Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 97740 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 489(@200wpm)___ 391(@250wpm)___ 326(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97740 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 489(@200wpm)___ 391(@250wpm)___ 326(@300wpm)
‘Yes, Eliza!’ He pulls away once again and props himself on his strong arms, pumping, banging into me, leaving me with no mouth to devour. His jaw is ticking, his eyes deadly serious. He pleasures me with more and more and more. I feel out of my mind, and it is so utterly wonderful. His pace picks up and so does the pressure. My hands brace on his forearms and push, taking me further up the rug.
I yelp, ‘Oh God,’ unable to be utterly ashamed using the \Lord’s name in vain, for I am unable to stop anything happening in this moment. Nothing.
Everything is frantic, an urgency I can’t explain overcoming me. His breathing, my breathing, his grunts, my whimpers, the sweating, the tensing, both of us chasing the end, but whereas Johnny appears to know what to expect, where we are going, I do not, and I am becoming increasingly wary of it. His handsome face becomes blurred. The room beyond starts to spin, and something powerful, and so far out of my control, sparks, sizzles and explodes, and my body bends so harshly, I swear it could break.
Even if it breaks me.
My body isn’t my own, and neither, apparently, are my thoughts, for I am thinking the unthinkable.
Keep me. Please, do not let me go. Marry me. Love me. Let me bear your heirs and be a good wife.
He then roars, the most carnal sound, and I am stretched further, but rather than rejecting the additional invasion, my body welcomes it, feeling like it could be pulling him in further to me. Making us one. Heat overcomes me, and I sigh, my useless arms flopping behind my head, and he collapses onto me, panting into my ear as his skin slips across mine.
‘I know not what to say,’ I gasp, dazed, dizzy, and rather enjoying this aftermath. My heart has never beaten so strongly. I have never felt so alive. Exhausted but alive.
He licks the shell of my ear, causing a shudder to ride through me. That, too, is delicious. ‘This moment requires no words, Eliza, so let us not waste them.’
I could not agree more. The Duke, who has taken many lovers, a rumour I know to be true, is, it would appear, somewhat stuck for words, too, and that is such a very thrilling feeling. His weight atop of me, albeit heavy, feels incredible, so we remain breathless and sprawled on the rug before the fire, as naked as a newborn babe, and it is so very peaceful as my fingertips gently graze across his skin instinctively.
‘I know what to say,’ I murmur. ‘I should like to thank you.’ I smile when I feel him, the notoriously stoic Duke, grinning against my neck. I take the back of his head and encourage him to face me so I may see the delightful sight. And it is so very delightful. What I am seeing here, this blinding vision, is so far removed from the clipped, brooding, arrogant Duke who has wholly charmed me, without really even trying. ‘I wish you would smile more.’
‘I save my smiles only for those who are worthy of them.’ He rests his weight on his forearms and brings his face close to mine, nose to nose, forehead to forehead. And he smiles once more. ‘Fortunately for you, Eliza Melrose, my wanton, wild sweetheart, you are worthy.’
‘Why, thank you, Your Grace.’
His grin is twisted and adorable and… bugger it all.
I am in love.
God damn me. I am in love. It’s unstoppable, really. How any man could make me feel this way and not expect to win my heart is unthinkable. ‘You are most welcome,’ he says. ‘Of course, I must remind you that I do not offer them freely, so should you be inclined, I would not be opposed to hearing the charms of your clever mouth from dawn until dusk, if you so wish.’
I nod my head, making his nod, too. I feel incredibly calm and serene, and I am certain it’s the loveliest of feelings.
‘Now, are you going to tell me how long you have been secretly writing for your father’s newspaper? And perhaps why here in London your only pieces have been about me?’
My nose wrinkles, and he taps the end with his fingertip.
‘You should be grateful. If anyone else had written it, it would not have been accurate, and you’d probably have been damned more so than you have been already.’
‘I have no doubt.’
‘Anyway, I must disappoint you,’ I say, feeling somewhat smug. ‘I have actually written a piece that doesn’t feature your fine self.’
‘Oh?’
‘The Millingdale Bank report,’ I declare, and he frowns.
‘That was definitely claptrap.’
‘It was. I made it up to divert from another report that was supposed to publish.’ I pause, bracing myself. His head tilts in question. ‘Lymington and Porter were reporting a mugging.’