The Duke is Wicked (League of Lords #3) - Tracy Sumner Page 0,44
By the time she’d finished, his skin was clammy, his stomach churning, his mind reeling. To help her, he’d need to go back in time. When time travel wasn’t his gift, and it sure as hell wasn’t hers.
Delaney Temple’s primary talent wasn’t her goddamned attic, a mind that was a weapon. It was being bloody brilliant at planting herself in the middle of chaos.
Somehow, this slip of a girl had fallen into his life in a way no other woman had. The feelings she revealed were, frankly, unpleasant. One moment he wanted to protect her, the next shout at her, the next…
Sebastian groaned and threw his arm over his eyes. He’d never wanted a woman and experienced all these other things. Regard, fondness, extreme and utter frustration. Aside from her daring, more than he’d seen in many a soldier, and her troublesome nature, she was captivating. Sweet mixed with a sharp tang, like a ginger biscuit.
And young. Too young.
He hadn’t been that guileless since his father had plunged his hands in a fountain and broken his heart into a thousand pieces.
Sharing everything with such a generous woman would be incredible.
The wretched notion came from a lonely place.
A place he hid well. Or used to.
His attraction was impractical. Senseless. Laughable. On many levels. An untamed, American hellion wouldn’t make a proper duchess, for one. Two, their very natures were incongruous. She laughed easily and often. She found joy in simple things like hinges and suits of armor that were, indeed, genuine. She had a gift as powerful as his, maybe more, but she hadn’t been ruined by the having. Her family had accepted her, protected her as best they could, allowing her to thrive, when others similarly gifted wilted like blooms at the end of spring.
What he would’ve done for his family’s acceptance, their support, their love.
Instead, he’d marched ahead with life, unaccompanied, until meeting Julian Alexander and becoming a part of the League. But his heart was hardened by then, an unbreakable shell even his friends couldn’t shatter. Every opera singer and actress he’d engaged for the evening couldn’t shatter.
Inhaling a pained breath, unbelievably, he smelled lemon and peony on his skin. After their near-collision on the billiard table and that disaster of a kiss in the parlor, he hadn’t bathed. Had recklessly left her scent splattered like paint on his skin.
Sebastian turned his head to gaze at the empty spot beside him, an endless vista of silk and loneliness. His innermost desire wasn’t to have sex with a woman but to sleep with one. All night, limbs entangled, breaths hushed and merging in the darkness. He’d tried it once with Angelica and come close to exposing his secret life. And for what? Or better yet, whom? She’d been a casual dalliance, like the others, not worth a breath of life taken from someone he loved.
Those he lived to protect.
Rolling to his side, he swept his hand over the cool sheets, closed his eyes and imagined them warmed by her. Hair as dark as coal spread beneath him, her tight body curving into his, seeking the joining she’d innocently sought today, nearly destroyed him while doing it. Her kisses had been clumsy, but by the end, potent enough to erase thought. And reason.
The shrewdest woman in his world, she learned quickly.
And, ah, would he love teaching her.
Surrendering to the blaze she’d kindled inside of him, he drew his hand down his chest, over his ribs, his belly, grasped his cock and gave it a loving stroke. “Touch me,” he whispered into the night, whispering the plea to her.
In his fantasy, she was his.
To love, to claim, to conquer. Unlike the actual woman, she didn’t fight, she gave. Sebastian twisted his fingers in the counterpane and increased the speed of his strokes, his body taut and ready, fired by the look of wonder and lust in her cloud-gray eyes. His hips lifted as he sucked her nipple between his teeth, surprisingly full breasts filling his hands. For a heedless moment, he’d considered laying her back on the billiard table and climbing atop her, sliding between her sleek thighs and letting the third son of a duke find love.
His body quivered, close to cresting.
In his dream, she was close as well.
His thumb swept his swollen crown, spreading moisture, and his moan shot through the room. The fire in the hearth sputtered and coughed, shooting sparks against the screen.
Fantasy Delaney smiled wickedly, and folding her arms around him, brought him home.