outside mixed with the unique perfume of the outdoors.
I didn’t have the television on. No music. I’d never had a morning with such stillness, such quiet. It wasn’t at all remarkable. But it was the best morning I’d had in my life.
Especially since it started with me waking up in Duke’s arms.
This time, when I’d stayed awake to revel in his embrace, he didn’t wake up. It was our norm now, pretending we were a couple to his family. And when we were sleeping. It was creeping into the waking hours now too. Him brushing my hair from my face when there was no one else around. Forehead kisses. Oh, and the dirty talk about how he was going to fuck me.
My stomach dipped with the mere memory.
My stomach dipped even further when the man in question walked through the door to the kitchen.
Shirtless.
I made sure to sip my coffee so he didn’t see me all but drooling over him. How long had it been since I’d seen him like this for the first time? Why hadn’t the effect worn off yet? Then again, I had the feeling if I had a hundred years, Duke wouldn’t wear off on me. But I didn’t have a hundred years. Every single day was numbered. I wasn’t even sure if I had tomorrow. When had that stopped being a good thing and started being the beginning of a nightmare?
Duke’s eyes drank me in with that same look that had been glued to his face since...that morning, that very first one—maybe before. Hunger. Something else. Something softer.
His gaze flickered down to my plate, then his eyes widened in surprise. “You’re eating a bagel.”
Of all the things I’d expect him to say with that look on his face, that didn’t even factor into the top ten.
I looked down at the half-eaten slice of bagel, slathered in cream cheese—because it was absolutely criminal to eat a bagel without it. “Yeah, I am.”
No response when I looked up.
“Harriet has them flown in from New York,” I continued.
He nodded, leaning on a doorjamb in a way that should be criminal. No man should be able to make such a simple thing so damn sexy.
“She does. She lived there for a year or so in her twenties. When she met my grandpa. She calls it her ‘rumspringa’ from the ranch.” He chuckled.
I smiled too, only imagining the crazy things a twenty something Harriet might’ve got up to back then.
It was now he pushed off the doorjamb, walking over to me, slowly. Purposefully. I didn’t move as he settled in behind me, lifting my hair from the back of my neck and laying his lips there. My entire body shivered. My thighs clenched with the way the simple gesture turned me on. “Another thing,” he said, lips now at my ear. “You don’t leave the bed while I’m sleepin’. You wake me up so I can make sure we both start our day right.” His voice was pure sex.
I didn’t even care about the orders he was so used to speaking in. I didn’t care about the reasons why not.
“Well, there’s still time for us to do that,” I said, my voice thick.
Who the heck knew why I said that. Maybe it was the magic in the morning. Maybe it was the cabin. Or maybe it was because I was totally and utterly sexually frustrated and was sick of fighting this anymore.
Duke’s eyes flared. He was surprised, I knew. He’d expected a fight from me because that’s all that I’d given him thus far.
His surprise didn’t last for long, after all, he was a macho-man and macho-men were all about action.
My chair whirled around quickly, my robe was opened only seconds after that. Duke’s gaze turned midnight when it landed on my nipples poking through the delicate fabric.
He leaned forward and laid his mouth over the silk, sucking at my already hard nipples. I thrust my hand into his hair, pulling at it with the force the act was affecting me. I was somewhat of an expert on sex and orgasms. I’d had enough of both, but they were definitely not mutually exclusive. And the vast majority of intense orgasms I’d had in my life came from a really good vibrator. Sure, there were some men who had been taught about a woman’s body and weren’t selfish enough to ignore the idea that a woman deserves pleasure too, but those men were only slightly less rare than unicorns.
Having had experience