How to Seduce a Duke (20 page)

Her fingers slipped around Rogan’s neck and pulled his head down to her. She closed her eyelids and opened her mouth slightly for him.

“Mary,” he whispered, “I vow you are not used to the effects of the wine. You should stop now, before you do something you will regret in the morning.”

“Haven’t you thought about it? You must have.” She lifted her lids and peered up at him earnestly. “Rogan, I have tried to forget the feeling of your body pressed against mine. Fought to wipe away the memory of your mouth, so hot and wet, moving over my lips. But God save me, I can’t do it.”

“Mary, please, do not say another word.” He caught her wrist and made to pull her hand from the back of his neck.

She doesn’t know what she is doing. Make her stop.

Stop now.

“No, please don’t. You don’t understand. I took the wine this night for courage. So I would not retreat.” She placed her hand softly upon his cheek for a moment, then slipped her fingers to his temple and through his hair.

Rogan closed his eyes and drew a deep breath through his nose.

It had been so long since he’d been touched so tenderly. And though he wanted nothing more than for her to continue, he knew he could not allow it.

He caught her hand and removed it from his hair. “Mary, stop—”

Instead she laid her finger vertically across his lips. “
Shh
. Listen to me. What I felt when you kissed me was like... nothing I have ever known.”

Rogan grabbed her wrist and pulled her finger from his mouth. “You are an innocent.”

“Not so innocent as you might believe.”

“Somehow, my dear, I doubt that.”

“Then you would be wrong, sir.” She lowered her eyes to the pavers for an instant, before meeting his gaze again with an impish grin on her lips. “Believe me, I know how a kiss feels. Yours was not my first.”

“Wasn’t it?”

She shook her head and colored most becomingly. “But I do not lie when I admit that when you touched your mouth to mine, every part of me felt so... so alive—like never before.”

Rogan let his gaze flutter over her flushed cheeks and delve deep into her eyes. “What do you want of me, Mary?”

“I want you to kiss me again—now. I have to know.”

“What?”

“If it’s you, Rogan, who awakened me—or if it was my belief that I was in Quinn’s arms.”

Quinn’s arms? Damn you.

He caught her waist with both hands and held her at arm’s length. “What game is this, Miss
Royle
?”

Her eyes suddenly took on a sheen in the moonlight. “’Tis no game, Rogan. I want to know. I
need
to know.
Please.
”

Rogan’s breath came faster.
Walk away. Just turn and walk away from her. Now.

Why, despite his attempts to separate this woman from Quinn, by the end of summer she could become
Viscountess
Wetherly
—his brother’s wife.

“Please, Rogan,” she said breathily. “One kiss.”

Damn it.
He couldn’t seem to help himself.

His grip tightened around her and he pulled her to him, closer and closer still, until they stood only a breath apart.

“Kiss me,”
she whispered again.

And in the cool light of the moon, Rogan swept her into his arms and leaned toward her.

He rested his hand in the small of her back, making her arch against him as he moved his lips along the tender skin of her throat.

Mary moaned and softened against him.

His mouth moved upward along her neck, pausing for just a moment to murmur in her ear. “Is it the same?”

“I do not know yet.” Mary settled her hand on his chest, the tips of her fingers digging into his muscles. “Kiss me, Rogan.
Please.
”

Gently, he brushed his fingers along her jaw, then firmly took her chin and turned her face upward to his, before catching her mouth with his own.

Excitement surged through his body, and he knew, for certain, what she had meant about being awakened.

She angled her lips against his, opening her mouth to deepen the kiss, giving herself to him, and desire like he’d never felt exploded through his veins.

He could smell the scent of roses on her skin, taste the wine on her tongue, feel the warmth of her breath mingling with his own.

He was drowning in her and never wanted to surface.

The courtyard dissolved into nothingness around them. Thought evaporated.

All he knew was Mary, and his need for her.

Rogan pulled her hard to him, felt her full breasts crush against him. She wrapped her hands tightly around his neck and clung to him.

He pulled back for the briefest moment and gazed into her eyes. “Is it the same, Mary?”

She peered sleepily into his eyes, and her lips curved upward.
“
Yesss
.”

He drove his tongue deep into her mouth, wanting, needing urgently to possess her. As he kissed her so deeply, one hand slid over her hip and ground her against the hardness between his legs.

She broke their kiss then and peered up at him queerly.

“Mary, I don’t know what made me—”

“What did you say?” Her eyes seemed to roll back, and her lids closed.

“Mary? Oh, God.” He shook her, and he saw she tried to open her eyes. “Can you hear me? Are you well?”

But then her eyes closed again and she crumpled against him. Rogan stared down at the woman, limp in his arms.

“Mary!”

H
er eyes were so heavy, her limbs so weighted, that Mary was in no hurry to rouse herself from her slumber... and this wicked, but oh-so-delicious dream.

She was rocking ever so gently, her back resting upon his chest, with his hands securely wrapped around her waist, holding her against him.

Even through the layers of petticoat and skirts, she could feel his hardness branding her. She wriggled against him, reveling in the proof of his desire for her.

Around them was a roaring sound, grating annoyingly in her head. Making her awaken.

She slowly opened her eyes and turned to face Rogan. It was completely dark inside the carriage that carried them through the night.

She blinked. This dream was different.

As she moved, he slipped his hands under her arms and drew her closer, holding her securely against him on the seat.

She couldn’t resist smiling. Since the night she and Rogan had first met, she’d had many similar dreams, wanton and willful, but never in a carriage.

Never one so visceral as this.

In the small finger of moonlight breaking through the cloaked window, she could just discern Rogan’s face. She smiled and pressed up on the seat high enough that she could nuzzle the exposed skin between the top of his starched
neckcloth
and the lobe of his ear.

“Mary,” he whispered,
halfheartedly
nudging her away. “I am bringing you home.”

“No, not yet, please.” Mary tried to sit up straight, but her head began to whirl. She reached out for Rogan, who sat straight and rigid on the carriage seat. Using his lapels as leverage, she slid her knee over his legs, straddling him. “I want you to kiss me again.”

His hands came around her waist. He seemed more than a little stunned at her boldness. He tried to lift her from him. “Mary, we can’t do this.”

Throwing her arms around his neck, Mary clung to him. “Yes we can. No one will know. Besides, it will not be the first time.”

It was true. In her dreams, they’d been together dozens of times, like this. Just like this.

She skimmed her fingers through his thick hair and kissed him deeply. He groaned against her mouth, low and deep, making her tingle all over.

His hips seemed to move of their own accord, and she felt his erection press against the crushed skirts between her legs.

Her own body heated from within, and instinctively, she arched her back and pushed down against him.

He drew back his head, just enough to see her eyes, without breaking her kiss. Even in the dimness the question in his gaze was clear.

“Rogan,”
she whispered rather hoarsely as her fingers worked to unwind and remove his
neckcloth
.

He trailed his mouth from hers, running the tip of his tongue along the curve of her upper lip before plunging it inside her mouth.

Mary moaned and allowed him to deepen his kiss as she fumbled to open his waistcoat and wrenched his shirttails from his breeches.

She slid her hands over the ripples of his stomach muscles, then higher until she touched the hard swells of his chest.
Yes, just as she’d imagined.

He lifted his mouth from hers and whispered her name, so queerly, as if her own name were a question.

And so she answered him. “Yes, Rogan. Yes.”

In a sudden move, he roughly scooped her up, turned, and settled her back against the length of the leather seat cushion.

Then he knelt beside the seat, gazing at her through those dark, smoldering eyes.

Without a word, he skimmed her face with his fingertips, down and along the line of her jaw, then rode swiftly down the center of her throat to the base of her gown’s lacy neckline.

His thumb slid to the left, over the upper mound of her breast. She arched against his hand, shivering with pleasure at the searing heat of his touch.

Now
this
was the rake she had dreamed about.

His hands caught her gown and her silk chemise at her shoulders, then dragged them down her arms, baring her breasts to him.

She was panting now, but he did nothing more; instead, he only watched her. She felt so wanton. So wicked. But still she wanted to feel more.

“I want you to touch me,” she murmured. “I want... to touch you.”

His gaze trailed slowly down her body, then returned to her face.

“Are you sure of this?” He bent and took her nipple inside his mouth for just an instant, making her gasp.

She tried to speak but managed only to nod.

When he lifted his mouth from her, she could feel the heat of his breath upon her skin. “
This
is what you want?”

“And more.” Why shouldn’t she? This was her dream, her fantasy.

Grasping his coat, she yanked the side closest to her from his shoulder.

Rogan came to his feet. He bent to avoid hitting his head on the ceiling as he shrugged his coat to the floor and tore off his waistcoat as well.

Her heart pounded as she watched his silhouette move purposefully to the end of the seat. He turned to face her, then slipped his hands beneath her knees and roughly pushed them apart.

He kissed the top of her knee, then knelt between her spread legs and eased his body over her, bracing himself on his hands on either side of her head.

The look in his eyes was primitive and all male, and it sent color rushing up past her bare breasts and into her cheeks.

Just a dream. Just a dream.

Please, don’t let me wake up this time.

“Don’t stop,” she whispered.

He glanced up at her as she spoke, then he turned his eyes to gaze at her breasts. He moved his head, and she knew what he was about to do, or at least, what she hoped he would. At once, her nipples became hard and erect.

He looked back into her eyes and smiled wickedly at her. Then he lowered his mouth and dragged his wet tongue over her nipple, swirling it in hot, agonizingly slow circles, before taking it hard into his mouth.

He leaned against the backrest and cupped her other breast, squeezing it gently as he sucked harder.

Her head swirled with the sensation, and she writhed against his hard body as he sucked, nipped, and touched her, arousing her as she had never been before.

His erection grew harder and began to throb against her.

Raising one knee, she flung one leg over his hip and pressed her body against his groin.

He raised his dark head from the paleness of her breast and pinned her with his gaze. “Are you sure?” He lifted himself up from her, and as he knelt between her thighs, he shoved the layers of skirts to her hips.

“Yes,
yes.
”

It was about to happen. He was about to claim her body.

But she always woke up the instant before he possessed her, and she knew she would again at any moment if she didn’t hurry this dream along.

“Rogan, don’t wait,” she begged. “Please.”

Over the crumpled mounds of skirts at her hips, she could see that he fumbled at his front fall.

“Hurry.”

He came up on his knees and moved close to her.

He grinned most wickedly as he positioned his thumb against her most private of parts and began to rub a slow circle that made her whimper and thrash about.