Wagered to the Duke (BookStrand Publishing Romance) (28 page)

Comprehension flickered in her steady gaze. “Miss Hathaway would’ve been—oh, I want to say ‘Protestant,’ but I know that can’t be the word, especially since she’s likely one already. I mean the word that sounds very much like ‘Protestant.’ I always have trouble with the two, probably because I rarely have occasion to say the other.”

“Yes, it’s the other word, precisely what that Swingle chap feared had become of her when you tried to explain to him. That’s why I couldn’t let Waldrop have her.” An old, familiar pain clogged his throat, and he swallowed it hard to force it back into his gut. “That, and the fact that my own mother suffered a similar fate. My half brother wagered her to Waldrop many years ago, and she died while in his stepmother’s employ. Not while traveling on the Continent.” He rubbed his raw knuckles. “Twenty years of rage at that devil went into the punch that felled him. He’s lucky I didn’t kill him.”

“Oh my God,” Kate whispered. “Nathan…”

“But getting back to Miss Hathaway—after I won her and left, Waldrop must have found some way to win you from your stepfather.”

“My God,” Kate whispered again, her face now ghostly pallid, almost ashen. “That must have been his stepmother in that huge, black barouche back in York. Remember, when you fired the pistol? Freddy said later that her son had gone to Bellingham Hall to collect a debt from my stepfather. He never told me the man’s name was Waldrop.”

“Neither did I.” Nathan sat on the tufted chaise at the foot of the bed. “Kate, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have left after winning Miss Hathaway. I should have stayed, just to make sure that you, too, wouldn’t suffer the same fate.”

“Nathan, it’s not your fault. Besides, I haven’t suffered the same fate. I’m safe and sound here with you.”

“And you’ll only be safe and sound
if
you remain with me. I can’t let you out of my sight until we reach London, and I can hand you over to the safety of your brother. Waldrop has followed you here—he and his stepmother obviously figured out you were traveling with me. All they had to do was make inquiries at inns and posting houses about a Nathan Fraser traveling with a bespectacled female, and ascertain from local gossip that the Duke of Loring and the stepdaughter of Lord Bellingham are visiting Ellington Hall. He means to lure you into his stepmother’s web. I won’t let that happen to you. Not after what happened to my mother.”

She visibly gulped. “So what are you saying—that I’ll have to spend the night with you in your bedchamber?”

He rose from the bench and closed the bedchamber door, locking it. “That’s exactly what I’m saying. We’ll leave first thing tomorrow before he has a chance to come over here and call me out.”

She remained in the chair. “I don’t suppose you have an extra night rail in that chest of drawers?”

He gifted her with a crooked grin. “Have you forgotten? I sleep in nothing. But I can lend you one of my shirts again if you like.”

She gazed back at him, licking her lips as if in delectation. Seeing the tip of her tongue dart out to moisten the lips he longed to tease with his own sent a hot jolt of desire to his groin, and suddenly his silk breeches were feeling uncomfortably tight in the front.

“You know, Nathan, I never suspected any of this about him,” she said. “After you planted that facer on him and stormed out, I could have stayed behind to see if he was all right. After all, he’s the first man who’s ever asked for an introduction to me, the first one who ever wanted to dance with me, who wanted me to meet his mother—or stepmother, as it now turns out. In fact, most people would argue that perhaps I
should’ve
stayed behind instead of going after you.”

He unbuttoned his shirt. “Then why didn’t you? Why did you come after me, Kate?”

“Because I couldn’t wait to find out if you did it because you were jealous.”

He couldn’t help feeling a twinge of annoyance. “Why is that so important to you?” After all, he hadn’t been jealous at all—well, maybe just a little. He’d simply been more enraged to see who, of all people, was showering so much attention on her, of all people.

He wondered now if he wasn’t afraid of losing her—and not just to Waldrop.

“Why is it so important to me?” She rose from the chair. “Because I want—I just want to know if—if you want me.”

She’d been about to say that she wanted him. Because he was now a duke? No, because thanks to her stepfather, and in all likelihood her mother, she’d never considered herself worthy of a duke.

But she was worthy of Nathan. And it was up to him to show her.

He pulled off the shirt, enjoying the way her gaze dropped immediately from his face to his bare chest, and again she licked her lips as if salivating over a bountiful feast.

That’s when he knew how to answer her question. “I do want you, Kate.”

Again she stood frozen as he slowly reached out and gingerly removed her spectacles. He placed them on the bedside table then stepped back over to her. She hadn’t budged. She was waiting to see what he would do next.

He thought about removing her hairpins, just so he could see her honey-colored hair tumble over her shoulders, but he didn’t know where to begin pulling pins, and besides, he preferred to see her hair fall down after he saw her nude.

So instead he cupped his hands over the puffed sleeves of her gown and covered her mouth with his own. As his lips melded into hers and her tongue darted out again to meet his, just like that she thawed, for he felt her collapsing against him, pressing her palms against his chest for support before swirling her fingers around his nipples as he slyly tugged on her sleeves, baring her shoulders as he felt his erection straining to burst through the falls of his breeches.

He twined his arms around her back in search of the buttons as he moved his lips past her jawline, over the racing pulse in her throat, and down to her collarbone. Her own hands moved lower, now fumbling with the waistband of his breeches while his fingers worked the buttons down the back of her gown.

She sighed as the gown gave way and he pulled back just far enough to let it drop and pool around her feet. He didn’t want to bother with the tiny buttons of her shift, so instead he seized it by the hem and pulled it over her head, disheveling her hair and baring her pointed breasts with their large, pink nipples. Next came her drawers, leaving her clad in nothing but slippers, stockings, and garters.

“Sit on the chaise,” he whispered.

She complied, draping herself over it in a most seductive manner, lifting both hands behind her head to remove her hairpins, allowing him an unimpeded view of her breasts. Still, she visibly trembled all over, and goose bumps prickled her skin as Nathan stroked his large hands over her, warming her, arousing her, exploring the shape of her breasts as she closed her eyes and kept her arms over her head as she continued to pluck at her hair, now slowly coming loose from its tight bun. She used both feet to kick off her slippers then languorously stretched out her legs. Nathan untied the garters and peeled her stockings over her knees, down her calves, and off her feet. Once they were removed, she bent one leg and kept the other straight, affording him a tantalizing glimpse of the dark curls between them. Her hands still over her head, her eyes still closed, she raked her fingers through her honeyed tresses, smoothing them out, letting them spill over the back of the chaise as Nathan finally tore open his breeches and let his arousal spring free, eager to mount her and make her his.

He sat on the edge of the chaise and bent forward to kiss her again, tasting her sweetness as she hummed and let her tongue tangle with his till she was gasping for breath, and then he scattered more kisses down her throat and chest to her breasts, closing in on their plump, pink tips. He laved each of them with his tongue while she whimpered, and then she moaned as he took one into his mouth, devouring her as he slid one hand between her thighs, exploring all the slick folds and creases until he found the swollen bud within. With a single flick of his fingertip she moaned, arching her back as her legs fell wide open.

He lifted his head from her breasts to survey her in all her naked, wanton glory as he gently massaged her sweetest spot, watching as she writhed and gasped little breaths, gripping the back of the chaise as she gradually stiffened all over, and he knew it was because she was concentrating all her senses, all her thoughts on the pleasure he was giving to her hot, wet center.

“My God, Kate, but you’re beautiful,” he whispered. “Do you feel it? Do you feel how very beautiful you are? Open your eyes and see how beautiful you are. Open them, Kate, or I’ll stop.”

“Oh, no!” She opened them wide, staring straight ahead of her. “Oh my God!”

* * * *

Kate could scarcely believe her eyes. Directly in front of her was a full-length mirror, reflecting her nude image. She squinted, almost wishing she had her spectacles so she could see more clearly, but what she saw was enough—her golden-brown hair disheveled and tumbling everywhere, the tips of her breasts rosy and pointed from Nathan’s feasting, her legs spread far apart, her throbbing womanhood all but obscured by his teasing fingers that continued to send her swirling through flames of ecstasy that burned higher and hotter, spreading rapidly from her very core to her every nerve ending. She moaned in rapture, and then he stifled her with his mouth, his lips covering hers as if to claim her mouth for his own and for all time. Waves of pleasure drenched the fire within her as she threw arms around him.

Nathan slid one arm behind her neck and under her head as he continued kissing her, commanding her mouth with his forceful tongue as the fingers of his other hand slid inside her, pushing in and out repeatedly, rapidly, while she felt for his member and finally found it, grasping its hard, thick length. She stroked it up and down as if doing so was the most natural thing in the world, till finally he withdrew his fingers and broke the kiss then, without any warning, scooped her up into his arms.

Kate cried out in astonishment as she instinctively looped her arms around his neck. She hadn’t been picked up since she was an infant and of course had utterly no memory of it. Nathan stood with her in his arms for one moment as he kissed her again, as if to remind her that she was now his.

His lips left hers, and he gazed deeply into her wide eyes, his own storming with a desire that made her shiver inside, his lips slightly parted as if he wanted to say something—a declaration, perhaps, that he loved her? Kate felt her own heart swelling and thundering as she gifted him with a trembling smile. Finally, he smiled back and without a word carried her to the bed, carefully laying her down on the counterpane.

She swept her gaze over his huge, muscular body, admiring the hard ridges and planes of his chest, lightly dusted with dark hair, the thick, corded muscles in his arms, the even thicker, firm thighs, and between them, jutting out toward her, as big and as hard as the rest of him, his manhood.

Aching for more of him, all of him, she opened her legs as he knelt over her and between them, propping himself on his hands as he continued gazing intently into her eyes. Then, with one swift stroke, he plunged himself inside of her.

Surprise seized her. Surprise that she barely felt a twinge when he entered her. Surprise that something that huge slid so easily into her narrow virgin passage. Surprise that when he closed his eyes and moaned, as if to savor the feel of her all around him, it could only mean that now
she
was giving him pleasure.

He slowly pulled out almost all the way and then pushed into her again. This time she felt no twinge, only the fiery bliss of being so intimately joined with him. He repeated the movement, and she involuntarily arched her hips, reaching up to grasp his biceps, unable to squeeze them because they were so firm. He lowered himself to his elbows, his face above hers, closer now, his eyes dark and his expression intense as he continued thrusting inside her with a steady rhythm as she just as rhythmically writhed beneath him, whimpering with every rock of his hips against hers.

She longed to tell him that she loved him, yet she could barely gasp more than his name between his repeated, deep thrusts.

And then he suddenly paused. “Ah, my bonny Kate, you’re too much for me,” he whispered, his Scottish burr overpowering his English accent as, with a heavy sigh, he slowly, almost reluctantly withdrew from her and rolled over next to her.

Kate couldn’t help feeling that she was missing something, or maybe he was missing something, or perhaps something was just plain missing. But what?

He rested a large hand over her smaller one. “Now it’s your turn.”

Bewilderment drifted over her as she stared up at the tester for a long moment. “My turn to do what?”

“To pleasure me the way I pleasured you at the beginning.” He placed her trembling hand around his throbbing shaft, now slick from her own wetness. “Just do with it what you did before I lifted you from the chaise.”

Kate slowly sat up and firmly stroked him up and down. She had no idea that this was how the act was performed. Had he spilled his seed inside of her already? Still, this might explain why “her turn” came at the beginning, while “his turn” came at the end. Her turn was all about arousing her in preparation to receive him. His turn was all about subduing him back to whatever constituted “normal” for a man. He closed his eyes and tightened his jaw as she continued stroking him, firmer and faster, and then came a new surprise when he stiffened and grunted as something pale and sticky shot out of him, all over his belly.

“What is that?” she cried.

He opened his eyes to survey her as a lazy smile suffused his handsome face. “You don’t know what that is?”

“As I hope you know, I’ve never seen anything like that before.”

He chuckled. “Surely you don’t have to see it to know what it is.”

“Well, if it isn’t—then it must be—is this”—she dropped her voice to a whisper—“your seed?”

“’Tis indeed,” he said cheerfully. “Perhaps you could bring me a towel from the washstand?”