The Duke Goes Down (The Duke Hunt #1) by Sophie Jordan

His voice was its own form of seduction, wrapping around her like silken chains, gently imprisoning her. He looked back and forth between her face and his ministrations as though gauging her willingness.

The air ceased to flow in and out from her lips, but she remained, loath to break free from her intoxicating bonds.

She went perfectly limp as he traveled up, reaching her knee, stopping when he arrived at her garters. He played with the ribbons holding up her stockings, murmuring, “Then I would touch you above your stockings. My fingers right here . . . on this delicate skin.”

Her limp legs parted wider at this first touch on the inside of her thigh, at the pads of his fingers on her flesh.

She went from not breathing at all to breathing too much, too fast, too hard.

She pressed a hand over her galloping heart as he stroked the inside of her thighs.

“Then you would finally have my fingers on your soft . . . warm . . . skin,” he breathed, trailing up the inside of one thigh, slipping through the loose legs of her drawers, and then back down and around to the fleshier outside of her thigh, giving her a firm squeeze that she felt right between her legs—a deep swell of pressure at her core that made her gasp.

Her skirts were rucked up to her hips. The afternoon sun beat down on her in her state of dishabille even as the chill air turned her skin to gooseflesh. It was indecent and decadent and she couldn’t find the will to care.

There was no awkwardness. No shame. No discomfort.

Only shivers. Delightful shivers.

The pace of his caresses became agonizing and almost too slow, too gentle, and she wished he would move faster, wished his hands would grasp her . . . fondle her a bit harder. She wasn’t glass. She wanted him to squeeze her flesh again as he just had done on her thigh.

She wanted more of that.

More of him and his magical hands.

“Next I might free you of these.” There was no might about it. He quickly untied the waistband of her drawers, tugging them down her legs in one smooth move and tossing them aside. They landed above her head on her bed of stone. “And then I’ll have you spread gloriously in front of me, so I can touch you and feast on you . . .”

Her entire body was humming and vibrating like it was possessed. It did not even belong to her anymore. It belonged to him. And she didn’t even care about that—she was too overcome with the onslaught of his attentions to worry about that.

She flinched as his hand grazed the folds of her womanhood and he stilled, his eyes quickly scanning her face, reading her quick wave of tension. He retreated, moving his hand back to her thigh, stroking and kneading her flesh, winding her up again until she was panting. Until a gnawing ache pulsed between her legs.

His velvety voice continued near her ear, spiking fresh chills down her neck. “I would lavish kisses on all this sweet skin. Like this.”

He dropped down, and she sighed in pleasure at the lingering kiss he bestowed on the inside of one knee, and then the other.

Yes. Pleasure. She felt it. Just as he had promised.

Just as he said he could deliver.

She continued to feel that pleasure as he settled between her legs and began raining kisses all over her thighs. Everywhere. The insides. The outsides. The undersides. He rolled her over and kissed the back of her knees—openmouthed kisses where his tongue licked her sensitive skin. Skin she never knew was so sensitive.

She was a wreck, discomposed and panting, flattening her palms against the cool stone.

“I’ll kiss and touch you . . . all over.” His hands drifted up the backs of her thighs, his broad palms finding the bared cheeks of her bottom, smoothing over the plump flesh and squeezing. The pressure sent her over the edge. She moaned, tilting her hips, pushing up into his hands, brazen and shameless and not the least bit self-conscious because it felt too good.

Even with her small bit of experience all those summers ago, she never knew that intimacy could be like this, that it could be so . . . intimate.

He gripped both cheeks, kneading and massaging, sending sensation blasting through her. Her back arched and her fingers curled, nails digging into rock.

Moisture rushed between her legs and her moans broke into a hoarse, rattled cry that did not sound like her. It did not even sound human. She was something else, another creature born of primeval need and fierce desire.

He rolled her over. She fell limply onto her back, her bones reduced to pudding. She chased after her breath as little ripples of sensation eddied through her.

His hands slid around her hips and dragged her closer, bringing her to him like a feast to be devoured.

She lifted her head weakly, attempting to peer down at him.

His face was there, between her thighs, his gray eyes as dark and feral as a beast intent on its next meal, and that meal was Imogen. It was as disconcerting as it was thrilling. Her hand lunged for his head, her fingers diving into his thick hair.

“What are you . . .” She stopped abruptly, shivering as she felt his warm breath lightly blowing on her.

She squirmed and fidgeted, aware of how very wet she was down there—and that he could see that for himself. Mortified, she opened her mouth and choked out, “You should not do this.” Men did not do this sort of thing. People did not do this. Did they?

He stilled, the breeze of his breath halting as he spoke. “Why shouldn’t I?”

“It’s . . .” She groped for the proper word and settled for the truth. “Embarrassing.”