How to Catch a Duke, Grace Burrowes [short books to read .txt] 📗

with a recalled conversation. If I get a woman with child, decency alone dictates that I marry her, and my conscience would insist on that course as well.…Children matter, Abigail. My children matter to me…or they would if I had any.…

Well, Stephen had fathered a child and now he could marry the mother—though he wasn’t anybody’s husband yet.

Abigail untied Stephen’s cravat and unbuttoned his shirt, then his waistcoat. A wife performed these courtesies for her husband, but they weren’t mere courtesies, they were privileges.

“Your hooks,” Stephen said, twirling his finger.

Abigail gave him her back, and he soon had her dress and stays undone. How glad she was to be making love in broad daylight, the better to memorize the gradual unveiling of Stephen’s body. He waited until Abigail had shimmied out of her dress and petticoat to drape his cravat around her neck. The silk was warm with his heat and scented with his fragrance.

“I want your cravat,” Abigail said, sniffing the silk. “I want it as a token of today.”

“You may have both the neckcloth and the man who wore it,” Stephen said, hanging his coat over the back of her reading chair. His waistcoat and shirt followed, then he sat on her vanity stool to remove his boots.

“Did you mean what you said in the coach?” Abigail asked, taking the reading chair to remove her half boots.

He set his footwear aside. “I was babbling in the coach, but I hope I was babbling honestly.”

“About…” Abigail found it necessary to roll down her stocking very slowly. “Dreaming of me? Did you dream anything in particular?”

Stephen tilted his head to the side and smiled wickedly. “I doubtless dreamed of you taking shocking liberties with my willing person. Perhaps if you toyed with me a bit, I might recall the details.”

He occupied the vanity stool like the king of carnal delights upon his throne, casually naked from the waist up, legs slightly splayed, the fabric of his breeches temptingly tented. Abigail considered taking off her chemise in retaliation but instead knelt between his legs and unbuttoned his falls. His mood was buoyant.

Hers was both sad and fierce.

She wanted these memories with him, and if that made her selfish and greedy, she would be selfish and greedy for an entire week. Also bold, demanding, and—if Stephen’s stamina was anything like she suspected it to be—a little sore in the most delicious places.

Stephen touched her cheek. “You do as you please with me, Abigail. If this is where you want to start, I am your willing servant. If you’d rather take me to bed and cuddle up, I will delight in your affections.”

Abigail considered his offer, and considered his comfort. If they had to move to the bed in the middle of their pleasures, Stephen would need his cane and the transition could introduce an awkward moment.

“Onto the bed,” she said. “On your back.”

“I will spend from anticipatory bliss,” he said, getting to his feet and giving her a hand up. He did use his cane to cross to the bed, and hooked it over the bedside table. “I’ve considered designing walking sticks that can be used to conceal bedroom toys. My family would disown me, but I suspect the results would be very profitable.”

“Your family will never disown you. Lie down.”

“I really must remember not to leave my riding crops around our bedroom,” he said, stretching out with a sigh. “Your inherent confidence gives you a natural aptitude for—Abigail?”

She’d rested her head low on his belly, pushed his breeches out of the way, and swiped her tongue experimentally over the tip of his aroused cock.

“Behold, he is rendered speechless,” she murmured.

Stephen remained silent for a long while, except for the occasional groan or sigh after he’d peeled off his breeches. By the time Abigail’s curiosity was sated, she was more than a little bothered herself. She had no sooner relinquished her prize than Stephen sat up, hoisted her back against the pillows, and draped himself over her.

“Did you like it?” she asked, tracing her fingers over his chest. “One suspects some practice is required.”

“One damned near had me spending at the first taste, you fiend. If this is how you react to solving cases, then I hope many more difficult conundrums find their way to your door. Hold on to me.”

That was her only warning before Stephen fused his mouth to hers, entered her in a gloriously sure thrust, and sent her on a breathless upward spiral.

“Let go, Abigail,” he whispered. “For God’s sake, I haven’t a sheath, and just—let go.”

She did not want to let go. Not of him, not ever. She wanted to hold fast and never turn him loose.

“Stay with me.” She locked her ankles at the small of his back to emphasize the point. “Please.”

“But I cannot—”

She kissed him and, by sheer force of will and the main strength of her sturdy female body, she overcame his determination. Their pleasure was spectacular, protracted, and vigorous.

Also…stolen. Abigail would think about that later, when the little shocks of after-joy stopped racking her, when she could breathe normally, and when Stephen’s weight wasn’t the most comforting bodily reality she’d miss all the way back to York.

“You are naughty,” he said, kissing her nose. “Naughty, naughty, naughty. Where have you been all my life?”

“Yorkshire. Are you angry with me?”

He rolled, taking her with him, which effected an intimate un-joining and put Abigail atop her lover.

“I’m furious,” he said. “Aghast at your audacity. Give me ten minutes and you may enrage me again all you please. Sweet, hard, any way you like. Every way you like, in fact.”

Abigail curled down onto his chest. “Ten minutes?”

“Well, fifteen then. You have rendered me the veriest weakling, I admit it. A happy weakling, though. Enraptured, in fact. Perhaps I am among the celestial beings as we speak.”

“Hush.” Abigail raised up enough to draw off her chemise and used it to tidy them both. “Hold me.”

Stephen hooked a blanket from the foot of the bed with his