The Scandalous Love of a Duke. Jane Lark

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СКАЧАТЬ stopped and looked down at her, vulnerability and need burning in his eyes again. “An affair of sorts, an intrigue. But I shall not take your innocence. I’ll not hurt you.”

      His gaze said, please do not deny me.

      A rush of yearning swamped her heart.

      He began walking again, looking ahead and not at her.

      Oh John. John! She remembered that day long ago when she had watched him in the lake and felt desperate to touch him. If she did this, she could touch him and she could kiss him. If she did it, the pain buried in her soul for years would have ease.

      John! She ached for him. How could she say no? She had always known he could never offer her marriage, but he could offer her this and she could take it. It was what she’d longed for. Why say no?

      As they neared an ancient oak, John’s arm slipped from beneath her hand and then he caught a hold of her arm again and drew her behind the broad trunk, then pressed her back against it.

      Her parasol fell and tumbled across the lawn, blown on the wind, as his lips covered hers, gently at first, but then the kiss became more insistent.

      His body was barely an inch from hers.

      One of his long-fingered hands braced against her cheek.

       John!

      She kissed him back, her tongue dancing with his, learning from his.

      His other hand pressed against her lower back. While hers gripped his morning coat, clinging to him.

      The storm of emotion she could feel in him was bitter need.

      His mouth left hers and he began nipping beneath her chin in soft little bites. “I want you Katherine.” His breath was hot. “I can show and teach you things you will enjoy, but I swear I shall not take your virginity. I know you want me, too.”

       I do!

      His hand cupped her breast through her bodice, kneading it gently. It ached for him.

      “Say yes, Katherine,” he whispered urgently.

      His lips nipped at her neck and his hand rubbed her breast while his hips pressed against hers.

      She wanted him, there, between her legs, she wanted to do the indecent things her mother had done to beget her. He was the only thing she had ever really wanted. Why hold back?

      Her breath was shallow, and his hard and rasping.

      His hand left her breast and moved to the place where she wanted him to be.

       John!

      He pressed her through the layers of her gown and petticoats, and her arms rose to his neck as he kissed her lips again, more passionately.

      “Katherine,” he said into her mouth, sounding as breathless and desperate as her as his fingers rubbed her intimately between her legs through the layers of clothing.

      She was so in need. This is what she had spent so many years craving. It was just the two of them in the world. It was wrong, she knew it was, but it felt so right and she did not care. She was like her mother. She had always been told it. This had been inevitable since her birth. The sins of the parent visited on the child.

      Her body pressed against his, arching with its need.

      It was so perfect what he did, how could it be wrong?

      The feelings inside her whirled in a spiral of heated delight, rising up and overwhelming her, and then they seemed to break on a high tide that swept through her body, leaving her panting and weak-limbed.

      His fingers braced against her cheek again as he kissed her more urgently for a moment.

      She could no longer kiss him back.

      Then he ceased, and when she opened her eyes he was looking into them, beautiful and all John.

      He sighed, appearing to look right into her soul, the pale blue in his eyes glittering like melting ice.

      Her fingers stroked through his soft, dark hair.

      “That is what I can give you, Katherine,” he said quietly, as if that was everything. It was his love she wished for. “Will you meet me in my grandfather’s tower tomorrow at two?”

      “Yes,” her answer was caught on the breeze and swept away. Yes.

       Chapter Six

      Thoughts of Katherine hovering in his mind, John strode along the bare flagstone of the servants’ hall, ready to ride out to meet her. The image of her had hung in his mind since yesterday, along with a subconscious feeling of companionship.

      The beauty of her submission had been a revelation.

      She’d ceased fighting her desire yesterday, giving him her trust, and a hundred times last night he’d vowed to honour it.

      He was so hungry for her he’d hardly slept, burning with restless frustration. He itched to have her, but he had made her a promise. He would temper his lust. Yet there were many things a man could do without taking a woman’s virginity and his mind had dwelled on all of them last night. He was impatient to see her.

      He’d visited tenants earlier, alone, and then returned to look at the ledgers again over luncheon. There was still nothing there. Now he was searching for Wareham, who apparently kept the key to the folly. John had come himself because it gave him another opportunity to try and discover what Wareham was up to.

      The office door was shut. John gripped the handle and turned it without knocking. It was locked.

      Ill temper flared. John was too tired and impatient. He rapped on the door harshly, angry at being excluded from a room in his own property.

      A chair scraped within, and a moment later the lock turned. Then the door opened.

      Wareham’s expression was insolent – antagonising. Like the other day, there was no deference.

      John had an urge to grip the man by the throat and shove him up against a wall. “Must I remind you of your place again…”

      Wareham turned his back and crossed the room, returning to his desk. “You need not remind me. I am well aware of it.”

      John wished to hold him with one fist and punch him with the other. He’d not used John’s title, again.

      Wareham looked at John and barely bent his head, as though that would suffice. “Your Grace, pray, to what do I owe this honour?” Then he sat.

      It was insupportable for him to do so. John’s servants should always be standing in his presence. Wareham was deliberately insulting. His entire manner expressed rebellion, and his expression said he wished to make СКАЧАТЬ