A Duke to Remember (A Season for Scandal Book 2) (18 page)

Noah squeezed his eyes shut briefly, trying to find his control. Her words were pushing him further and further away from whatever shreds remained of his gentle intentions.

“Do it, Noah.” Elise slid her hands up and twisted her fingers in his hair, her mouth against his ear, her tongue grazing the sensitive spot in the hollow of his neck beneath his earlobe.

“Elise—”

“I dare you.”

Noah groaned and pulled hard, the fabric in his hands giving way easily. She stepped back as he shoved the wet linen back over her shoulders, her hands dropping so that he could push the sleeves down her arms. Her shirt fell to the floor behind her, forgotten, and her trousers followed. He could still hear her rapid breathing, could smell the rain on her skin, could feel the heat of her body so close to his.

Lightning flickered again through the windows, and for an ephemeral moment, he could see her. And then the blackness returned, but the sight of her bared to him sucked the air from his lungs and forced a sound from his throat he didn’t recognize.

In the next instant, her hands were on him, the slide of her fingers and palms over his chest, along his ribs, down to the waistband of his breeches. With deft movements she went to work on the buttons, each brush of her fingers against his throbbing erection an exercise in torture. His breeches loosened and her hands delved beneath the waistband, pushing the wet fabric over his hips and down his thighs. She had gone down on a knee, he realized, as he felt her hands sliding along the rigid muscles of his thighs and then his calves as she worked his breeches from his legs down to his ankles. He stepped out of them, kicking them to the side, and then stood frozen as her hands skimmed his knees, then the insides of his thighs. He felt the brush of her hair against his cock as she bent, and then her mouth replaced her fingers as she left a fiery trail of kisses along the insides of his legs and ever higher.

She cupped his balls in her hand and then stroked the length of his erection, and he moaned at the indescribable pleasure of her touch. His fingers tangled in her hair as her hands slid around his thighs and over his buttocks. And then she took him in her mouth, and he nearly came right there as her tongue swirled around the tip of his cock. Lightning flashed, and Noah had a sudden glimpse of Elise kneeling before him, her dark head bent as she explored him with her mouth. He had never, in all his life, seen such an erotic, perfectly wicked sight, and the smoldering lust he’d fought to control ignited into a firestorm that ripped through his veins, lodging itself deep in the base of his spine and making his cock pulse in anticipation.

He staggered slightly and forced himself back, dropping to his knees in front of her.

“I won’t last,” he whispered raggedly, his hands still in her hair.

“I never intended you to,” she murmured, finding his mouth again in the dark with her own and kissing him deeply.

He shuddered at the rawness of her words, a feeling of such possession coursing through him that it left him reeling. He took control of the kiss and dragged his teeth over her lower lip, his tongue sparring with hers. “I want you to feel what I feel when I’m with you,” he rasped against her, his mouth moving down the edge of her jaw to the long column of her neck. “I want you to know what you do to me.”

Elise’s hands came up to grasp his wrists, her fingers quivering against his muscles. “Can you feel that?” she asked. “Can you feel me shaking?”

He might have nodded, but it was becoming a chore to breathe, much less speak.

“You do that to me.” She guided one of his hands down over her breast to cover her hardened nipple. “You do this.” She pulled his fingers down farther, over the gentle swell of her abdomen, and pressed them between her thighs. “And you do this.”

It was Noah who trembled now, even as she released his hand. She was wet and hot, and he slid a finger through that glorious heat, the heel of his hand rocking hard against her pubic bone. She hissed and arched against him, her hips jerking as he pushed one finger into her, then two. She grasped his shoulders, her head falling back. Noah withdrew before pushing back into her, and she whimpered, her hips rolling down against the pressure. He bent his head, his mouth finding the swell of her breast and then her nipple, his teeth grazing the hard peak before he sucked gently.

Every muscle in Elise’s body went taut, and she pushed herself back with the same desperation with which he had only a moment ago.

“I won’t last,” she panted.

“Never my intention,” he managed.

“Oh God.” She made a muffled sound that might have been laughter.

Chilled air intruded into the space between them as a fork of lightning sent a blinding flash through the room and thunder crashed overhead. Noah leaned forward, despising even that small distance between them. He ran a finger over her bottom lip, now swollen and soft. Another surge of possessiveness roared through him, a craving so acute that it was physical pain. “Tell me, Elise. Tell me what you want.”

He heard her suck in her breath, heard the unevenness of her voice when she spoke. “I want you to make me yours. I want to feel you deep inside me. I want to feel your skin against mine. I want to hear you say my name when you come. I want your nights and your deepest fantasies that go with them. And when I come, I want your name on my lips.”

Noah closed his eyes, knowing that he was forever lost. He would never recover from her. Never find another who would give what she had already given him. She owned his heart and his soul and all the dark and the light that might be found in both. He found her hand, shoving himself to his feet and pulling her with him.

Without a second’s hesitation, he swept her into his arms.

Noah carried Elise into her room, and the panic that she always felt with such loss of control was wholly absent. Everything had tilted between them, altered beyond what she once recognized. He was a part of her now, woven into the tapestry of her being, and she would trust him with her very life. She kept her hands wrapped tightly about his neck, felt his strong hands supporting her even as he kissed her, tiny tastes that left her gasping and needing more.

She had nearly climaxed the first time he had slid his finger through the folds of her sex. She could have let him bring her to the edge and take her over simply with his hands. But she knew that wasn’t going to be enough for her. Not this time. Maybe never. She wanted all of him, wanted to feel all his strength and his power when he took her.

There would come a time when she would watch. When there would be light enough to look into his eyes as he made love to her, see the splendor of his body, watch their bodies join. But on this night she would rely on her other senses. Taste the sweat of his skin, hear the sounds of his pleasure, feel his body reach for release.

He stopped abruptly in the darkness and bent, and Elise barely had time to register the cool sheets of her bed beneath her back before he came down, bracing himself above her, his kisses no longer a series of tastes but a hungry plunder that she was only too eager to comply with. He nudged her thighs apart with his knees, kneeling between her legs and straightening, his mouth leaving hers, but his hands now traveling over her collarbone to explore the generous swell of her breasts. He covered them with his palms, his thumbs scraping the sensitive peaks of her nipples. Elise made a sound of pleasure even as her back came off the bed, arching farther into his touch as her legs tightened on either side of his hips.

“So beautiful,” Noah whispered into the blackness.

Elise couldn’t answer, the feel of his hands, of his skin against hers, wiping her mind of everything except the sensation of his fingers as they traveled over her ribs, spanned her hips, and then slid along the insides of her legs, urging them wider. He bent, pressing his mouth to her navel, then to the soft skin of her inner thigh, tormenting touches that robbed her of breath. The want that had pooled low in her belly swelled to a throbbing that intensified with each touch that only teased.

And then his mouth was
there
, his tongue doing unholy things that had her fingers curling into the bedding in an attempt to anchor herself to something. Something that would keep her from flying into tiny pieces.

“Noah,” she gasped. She needed him to stop. She needed him to never stop.

He raised his head, the immediate loss of his ministrations a horrible, cruel thing, but then his body covered hers, and his weight and his heat pressed her deep into the mattress. The rub of his chest hair against her breasts was an intoxicating friction, and his heart pounded beneath his ribs in time with hers. He braced himself on his elbows, and Elise wrapped her legs around his waist, her hips straining. Beneath her calves, the muscles in his buttocks flexed, and she could feel the tip of his cock nudge against the entrance to her folds.

She tightened her legs, her hands sliding over his back, urging him against her. She could hear his labored breathing, could feel the perspiration on his feverish skin as he fought for control.

“Not enough,” she panted. “All of you.”

He made a tortured noise and thrust into her, burying himself to the hilt.

Elise moaned, her hips tipping, reveling in the rightness of his filling her, stretching her, truly making her his. He stayed motionless for an exquisite moment, time suspended in sensation before he moved, withdrawing and then pushing back into her in a long, smooth stroke.

Behind her eyelids stars danced and exploded. She teetered on the precipice, wanting, needing, to take him with her when she went. She shifted her legs, her heels now braced against his ass, her inner muscles clenching around the length of him as she rocked her hips.

He groaned and slid out before impaling her again, harder this time.

“Don’t stop,” she breathed.

He gasped, a harsh, desperate sound, and he obeyed with hard, deliberate thrusts that sent perfect arrows of agonized pleasure spiraling through her. She met him stroke for stroke, feeling the tension within her build, the coiling of energy and anticipation winding tighter and tighter. Beneath her the bed pitched and rocked, while above the thunderstorm still raged, drowning out the sounds of flesh on flesh and the small noises of desire.

She felt the first ripples of release descend through her body, and her hands grasped at his back, her legs tightening around his hips before the wave of her orgasm slammed through her. The force of it sucked the air from her lungs and tore the voice from her throat as her body convulsed upon itself, leaving her insensible to anything except the excruciating pleasure that hammered mercilessly through her limbs.

Elise came back to herself enough to hear Noah moan, pushing hard into her, his hips jerking, before he yanked out of her and thrust himself against her belly, spending himself in the soft hollow of her hip. His head dropped into her shoulder, his breath coming in great heaving gasps, his hips still thrusting in small, slow movements.

She stroked the back of his head with her hand, trailing her fingers through his hair and over his shoulders, languidly, with no thought other than for the contentment it gave her to simply touch him, here, like this. This was where she belonged. No matter who she might have been or who she might yet become, she belonged to this man. In her search for Noah Ellery, she had found something she hadn’t even known she’d been looking for. Here, in the security of his arms, she had found a sanctuary, uncluttered by secrets and artifice. Here she’d found only a feeling of rightness and a bittersweet ache in her chest that told her that her heart was no longer hers to give. He had claimed it as surely as he had claimed her body.

Noah stirred, pushing himself up on his elbows. The rain that had pounded on the windows and the roof had let up, but the thunder still echoed, though it had moved off into the distance. He bent his head and kissed her, a butterfly touch of his lips against hers, gentle and soft. “Don’t move,” he said.

Elise was reasonably sure that she wouldn’t be able to move for a long time yet, her body sated to the point of immobility. “Mmmm,” was all she could put together, hoping he would take it as a sign of her acquiescence.

He rolled off her and stood, disappearing somewhere into the house before returning less than a minute later. He lowered himself to the edge of the bed, letting something drop to the floor next to her with a muted thump.

“What was that?” she asked.

“My knife. My clothes. What’s left of your shirt. And a replacement.”

“You brought me a shirt?”

“One of mine. In case you were cold.”

His hands found her in the darkness, and Elise started as he pressed something cool and damp to her stomach. Belatedly she realized it was her ruined shirt that he was smoothing over her skin, wiping traces of his semen from her. His fingers followed the path of the cloth, tracing the curve of her hip and the swell of her breast.

“Thank you,” she murmured.

Noah let the wet linen drop to the floor and ran a hand along her cheek, bending to press his mouth to her shoulder, another sweet hail of kisses against her damp skin. She felt worshipped and treasured and devastatingly happy.

Elise heard the bed ropes creak as he shifted, moving over her and stretching out on the far side of the bed, his body pressed against hers. Water dripped from an eave somewhere, the last lonely remnant of the deluge. Outside, shadows were shifting, glimpses of silver moonlight shining through as the last of the rain clouds parted and scudded across the sky.

“Go to sleep,” he whispered against her ear. “Dawn will come soon enough. And the road to London is long.”

Elise nodded, though she didn’t ask who Noah would be when he rode into London. She didn’t ask about the title or the fortune or the solicitors who waited with bated breath, wondering if the heir to Ashland would materialize. She didn’t ask about Francis Ellery, because it was enough, for now, that Noah would be there for his sister.

Because it was enough, for now, that he would be with her.