The Duke is Wicked (League of Lords #3) - Tracy Sumner Page 0,66

squeezed her hands together in her lap; he could see them trembling. “What would a common girl like me do with a duke in her attic?” The words were teasing, light, when the expression on her downturned face was anything but.

“I’d invite you into my life, Delaney, if I could.” But the word circling his mind like a chant confirmed his decision not to.

Heartbreak.

She glanced up, eyes wide. It was the first time he’d called her by her given name. And with his finger buried deep inside her, the first time she’d murmured his. A moist, erotic whisper across his skin. “But you’ll invite someone else in.”

Honoria Hazelton. Kitty. Who he hadn’t thought of once this evening. Or yesterday. Or the day before. “It isn’t the same, and you know it.” It’s nothing, he wanted to add, when you’re everything. But that wasn’t fair to his if-he-could-summon-the-desire-to-ask future duchess. A woman he didn’t love. A woman who didn’t love him. He wasn’t sure they even liked each other. But she was titled, a member of the League, a naïve, gifted girl in need of safeguarding, solid enticement for his intractable sense of duty.

But this woman, the one he wanted, the one whose scent coated his fingers, had bled into the fabric of his clothing and his heart, needed safeguarding as well. Maybe more so.

Sebastian surged to his feet, his rage sudden and overwhelming. At society, at his father, at Delaney Temple, sitting there with a stoic twist to lips that had been blossoming like a flower beneath his five minutes ago. She wasn’t a woman who was going to crumble over something as silly as simultaneous orgasms in an orangery’s quasi-parlor. “Maybe I won’t marry anyone,” he snapped and whipped his hand through the ashes, his skin stinging from the embers he hadn’t, like his passion, managed to extinguish. “Do you see what happens when I forget myself? Is a future connected to this what you’d want?”

Delaney swathed herself in his coat until he couldn’t see anything but a tangle of pitch-black hair and ten adorable toes. “Can you close the door on your way out, Tremont? I’m retiring to my attic. And have someone bring me my dog, if you don’t mind.”

He was damn-well going to sack that guard of hers. And Minnie? What had she been doing while her charge sneaked around his estate in the dark? “You’re not staying here all bloody night alone. That pup doesn’t count.”

It was futile. She was already gone. Probably digging through her books to find out how to pleasure a man with her mouth. She’d murmured in his ear while astride him, making him practically lose her ridiculous bet then and there.

When she’d lost, arriving at least twenty seconds ahead of him, he decided, stalking from the dwelling and toward his castle. He’d watched her go over, lids fluttering, head thrown back, her throaty moan riding the air. The most glorious encounter of his sexual life, such sweet, innocent, unexpected abandon.

He’d never been a part of such a thing, his heart never inviting him to be a part.

Someday, he’d find the courage to tell her she’d lost the damned wager.

And that he was falling in love with her.

Chapter 13

The men were gathered on Viscount Beauchamp’s lawn, arguing from the look of it. Finn had Julian in a chokehold he couldn’t possibly maintain and keep his clothes pristine. Tremont, who Delaney had, unfortunately, started thinking of as Sebastian, was goading Humphrey, who, when the gentle giant reached his limit, shoved the duke back hard enough to knock him from his feet. One of the estate’s mercenaries had her brother on the ground, his arm wrenched behind his back. But Case was grinning, apparently enjoying the taste of dirt. Simon was the only sensible one, watching the roughhousing with a happily amused air. Soon, no doubt, he’d be rolling around in the grass with the rest of them.

“Horseplay and hijinks,” she murmured, and snuggled into Sebastian’s coat, her gaze helplessly focused on him. His scent clung mightily to the coarse fabric, even after two days. She wasn’t giving the garment back unless he asked for it, and since the duke was avoiding her and she him, that wasn’t likely to happen. However, he’d come to a full stop when she’d waltzed down the gravel drive and to the carriage taking them to a meeting with the League wearing it.

If he believed she was giving up, giving in, although she wasn’t sure what she