There was no denying it. Despite a week’s worth of duchess training, Pauline remained a farm girl at heart. Once again she woke before first light.
Griff lay tangled with her, snoring softly. His dark head lay heavy on her breast. She wished she could let him sleep all morning. After his efforts in this bed last night, he’d certainly earned his rest.
But all too soon it was dawn. She could hear servants stirring on the lower level of the house.
“Griff,” she whispered. She teased her fingers through the dark, tousled waves of his hair. “Griff, I have to go. It’s nearly morning.”
He clutched her tight about the middle. “It can’t be morning. I won’t let it be morning.”
She smiled. “I don’t think even the Duke of Halford can make time stand still.”
“He can try.”
He pulled her down and yanked the bedsheet over them both, making a sort of tent for two. The early morning light shone through the linen, painting their naked bodies with a warm, honey-gold glow.
Pauline ceased worrying about what would happen later that day, and for the rest of her life. She was here now. In his arms. His touch could make her forget everything.
Except the muffled crash and scrape of a grate being cleaned downstairs. That was hard to ignore.
“Is the door locked?” she asked.
He made a nod of confirmation as he tongued her nipple. “It’s locked.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.” His hand delved between her thighs.
She put a hand to his chest, holding him back. “Please go check. I’ll feel safer.”
He stared at her for a moment. “Well, then.” He rose up on his haunches. “I won’t have you feeling anything less than safe in my bed.”
With a quick kiss to her brow, he rose from the mattress and made his way toward the door. Pauline rolled onto her side, watching him.
As he covered the distance in easy strides, she admired the long, lean muscles of his calves and the sculpted tone of his shoulders and back. And his arse . . . Lord above. The world had not seen such a perfectly formed arse since the sixth day of Creation. His bu**ocks were taut, rounded domes of pure muscle. As he walked, tantalizing hollows appeared on each cheek, alternating with every step.
Right, left, right . . .
He reached the door and rattled the latch. “Locked,” he confirmed aloud.
Then he turned around—praise be—and began the walk back.
If he was arousing to view from behind, he was devastating in the approach.
“Wait,” she said. “Stop there.”
He halted. “Is something wrong?”
“It’s just . . . I’ve lied to you about something.”
His dark eyebrows gathered like storm clouds. “What?”
“I wasn’t truly that concerned about the door latch,” she confessed. “I just wanted to watch you walk across the room.”
He laughed, startled. His abdominal muscles tensed in a delicious manner.
She reclined on her elbow and sighed languidly. “You’re so beautiful. If ‘beautiful’ is the right word to use for a man.”
“I wouldn’t know. I don’t often compliment naked men.” He tugged at his ear in a self-conscious gesture. “I’m starting to feel like a display in the British Museum.”
“You belong in a museum.” She shook her head, amazed. “How do you stay so fit? You’re a nobleman, but that body puts farmhands to shame.”
He scrubbed a palm over his washboard of a belly. “I just stay active. It’s important to me. One winter at Oxford, I caught a pneumonia. Lay sick in bed for months and nearly died. It was a difficult time.”
Pauline could imagine it would have been. Not only for him, but for his parents. Griff was their only child remaining of four, and if something had happened to him . . .
He confirmed her suspicions. “I was already a disappointment to them. But it seemed the least I could do was stay alive, you know? As soon as I was able, I worked hard to recover my strength.” He stretched and flexed one arm. “Not only strength, but balance, reflexes. And I’ve tried to stay fit ever since. Lately, it’s mostly the fencing.”
She smiled. “All that thrusting has served you well.”
“Fencing’s not only about the thrusting.” He drew closer. “It’s about quickness of mind and body. Flexibility. Concentration. Strategy.”
The dark quality in his voice was making her intimate places swell and ache. Her gaze dropped to his eager, arcing cock. Seeing how badly he wanted her . . . it made her desire him even more.
Just to tease him, she moved back to the middle of the bed. “Let me gaze a bit longer, please. It might be my last chance.”
“It won’t be your last chance.”
The mattress dipped as he joined her. He rolled atop her and settled between her thighs. Thanks to his brief sojourn out of bed, his body was cool. Cool and solid as marble.
“This will be the last time,” she whispered.
He slid into her with one long, powerful stroke. “It can’t be the last time.”
She wrapped her legs over his. He worked in and out of her, bracing himself on his hands and staring down at her, deep into her eyes. The intensity was piercing. She felt so exposed, so raw and vulnerable. Her hands began to tremble where she touched his arms. She hoped he wouldn’t notice.
He stopped, holding still within her. A slight frown wrinkled his brow.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Nothing,” he said. “I wouldn’t change a single thing. You’re perfect.”
Her heart wrenched in her chest. At last, that word again. And it didn’t come when she was dressed in a silk gown and draped with jewels, but just here. Here, when she lay naked beneath him in the full light of morning. Nothing hidden, nothing concealed. Nothing between their bodies but musk and heat.
It was worth the whole week’s wait, to hear it now.
She slid her hands to his back and arched her hips, drawing him deeper. “Take me hard. Hold nothing back. I want to be sore. I want to feel you for days.”
She didn’t have to ask twice. He did as she asked, lifting her legs and guiding them around his hips so he could ride her hard and well. Her br**sts danced to his rhythm. His thighs smacked against hers with every deep, penetrating stroke.
She raked her fingernails down his back, scoring his flesh—so that he’d feel her for days, too. She rode the wave of his deep, forceful thrusts.