Taken by the Duke by Jess Michaels Page A

he urged her, shifting in his seat to accommodate his swollen cock.
    She opened her eyes just the slightest bit and peered at him through the slivers. Her cheeks pinkened further as she shut them again. She glided her fingers below the surface and he caught a glimpse of her hand as it covered the soft mound of her sex.
    “Stroke and explore,” he encouraged her, his voice shaking. “Allow yourself to feel and remember what I did to make you come so powerfully.”
    She shuddered as her hand began to move beneath the water. Slowly at first, but as she found places where her touch brought her pleasure, her fingers worked faster. He stared at her through the water, her sex flashing into view and disappearing beneath her hand as she stroked herself, increasing the pleasure, decreasing it. Doing everything in her power to find release.
    When she came, her back arched against the slick tub side and she grunted out a muffled sound of pleasure before she went weak.
    “Look at me,” he ordered.
    She opened her eyes, her cheeks now flaming red. “Yes?”
    “Tell me about it,” he said, soft.
    “My…my…”
    “Your slit,” he helped her, providing her with a new word to call her sex.
    “It was…h-hot to the touch and—and wet beyond what I would expect to find merely from the bath water,” she said. “Touching it excited me as well as embarrassed me.”
    He shook his head. “Your pleasure should never be an embarrassment, Ava.”
    She shrugged. “But as a lady, I wasn’t raised to seek it, rather to repress it.”
    “A great waste considering your responsiveness,” he muttered. “But go on. Tell me more.”
    “I felt your eyes on me, even when I had mine shut,” she continued. “I imagined you enjoying watching me come, just as you said I should.”
    “And when you did?”
    “It was powerful, though not as intense as when you stroked me with your tongue or filled me with your…”
    “Cock,” he helped her. He took her wet hand in his and set it against his trousers so she felt the straining thrust of muscle beneath the fabric. “And it rages to be inside you even now.”
    She held still for a moment, then closed her fingers around the hardness, stroking him gently.
    “Why deny yourself that pleasure then, Your Grace?” she asked. She released him to rise from the tub in one smooth motion.
    He stared up at her, glistening like some kind of water nymph and offering herself without hesitation. He grabbed a towel from the stand beside the tub and handed it to her.
    “Come back to the bedroom,” he ordered and turned to walk away from her.
    He moved to the bed, but didn’t lie down on it. He had something different in mind as she padded in behind him on bare feet. When he turned to look at her, she was wrapped haphazardly in the towel, watching him with both excitement and worry.
    It seemed that was to be her permanent expression while she stayed with him. Not that he could entirely blame her for the fact that she was both titillated and concerned.
    He reached out and grabbed the edge of the towel, tossing it aside without thought. She smiled.
    “Christian, I’m still wet,” she said with a light laugh that sounded like music.
    “Oh, I can make you wetter.”
    He caught her around the waist, feeling the warmth of her damp skin against his hand, through his shirt. He kissed her, driving his tongue into her mouth as he tugged her flush against his body. She moaned her approval, and her arms came up around his neck. For a while, she stood there, surrendering to his kiss, allowing him to dominate.
    But then, so slowly he almost didn’t notice it, she began to gently stroke his shoulders. The act wasn’t one of erotic desire, though—no, it was of…comfort.
    He pulled away, staring at her for a moment. Her wet hair tangled around her face, her blue eyes were lifted to look at him, holding him hostage, utterly open and almost welcoming even under the circumstances.
    She hesitated and then her fingers