One Dance with a Duke (Stud Club #1)

He withdrew his fingers, and she felt him tugging at the placket of his trousers. He gritted his teeth as he struggled to free himself, supporting her weight and endless wads of velvet with one arm as he worked the buttons with his other hand. Amelia let her own arms dangle at her sides. She didn’t want to help him, but neither did she want to push him away. Despite all her anger and wounded feelings, she still yearned for the pleasure he could give. It was as if her heart had walked out the door with Jack, but her body was still here, mindlessly craving.

Once he ceased struggling with the buttons, he grasped her hand in his and pulled it between them, tunneling through all the layers of cloth. He wrapped her fingers around his swollen, rigid length. His skin was hot to the touch, scalding against her palm.

“Show me you want it.” He tightened his fist until she was sure their combined grip must be hurting him. “Guide me in.”

He released her hand, leaving her clutching his manhood between them. He cupped her thighs in his hands and lifted, spreading her legs wide.

Using the hard, pulsing handle he’d provided her, she pulled him closer. Not down between her folds, where she knew he wanted to be, but where she wanted him. She rubbed his engorged crown against the sensitive place at the top of her cleft. Pleasure rolled through her as she massaged the swollen bud with his hardness and heat.

He groaned, and his fingers bit into her thighs as he tilted her pelvis. His hips bucked, and he thrust against her, dragging his full length through the moist folds of her sex. She tightened her grip, pulling him away. He’d given her control, and she wouldn’t relinquish it now. This was what she wanted—to grind against his hard length, to rub his velvety heat against her in just the way she liked. She wouldn’t have dreamed lovemaking could be so good when begun in anger instead of tenderness … but it was. Oh, it was.

Writhing her hips, she worked herself closer and closer to release. As the sweet tension grew, she released her breath in a low, taunting purr.

“Curse you.” His hips jerked again. “Guide me in.”

And she did. Not because he’d told her to, but because it was what she wanted now. To feel him inside her, filling her, thrusting with helpless abandon.

She clutched his neck and stared at the ceiling. He gripped her thighs and pressed his face to her throat. There was no more eye contact, and no more conversation. Just a frantic rhythm and building sensation and a climax so sharp, so stunning, her mouth fell open in a silent scream.

He growled against her shoulder, filling her deep as he reached his own peak.

And in the aftermath, as he slumped breathless and shaking against her—a miracle occurred. Amelia put her hands on his shoulders. And then she pushed him away. The physical bliss of her climax had nearly split her in two, but her anger and confusion remained intact. She had no foolish desire to hold him, to cradle him close and stroke his hair. No deep, secret wish to hear him murmur words of praise and love in her ear. She’d taken what she wanted from him, and she was satisfied.

Finally, she’d reached a position of equality with her husband. She’d learned how to give him her body without risking her heart.

What a cold, bitter triumph it was.

Spent and trembling, Spencer withdrew from his wife’s body. His knees locked as he lowered her to the floor.

She said, “I thought I was promised finesse.”

Spencer winced. He wasn’t especially proud of that performance. It had been brutish, angry, brief … and goddamned amazing, which somehow made it worse. “Do I owe you an apology?”

“Don’t be absurd.” Her eyes were the pale blue of river ice. “We both enjoyed it.”

He turned aside to straighten his garments, needing to escape her gaze. He’d just enjoyed the most intensely pleasurable sexual experience of his life, with the eager participation of his creative, willing lover. And he felt lower than the carpet fringe.

Shaking out her skirts, she said, “When can I have my money?”

“What?” Had she honestly just asked him for money? As if she were a common whore, lifting her skirts in a darkened alley for a tup against the wall? There was angry but amazing, and then there was … coarse.

“As you’ve just reminded me, we had an agreement when we married. I give you children; you give me security. Those were your words, Spencer. Specifically, you promised me twenty thousand pounds. I’d like to know how soon I can have it. If you refuse to let me see my brother, I’ll help him on my own. I’ll … I’ll …” Her words tumbled together, growing increasingly fraught with emotion. “I’ll do something. Perhaps I can send him back to university, or buy him a commission, or just find some place for him away from Town …”

Spencer put a hand to his temple. Her loyalty to Jack was admirable—and the very reason they’d met—but her protective efforts were doing her brother more harm than good. There was no way in hell he was going to hand over thousands of pounds and let her squander it by proxy in London’s seediest brothels and worse. “The money is held in trust. I can’t just give it to you. It doesn’t work that way.”