A Duke Worth Falling For by Sarah MacLean

8

It was perfect. A little stone tower, complete with arched windows and a rooftop parapet, made to look like a tiny medieval castle out here in the middle of nowhere.

Lilah let out a little gasp of excitement. “Can we go in?”

“Of course. What good would it be otherwise?”

She didn’t need to be told twice. There was nothing inside—the small door led to a staircase, winding around a great central column to the roof. In the doorway, she turned back to Max, still outside, still watching her. “Are you coming?”

He followed as she made her way up the winding stairs, catching up to her when she stilled on the small platform halfway up the tower to look out the tall, narrow opening there, the breeze whispering through the arch, cool and crisp. Atlas was already bounding off into the distance, released from herding humans for a while.

She lifted her camera and took a picture a thousand other people must have taken. She didn’t care. It wasn’t for the world. It was for her.

To bring her back, when it was over.

“The view is better from the top,” Max said, the low rumble curling through her.

He was right.

Coming through the small doorway at the top of the turret, Lilah walked to the edge, nothing in the world able to stop her. Camera in hand, she set her bag down at the base of the tower wall, peeking over, surveying the land. “This is like the greatest tree house ever. Did you play here as a kid?”

“It’s an excellent hiding place, if you are ever looking for one. Visitors never come this far north, and everyone on the estate forgets it exists.”

She shook her head. “England is real wild.”

He laughed. “Americans love a castle.”

“And what’s wrong with that?” she tossed over her shoulder. “I, for one, feel like the heroine in a romance novel,” she said. “Out on the ramparts, watching for soldiers coming home from battle.”

“Mmm,” he said, wrapping an arm around her waist and pressing a kiss at the place where her neck met her shoulder. “I like the idea of coming home from battle to you.”

She turned in his arms as his touch and words warmed her. “Mmm,” she repeated, teasing. “Maybe I’d like to come home from battle to you on the ramparts.”

“Waiting to warm you by the fire?” His tongue swirled against her pulse. “No. We go to war together.”

“Sword in your sheath, blade in my kirtle?” She sighed.

“Sounds proper filthy. Let’s do it.”

She laughed and pulled away from him, finding the sunlight on his face, his eyes bright and warm with pleasure and teasing, and the sound trailed off. “My God, Max. You’re so pretty.”

He dipped his chin at the words, and she loved that she’d embarrassed him.

“Let me take your picture.”

His attention immediately returned to her, his brow furrowed, like he didn’t know what to say.

“I’ll be gentle,” she said with a smile. “You won’t feel a thing.”

He laughed and rubbed a hand back and forth at the back of his neck. “I don’t know anything about being a model.”

She shook her head. “No modeling necessary. I just want—”

I want to remember you.

Lilah swallowed around the thought, hating the tightness in her chest. “I just want to take a picture of you, here. With the land you work behind you. With the sun that loves you on your skin.”

“Only if I am able to take a picture of you at the end.”

“You drive a hard bargain, but I accept. And you will be very, very disappointed to know that I do not photograph well.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“It’s true,” she said, lifting the Nikon, watching him in the viewfinder as she joked, “Mine’s the kind of beauty that moves.”

He laughed.

Click.

“I wasn’t ready.”

“You were perfect,” she said, immediately reframing.

He hesitated.

Don’t blink.

There.

Click.

“You’re perfect,” he said.

The words sent a shot of pure pleasure through her. She lowered the camera, wanting to remember this moment, his eyes on her, seeing her in a way no one had ever seen her. She swallowed, her heart pounding. She was excited. Nervous.

Photographing Max, here, felt like she was taking pictures for the first time.

“Are you sure you don’t model on the side, farmhand?”

“I’ve been practicing for my new Instagram account.”

Click. That sly smile.

She laughed. “Too few piglets.”

Click. And the easy one, like home.

Click. Watching her. Not posing.

“You love this.”

On autopilot, Lilah readjusted her grip, moving with the light, backing away. Considering the angle of the shadows behind him as they lengthened in the afternoon sun. “It’s all I’ve ever wanted to do. Since I was a kid and my dad dug an old Polaroid camera out of a box in the attic and let me have it.” She paused. “Did you ever play with one of those?”

Click. Memory.

“I don’t think we ever had one.”

“I loved them. The picture would appear like it was coming through fog. It felt like magic. My dad bought up as much instant film as he could find at yard sales and thrift shops. And I took about twelve thousand pictures of the cat.”

Click. The handsomest of grins.

“How old were you?”

“Seven or eight,” she said, lowering the camera. “After the cat, I turned to portraits. My parents, my friends, my teachers, strangers. We took a summer vacation to the Outer Banks and I convinced a dozen people in line for ice cream to let me photograph them.” She shook her head, stuck in the memory. “My poor mother. She didn’t know what to do with me. But I still remember that when we developed that roll of film—she turned to me and said, in her thickest Georgia drawl, ‘Well, Lilah Rose, I suppose you’re going to be an artist.’”

“They were good?”

“They would have been better if I’d been able to develop them myself, but my mom vetoed turning the downstairs bathroom into a darkroom for some reason.” She lifted the Nikon. “They bought me my first digital camera for my next birthday, and no one in my life was safe.”

“Not even me,” he said.

“Especially not you. Too many good angles.”

“You like my angles, do you?”

The teasing question coiled through her as her focus narrowed on him, tall and broad in the golden light. “I might need a better look.”

That smile. So easy. Max spread his arms wide. “I present myself to the artist for inspection.”

Yum.

She turned away for a heartbeat, just enough time to set her camera back in her bag. Max had relaxed against the parapet wall again, a modern-day knight. His arms were stretched across the edge, the collar of his navy blue sweater unzipped to reveal a hint of sun-kissed skin. He wore the same Chameaus from their first meeting—crossed one over the other like he had all the time in the world for her blatant appraisal.

“Applying for position of muse?” She approached, slow and deliberate. When she was close enough to touch him, she stopped, drinking him in. Shadows and light, hard lines and smooth edges.

“If you’ll have me,” he said, the words rough like stone.

She went heavy with want and stepped closer, setting her hands to his chest, tracing the lines of him, the sinew of his strong arms stretched out across the wall, the ridges of muscles down over his chest and abdomen, beneath his sweater. She slid her fingers beneath the hem, searching for the warm skin of his waist, and he sucked in a breath at the touch of her cold hands.

“It’s difficult to decide,” she said, unable to keep the need from her words. “With all these clothes.”

“Mmm.”

She loved that sound. When this was over, that low rumble would follow her forever. She’d summon it on late nights, in the dark, when she let herself remember this week, slipped out of time.

Pushing the thought of over out of the way, Lilah stroked one hand down the outside of his trousers, finding his cock hard beneath the fabric.

“Visitors never get this far north?”

His eyes went liquid with heat and understanding. “Everyone forgets it exists.”

Lilah rewarded the words by tracing the ridge of him, heavy and thick, and delighting in his low groan, in the way her touch undid him. She leaned in and pressed a lingering, soft kiss to the skin at the open collar of his shirt. “May I?”

He swore, and she took it as a yes.

“Hands stay on the wall, please,” she whispered in his ear before she traced her lips across his jaw, down the column of his neck, the slide mimicked by another, lower, his trousers opening, releasing the swell of his cock into her waiting hands.

“Lilah,” he whispered. “You’re going to kill me.”

“Mmm,” she said, still playing her part, pulling the fabric down and revealing the stunning, straining length of him. Her mouth watered as she stroked over him, reveling in the feel of him, hot and hard. She couldn’t help her whisper, “Look at this gorgeous cock.”

“Fuck, yes,” he said, harsh. “Look at it.”

Her gaze flickered up to his, finding him staring at her. She fisted him, stroking from base to tip, loving the way the movement wrecked him, his eyes going hooded, his chest rumbling with a low growl of pleasure. “I don’t just want to look at it, Max.”

His eyes narrowed and he leaned down, not taking his hands from the wall even as he claimed her mouth—ever the marauder—tongue delving deep, stroking over hers until she gasped with pleasure.

“Whatever you want, love.”

Love.

She ignored the way the word rioted through her, filling her with a wave of pleasure, leaving her hot and heavy with need, instead returning her attention to him, tracing ridges and veins, “I want it all.”

“Christ,” he said, “I can see how much you want it. Fuck, you’re beautiful—” She stroked him again, and his words were lost in a groan as his hips rocked against her touch.

“You like that,” she whispered.

“I like that very much,” he said with a laugh. “I like you. Kiss me again.”

She did, heat pooling at her core, making her ache in the best possible way. As she continued to work him over, fucking him with her hands, memorizing the length and feel of him, his thick shaft and the beautiful pink head of him, moist with the evidence of his need for her.

“Fuck, Lilah, you look . . . ”

She could see it. She could see how she looked in his eyes. On his face. “Hungry,” she whispered. “I’m hungry, Max.”

She slid to her knees in front of him, and he gritted his teeth, the muscles of his jaw working as she knew he did all he could not to touch her, this gorgeous man, giving himself up to her whims. God, he was perfect.

This is perfect, she thought as she stroked him, loving the way his strong, lean hips met her movements, and she watched, feeling the straining steel of him, reveling in his size as she looked up at him, in the cords of his neck and the clench of his jaw and the white-knuckled grip he kept on the parapet wall because she’d told him to.

She rewarded them both, licking over the tip of him, salty sweetness exploding on her tongue as his curse exploded in her ears, one hand coming off the wall, uncontrollable, threading into her hair, tightening in her curls until she groaned too, at the delicious sting of his touch.

And somehow this glorious man didn’t move, even as she teased him, keeping his pleasure from him. From her, even as his cock throbbed in her hand and his breath hung between them, ragged and uneven.

“You want to fuck me, don’t you?” she said to the straining length of him, knowing she tempted fate.

“No,” he bit out, summoning her surprise. She looked up at him, meeting his eyes, his pupils blown with need. “I want you to fuck me.”

The words were her pleasure and her power.

And then he added, “But I want you to fuck yourself too.”

She stilled.

His pleasure. His power.

“I want you to spread your legs and slide your fingers beneath your clothes, and tell me how wet you are.” He slid one booted foot between her knees, helping her widen them. “Go on, beautiful.”

She did as she was told, her fingers sliding over her pussy, her breath catching with the pleasure of her own touch.

“That’s it,” he said, encouraging her even as she could hear the way everything about this moment was wrecking him. Wrecking them both. “Find the place where it aches, love.”

She did, her eyelids flickering when she stroked over her clit.

“There it is,” he whispered. “Are you wet for me?”

She nodded.

“Mmm.”

Wetter for him now.

He used his fist in her hair to tilt her up to him. “Are you sure you don’t want me to do it? Sure you don’t want me to lay you down here in the sunlight on this tower and eat you until you scream? I want that,” he said. “I want the taste of you on me all day, sex and sin.”

He was destroying her. She did want that.

But she wanted him more. “No,” she said, loving the surprise in his eyes when she leaned forward and licked the underside of him, long and lingering and wet, until she reached the tip of him. “I want this.”

And she parted her lips and took him in, loving the heavy slide over her tongue, the salty fire that came with it, the hard heat of him. The way he let out a long, slow breath as she drew him deep, one hand stroking over his shaft, reveling in his ragged breath and his filthy words as he reached for control.

As she unraveled him. The pace, the pressure, the places that made him wild, summoning more of those deep-throated rumbles.

“Don’t stop,” he whispered, looking down at her, drawing her attention to his face.

She wasn’t going to stop; she wanted everything from him.

She took him deep, and his fist tightened again, slowing her movements. “Don’t stop,” he bit out. “Make yourself come.”

The words set her on fire, and she fucked them both, taking him in long, lush strokes, again and again, over and over, and stroking herself, wet and wanting, until she had to focus on one of them, and of course it would be him—because his pleasure was hers, the sounds he made, the filthy words he whispered as she found the rhythm that was his undoing, until finally, the hand he’d kept on the wall came to her hair, stroking soft and reverent and he groaned, “Lilah, love, if you—I’m going to—”

Yes. She willed him. Give it to me.

He grew, impossibly harder, impossibly thicker against her tongue, pulsing against her.

She took him deep and he came, shouting her name, loud and rough and devastating, to the land and the sky and this tower that she would never forget, salt and musk and Max, her hands stroking up his thighs, over the trembling muscles of his stomach as his touch gentled and he caught his breath.

She stayed with him until he returned to himself, easing himself from her lips, and Lilah sat back on her heels, looking up at him as the expression on his face moved from pure pleasure to something that looked more than a little dangerous.

Her eyes widened as he yanked up his trousers, ignoring the fastenings on them, and came to his own knees before her, reaching for her, pulling her in for a deep, intense kiss. When it was over, he growled against her lips. “I said don’t stop.”

“I was busy,” she replied.

“Mmm. Well, it looks like I’m going to have to take matters into my own hands.”

She squealed as he flipped her back, reaching beneath her sweater to pull her jeans down past her knees, locking her ankles together as he spread her thighs and wedged his broad shoulders between them. “Max—” she started, but there was nothing more to say, the rest of the words forgotten with the pleasure of his mouth, hard and urgent against her.

“You taste like the fucking sun,” he said, lifting his head for a heartbeat, just long enough to slide his hands beneath her ass and tilt her up to him, like a banquet.

Like she was a feast.

And God, he feasted, his tongue thick and perfect, licking over her, rubbing back and forth over her clit, where she ached for release, again and again, faster and faster until her fingers were tight in his hair and she was rocking against him, crying out, “Please, Max.”

“Mmm.”

That growl, that deep rumble, combined with a thick finger, stroking deep, just there . . . just enough . . .  She came hard, shouting his name to the sky. And this time Max held her while she returned to thought, restoring her clothing and rolling to his back and pulling her into his arms, holding her tight against him as her breath returned and her heartbeat resumed a normal rhythm.

They lay there in easy silence, at the top of the folly, for what seemed like hours, the sunlight spilling through the ancient trees, and Lilah traced the shadows of the leaves on his chest, willing time to stop, just for a bit. Just for a few more days.

Just until he wasn’t so perfect.

“I didn’t get my pictures,” he said after a while.

She smiled. “You got something better though, no?”

Silence. And then, “I still want the picture.”

Warmth threaded through her, and she shifted, reaching into the back pocket of her jeans to extract her phone.

“Don’t trust me with the real thing?” Max said, teasing.

“This one is better for Instagram,” she quipped, flipping the camera and handing it to him. “You’ve got a longer arm,” she said, tucking herself against him, adjusting the angle of his reach to avoid shadows, framing the shot with precision.

“You can take the photography away from the girl . . . ” Max intoned, his lips curved as he watched her on the screen.

“Hush,” she said. “Take the picture.”

He turned and kissed her temple.

Don’t blink, Lilah. You might miss it.