How to Catch a Duke by Grace Burrowes (most inspirational books .TXT) 📗

while she enlarged his. He’d experimented with delayed gratification, with toys, bindings, drugs, and odd positions, but none of that was half so arousing as the knowledge that Abigail was taking her pleasure of him.

This lovemaking proceeded at her whim and wish, and his great honor was to be her attentive escort on the journey.

She hitched closer and her undulations quickened. “I like this.”

“Good. I love it.”

She smiled down at him, the loveliest sight he’d ever beheld. “So naughty.”

Well, yes, he was naughty, and she liked that about him, so he matched her thrusts and then raised the stakes. She apparently liked that too, because she bundled in close, and Stephen wrapped his arms around her, the better to drive her ’round the bend.

And that, of course, drove him ’round the same bend, until they were a single magnificent creature, writhing across a glorious firmament of pleasure and panting in a shared rhythm.

Abigail subsided against his chest, even as echoes of passion communicated themselves from her body to Stephen’s cock. He used his waning arousal to send her off again, and that nearly sent him off again, which was not biologically possible.

But this was Abigail, and anything was possible.

“You are so good at being wicked,” she whispered some moments later.

“Not wicked.” Loving. “Attentive, inventive, possibly inspiring. Please, not wicked.” He kissed her cheek and pulled the blanket up over them.

“We’ll make a mess.”

Stop, he wanted to say. Don’t let the world take you away from me so soon. “This is an old sofa. Don’t be like those fools who can’t linger in a lovely moment. Have a little nap. Dream of me, and when you awaken, I might be hard inside you again, making your dreams come true.”

He’d never quite managed that feat before, but it was a delicious fantasy. Abigail looked as if she wasn’t sure whether he was teasing.

He wasn’t sure either.

She eased away from him and curled up against his side. “You nap too.”

Lovely idea, lovely woman. “I will be here when you wake up, Abigail,” he said, spooning himself around her. “I will be right here.” Unlike a certain courtesy earl who’d apparently had the bed-manners of a stud colt.

She took Stephen’s hand in hers and wrapped it around her middle, settling his palm over her breast. “See that I don’t waken alone.”

She dozed off, her breathing becoming soft and slow, while the dragon on the ceiling appeared to smile down upon them. Stephen remained awake, mentally sifting through the puzzle of how to convince Abigail Abbott to become his duchess.

His truly, forever, one and only duchess.

Chapter Nine

“This is serious.”

Quinn’s duchess sounded serious, and Jane looked serious as she watched two enormous dogs get to know each other in the afternoon sunshine.

“They’re playing,” Quinn said. “Becoming acquainted. They seem quite compatible.” The new dog, Hercules, was the larger of the pair, also the younger and more willing to frolic. Wodin was trying to stand on his dignity and even mustering an occasional growl for form’s sake, but when Hercules went gamboling off among the hydrangeas, Wodin woofed and gave chase.

Much rustling in the bushes ensued, as well as some barking.

“I don’t mean the dogs are serious,” Jane said. “I mean that Stephen would procure that dog for Miss Abbott is serious.”

If any member of the Wentworth family could inspire Jane to frowning, it was Stephen. “My brother is generous,” Quinn said. “That’s one of his three fine qualities, but don’t ask me what the other two are.”

Jane gave him a your-wife-is-not-impressed look over her embroidery hoop. She’d brought her workbasket out to the back terrace, and Quinn had brought some draft bills to read, though he wasn’t making much progress with them.

“Stephen is loyal,” Jane said. “He’s hardworking, he’s kind.”

“Kind? The man who seeks to patent a repeating pistol is kind? I grant you Stephen is loyal, but Wodin is loyal and causes much less drama.” Quinn loved his brother, truly he did, but he did not understand Stephen. From a young age, Quinn’s challenge had been to find paying work, no matter how filthy or miserable. He’d dug graves, he’d carried night soil, he’d worn livery and toadied to the wellborn. His pride hadn’t mattered half so much as his ability to keep his younger siblings fed.

He no longer labored with his hands, but he worked long hours both at the bank and in the House of Lords. Stephen had been injured too early in life to have any experience of brute manual labor. He tinkered and sketched and flirted his days away, coming up with brilliant mechanical devices as more of a hobby than a vocation.

“Wodin is a canine,” Jane said. “I hadn’t realized he’s lonely.”

The dogs emerged from the hydrangeas, both tails waving happily. Wodin nipped at Hercules’s shoulder, and Hercules dodged off down the garden path.

“Wodin is…” Wodin gave chase, looking much younger than he had five minutes earlier. “Why do you say that?”

“Look at him, Quinn. He’s acting like a puppy. He’s not watching you to make sure you are watching me. He’s being a dog.”

Hercules chose that moment to lift his leg on a rosebush.

“What else would he be?”

“A bodyguard. Stephen keeps his distance from Wodin.”

Stephen again. Stephen, who for some reason found the prospect of taking a wife and starting a family unfathomably burdensome. Quinn was losing patience with his brother’s delicacy, because it wasn’t as if Stephen had the sexual habits of a monk.

Far from it. “Stephen is vain about his appearance,” Quinn said, “and dog hair does not comport with a dandy’s notion of acceptable turnout.”

“I never took you for a dunderhead, Quinn Wentworth, but consider that your brother requires a cane for locomotion.”

“He does, and sometimes he uses two, though they are generally weapons in disguise. What does that have to do with buying Miss Abbott a canine coach horse?”

Jane jabbed her needle into a corner of the pillowcase she was working on and set aside her hoop.

“Dogs don’t understand about canes. Wodin might cross