How To Distract a Duchess by Mia Marlowe

What if his lips wandered to other places?
    She felt a growing moistness between her legs and scented a whiff of her own arousal, musky and sweet at the same time. Surely he must smell it as well. She gathered her courage and cleared her throat.
    “When we are finished with the painting, I have another position in mind for you,” she said, surprised at the raggedness of her own voice. She opened her eyes and met his direct gaze.
    “Really? What might that be? Something for Mr. Beddington perhaps?”
    Bother his fixation with Beddington!
    “No, this is something for me,” she said evenly.
    “What do you need, Your Grace?”
    She took a deep breath and jumped into the void. “I find I require a lover.”
     
     

Chapter 9
     
     
     
     
    Mr. Doverspike laid his chalk down and rose to his feet. “Don’t tempt a man wearing nothing but a robe, Your Grace.”
    “It’s no temptation,” Artemisia said, still turned slightly away, watching him over her shoulder. “I mean it.”
    He walked toward her, sinuous and slow, like a tiger stalking a roe. She wanted to face him squarely, but sudden apprehension rooted her to the floor. She hadn’t meant she wanted him to make love to her right now. There was so much to be done on the painting and it might color her perceptions of him to change their relationship in such a profound way. And yet, she couldn’t find her voice long enough to call a halt to his advance. She knew she should pull the robe back up around her, but it seemed she’d misplaced the will to move.
    Thomas—she thought of him as Thomas now—stopped behind her, his breath warm on the back of her neck. His hands rested lightly on her shoulders, then smoothed their way down her arms. He lowered his mouth to her neck, first kissing, then suckling her flesh. She’d never felt such a delicious sensation. Her whole being throbbed as he consumed her.
    “Mmm. So sweet,” he murmured before nuzzling her ear and taking a tender lobe between his teeth.
    Artemisia leaned into him and felt his body, hard and strong, against her softness. As he planted a string of baby kisses on her nape, his hands slipped around to tease the underside of her breasts. Feather-light, his fingers moved with maddening slowness. She longed for him to claim her breasts with his palms, to heft their weight and, please God, to soothe the ache in her nipples with a rough touch.
    She thought she knew what desire was. She’d wake from time to time with a yawning emptiness, a vague discontent that left her adjusting her knickers in frustration. She never imagined this torrent of sensation, this unassailable urge toward something dark and forbidden. Now she simply wanted, unable to name her desire. Sharper than hunger, the relentless throb between her legs threatened to drive reason from her mind.
    A small whimper escaped her lips when he covered her breasts with his blessed hands.
    “Shh,” he urged. “It will be all right. I’ll make it all right.”
    One set of her body’s demands was assuaged, but a new group queued up, clamoring for his attention. Her skin shivered under his touch, tendrils of pleasure shooting up and down her limbs. When his fingertips traced the curve of her ribs, the small muscles barely beneath the surface contracted with joy.
    He turned her to face him and claimed her lips, pulling her against his body. She could lose herself in his kiss.
    But she knew she mustn’t. With Herculean effort, she pulled herself from his embrace.
    “No, please,” she said, even though her body rebelled against her will. “This isn’t the time or place.”
    “Don’t you remember what your father said? If we haven’t time, we haven’t anything. Here and now is all any man or woman can lay claim to,” he countered, placing his hands on the narrow expanse of her waist and tugging her close.
    “No, Thomas.” She gathered up her robe to cinch it around her rioting body. “We must wait until the painting’s