idea how she was affected? That she was consumed with the basest of desires? That she ached for him, too? That she suffered guilt for putting him in this dire situation?

“You take nothing from me. I did this to you, put you in this state—”

“Stop saying that. I volunteered. I knew the risks.” He lifted his head from the bed, the tendons of his neck stretched taut.

She could not take another moment of this. Seeing him in such torment, hearing him blame himself? She wanted only to end it. She wanted him to understand she was here of her free will. That she touched him with her free will.

She released his manhood and draped herself over him, stretching for his lips, determined to convince him this was no miserable chore for her. He needn’t feel guilt on that score. If anyone should feel guilt, it should be her. She shouldn’t enjoy this so much.

Her lips pressed clumsily on his without art or skill, but he did not leave it at that. He buried a hand in her hair, his fingers spearing through the thick mass, unraveling the loose plait she’d arranged for bed.

He tugged her closer and she obliged, clambering over him, her nightgown pooling over his naked form. She straddled him with her knees on either side of his hips.

It was shockingly freeing and delicious—the sensation of his big naked body under hers. Heat washed through her. She felt wonderfully afire, her breasts and womanhood aching for pressure.

One of his hands remained in her hair as he continued to kiss her, his tongue slipping inside her mouth. She opened her mouth wider so that their tongues could dance and tangle and rub sinuously.

“Nora,” he moaned into her mouth. “My cock . . .”

She felt the rock-hard evidence of him, jutting through the layers of her nightgown and robe into her.

He moved under her, rocking, seeking his release.

He reached it at last.

Shuddering, he cried out, spilling himself as his hands dropped, clenching her hips, gathering fistfuls of the fabric in his fists. She felt the wetness on her nightgown as he stilled, his mouth open against hers, silent on a gasping cry.

She gasped, too, relieved he had reached his end—that it was over.

She was glad and relieved for him, but aching for herself. Bereft and empty. Unsatisfied. The fires he had stoked still burned within her.

She supposed that was her burden to bear.

She slid off him, releasing a pained breath. “Are you . . . improved?” She winced. Awkwardness was inevitable. There was no stopping it. How could they go back to the polite formality of before?

He tossed an arm over his brow with a gratified sigh. “I am . . . spent.”

“No more . . . pain?”

“No.”

She sat there, silent for some moments beside him, her fingers fiddling with the fabric of her night rail. “I don’t suppose we should administer the tonic to Her Grace?” She released a shaky little laugh.

“No, you are quite right. Not without further testing. I had a spoonful. The next experiment should start with a droplet.”

She nodded, looking up at the ceiling of his bedchamber and the flickering shadows and wondering when he thought that experimentation should occur . . . especially as she would be

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