Dare to Love a Duke. Eva Leigh

to unlock the door.

      “You’re up here early.” Kitty’s voice broke through Lucia’s sensual haze. “I— Oh.”

      Lucia looked down the hallway to see Kitty standing outside her room, jogging little Liam on her hip.

      Behind Lucia, her buccaneer stilled but didn’t move away. His breath fanned warmly across her nape, making her breasts tighten.

      A smile bloomed across Kitty’s face. “As you were, soldiers.” She saluted before disappearing into her room.

      Alone, finally. Lucia opened the door to her chamber. Taking a breath, she stepped inside.

      He followed at once, shutting the door behind him. She quickly locked it so no one would disturb them.

      She leaned back, knowing full well that the movement pushed her breasts tightly against her gown’s curved neckline. A shameless, proud display.

      He stepped closer, and her breasts brushed his broad, solid chest. This was the closest they had ever been to each other, and her whole body felt acutely sensitized, aware of every point of contact. His thighs against hers, their hips cradling together.

      “Am I to have you, then?” he rumbled.

      She adored the hint of an Irish accent in his words, yet would never know more about where he came from, or anything at all about him.

      Here she was, in her room, with an intimate stranger. A man she knew well, yet not at all.

      More, a voice within her cried. I need more than another meaningless fuck.

      She forcibly shoved the unwanted thought away. It was so much easier to reduce her need for him to the craving of one body for another. Delving deeper and learning him made him too real, turning him from a fantasy into a fully developed person.

      No. She shouldn’t crave that connection. It only led to pain and heartbreak.

      “We are to have what we want,” she said in a murmur, looping her arms around his neck and bringing him down, closer to her. He cupped her waist, heat from his body seeping into hers.

      This is all I want, she told herself, trying to quiet her demand for affinity. A good, hard fuck. Only that.

      For a moment, they merely gazed at each other, their mouths hovering closely. Then, as her eyes drifted shut, their lips came together. Softly at first. A brush back and forth as they learned each other’s textures and the hints of their taste. His initial gentleness surprised her. She expected him to crash against her mouth and take, take, take. That was the way of most men. But not this man. He progressed slowly, learning her bit by bit.

      Her heart thudded in alarm. This was too affectionate, too meaningful, reaching deep into her to find the place where she yearned for true intimacy.

      She turned the kiss more demanding and ravenous. He responded at once, sweeping his tongue into her mouth with velvet strokes. She sank into the sensation. The man knew how to kiss a woman. He clearly took pleasure from the act itself, rather than rush it toward another destination. She took from him hungrily, as he gave her himself, deep and rich and lush.

      I don’t want to take another stranger to my bed, that voice within her interjected. Who is he, truly?

      Stai zitta, she mentally hissed back. Don’t muddle things. They’re complicated enough.

      She moved deeper into her room, needing to hurry toward the raw, purely physical needs of her body as if she could outpace her thoughts. He followed. After pausing briefly to light a candle, she let her hands roam over his body, and, che bello, he felt magnificent, solid and firm with tightly hewn muscle that shifted powerfully beneath her touch. This was all she needed to know—that he was beautifully made and could give her physical release.

      If she wanted more, if she craved the comfort one soul could give another, she’d lock that craving away, where it couldn’t hurt her.

      His large hands caressed her everywhere, sweeping along the curves of her arse, cupping her hips, skimming up over her waist. Heat tore through her, turning her liquid and pliable.

      The back of her dress dipped low, baring the skin between her shoulder blades, and she jolted with pleasure as he stroked her flesh there.

      He cupped her breasts, and sparks tumbled through her entire body. She arched up into his touch. His growl resounded low within her, speaking directly to her need for the purely carnal.

       Yes, just this. Only this.

      His rumble grew deeper when he plucked her nipples into tight points, making her moan.

      This was perfect. This was precisely what she needed. The fall into pleasure, heedless of everything but desire. Tomorrow didn’t matter—nothing mattered but now.

      It’s not enough, that infuriating voice insisted. What of your heart? What of the bond between two souls? I want that.

      There was no way to escape her own demands, much as she tried to silence them.

      “Too many clothes,” he muttered. He edged back slightly and moved to pull off his coat.

      “Wait,” she heard herself say.

      He froze in midmotion. “You want me to stop?”

      “Yes—but no.” She drew a shuddering breath. Don’t say it. “I need more.”

       Madonna santa!

      His gaze sharpened. “Anything.”

      “I want . . .” She could not stop the words as they tumbled from her lips. “Give me one truth about you.”

      “A truth,” Tom said slowly as he struggled to make sense of what she’d asked. He lowered his hands.

      Amina spoke in a rush, as if trying to get every syllable out before she thought better of it.

      “Not your identity. That remains hidden. But tell me something about yourself.”

      “Why?” He pushed against the wall of his confusion. This was not what they had agreed upon.

      “What does it matter?” Her words were almost sharp. “We’ll not see each other again after tonight.”

      “Yet to speak of such things goes contrary to your established rules.”

      He tested his own response to her request and found . . . welcome acceptance. Finding a stranger to fuck was easy enough. He’d taken others to bed within minutes of meeting, with them knowing nothing about who he was or knowledge of what he feared or desired in the hidden recesses of his heart. Hell, there had been more than a few times his bed partners hadn’t even known his name.

      It hadn’t mattered to him then. But the chance to have Amina discover more about himself felt as though he’d waded into a warm ocean, becoming more and more buoyant with each step.

      For a moment, she was silent.

      “I’ve had lovers before. Always, I made certain to keep them essentially strangers. You and I, we’re destined to walk away from one another, but . . .”

      He’d never heard her sound uncertain, not once, and yet she spoke as if testing out her thoughts that were unknown, even to herself.

      “But . . . ?” he prompted.

      She tilted up her chin as if in defiance. “I want this to be different. I want you to be different.”

      So—he wasn’t the only one invested in their two-person planetary system.

      What she suggested was a risk, yet secrecy was her stock-in-trade.

      They’d part with the dawn, leaving him only with memories of physical sensation. Yet to have her learn about him wasn’t enough. He hungered for anything about her, small, gleaming pieces that he could hold tight to in decades to come.