The Regency Season: Dangerous Dukes

But his thoughts were grim as he recalled the look of disgust on Julianna’s face moments ago, when he’d talked of the result of a man’s arousal. Even worse, her pained expression, her surprise, her curiosity, when he’d talked of a woman’s physical reaction to lovemaking made it evident that she had never experienced that arousal with John Armitage.

Damn it, had the man shown no consideration at all for Julianna’s innocence? Was it really possible, that even on their wedding night, Armitage had taken Julianna’s virginity without caressing her, reassuring her, loving her, without giving her any preparation at all? That the other man—damn and blast Armitage to hell!—had just parted her thighs, climbed on top of her, taken his own pleasure, and then left her shaken and disillusioned? And that each subsequent taking had been equally as inconsiderate and brutal?

The possibility of that having been the case filled Marcus with a blaze of hot fury, and caused his eyes to gleam with unholy vengeance toward a man who was no longer accessible to him.

‘Yes, you should go now, Julianna,’ Marcus agreed as he rang for his butler; and she must go now, quickly, if she was not to bear witness to Marcus punching his fist through one of the walls of his own study.

The last thing he wished to do was frighten Julianna with the force of his present turmoil of emotions. Emotions that he needed time, and space, in order to control. An hour or two in the boxing ring might suffice to cool the blast of fury he felt toward the deceased Armitage. No doubt Christian would be only too happy to spar with him. And it would also allow Marcus to question his friend as to what he had known of his sister’s marriage, and why he had done nothing to stop her suffering.

Julianna hesitated. ‘Tomorrow is smell, the day after, taste?’

‘You seem in something of a hurry to complete our lessons’ he mocked.

‘I am merely...curious.’

‘Then yes, the day after tomorrow we shall build upon the sight and smell we will explore more deeply tomorrow. Taste, but also sound—I do not believe it will be possible for either of us to have one without the other, Julianna,’ Marcus drawled as she frowned. ‘I certainly doubt I will be able to taste your flesh without also making murmurs of appreciation.’

Julianna’s eyes widened, her pulse pounding loudly, palms becoming damp, at the thought of Marcus ‘tasting’ her flesh. As she would taste his?

Her gaze was drawn immediately to the flesh visible at his throat, to that tantalizing glimpse of the start of the black hair that no doubt covered his entire chest. What would it feel like to touch that hard and bared flesh, to allow her fingertips to caress and learn the dark contours of his body, not just of that magnificent chest but lower as well?

‘Exactly,’ Marcus murmured with satisfaction as Julianna gave a second, breathy groan, a groan to which his cock instantly leapt in response. A loss of control that was unprecedented. ‘Be prepared for a deepening of intimacy as we add each successive sense upon the other, Julianna,’ he warned huskily, still far from sure he would be able to retain control once it came to tasting her.

It was going to be absolute torture for him to taste that bared ivory flesh, with his tongue as well as his lips, and for her to taste him in the same way. So much so that Marcus was not sure he would be able to stop himself from taking that ultimate step of possessing her completely. Something Marcus had promised himself he would not—could not—do unless it was clearly what Julianna wanted too.

She may have asked—demanded—that he teach her, tutor her, in an appreciation of the pleasures of the flesh, but she had not specified whether or not there would be a natural conclusion to all of that lovemaking.

‘Do you have any dos and don’ts for tomorrow, Marcus?’

His gaze felt heavy with desire as it was drawn back to Julianna’s face. She stood across the room looking so vulnerable, and yet so proudly courageous, too. He wished to do nothing more at that moment than go to her and beg her to stay.

Instead, aware that he had to be patient, to tempt and cajole Julianna into loving him, he remained seated behind his desk, his expression deliberately impassive. ‘Do not wear drawers tomorrow, Julianna,’ he instructed coolly. ‘Leaving your thighs naked will aid in my enjoyment,’ he added as her face paled slightly, making those dark grey eyes seem larger than ever.

Her throat moved as she swallowed before answering him. ‘I—I thought touch was for the day after?’

‘It is my intention for you to touch yourself there,’ he stated evenly. ‘How else can you fully appreciate the unique scent of your own arousal unless you bathe your fingers in it?’

‘I—is that really necessary?’

‘Unless you would prefer that I be the one to touch you?’ Marcus questioned boldly.

Even the suggestion of that caused Julianna’s alarm to deepen, as she once again acknowledged the hornet’s nest of emotions and embarrassment she appeared to have opened up for herself by blackmailing Marcus into tutoring her.

Unless he was just deliberately punishing her for having blackmailed him in the first place?

‘And will you also leave off your own undergarments and touch yourself, Marcus?’ she challenged.

A nerve pulsed in his tightly clenched jaw. ‘Yes.’

So much for Julianna’s childish attempt to beat this man at his own game; she should have known better! ‘Very well.’ She nodded, that nod turning to a curtsey as Marcus’s butler opened the door beside her. ‘Until tomorrow, Your Grace,’ she drawled before following the butler out into the cavernous hallway of Worthing House.

Marcus waited only long enough for Wilkins to close the door behind himself and Julianna before standing up and punching his first through the Japanese screen beside the window.

Chapter Six

‘What have you done to your hand, Marcus?’

Exactly what Christian had asked him when the two men met at Jackson’s Boxing Salon yesterday afternoon, when Marcus had also refused any suggestion that the bandage upon his hand prevented him from participating in the sport. Indeed, his turmoil of emotions had still been such that he had felt no pain at all from his bruised hand as he’d bested Christian over the agreed three rounds.

Marcus had removed the bandage earlier for his morning meeting with Julianna, but there was still a certain amount of obvious bruising to his knuckles from his dispute yesterday with the Japanese screen. ‘I assure you, my opponent looks much worse than I do,’ he dismissed unconcernedly, the broken screen having been removed from his study and replaced by a rich, red velvet chaise, which Marcus had yesterday instructed servants to bring in here from his own private parlour.

‘I dined with my brother yesterday evening,’ Julianna came back accusingly. ‘By which time his bruised eye had gone several shades of purple!’

‘Oh?’ Christian had not reacted yesterday to Marcus’s discreet questioning in regard to Julianna’s marriage, but could that only have been for Marcus’s benefit? Had Christian saved his own questions for his sister for later that evening?

‘We always dine together on Tuesday evenings,’ Julianna immediately answered the unspoken question dismissively as she moved farther into his study. Her gown was emerald green today, and perfectly complimented her ivory skin and red-gold curls.

‘Did you do as I instructed and leave off your drawers?’ he asked harshly.

The aching hardness of his arousal, which seemed to have been with Marcus constantly for these past two days and nights, and which now surged up thick and heavy beneath his pantaloons without the benefit of his own restricting drawers, gave an increasingly familiar throb of appreciation for even the idea of Julianna being almost naked beneath her gown.

‘I did. And you?’

‘Yes.’

Julianna felt that now-familiar heat course through her body just thinking of what lay beneath the fine material of his pantaloons. Marcus’s gaze was just as intent upon her, as if he might see through her gown to her nakedness beneath.

A nakedness Julianna had been completely aware of since dressing earlier, her lack of drawers resulting in a sensitivity between her thighs, and a total awareness of the silky abrasion of her chemise against that bared flesh.

A sensitivity that had deepened the moment she’d entered the study and looked at Marcus, and seen that today he had dispensed with his waistcoat as well as his jacket and cravat, enabling her to fully appreciate the muscled width of his shoulders in the loosely flowing white shirt. The fastening at his throat was once again laid bare, revealing even more of his olive-skinned chest than it had yesterday.

Would he dispense with the shirt, too, by tomorrow, the day they were to explore taste and sound together? For surely they would not be able to do so if they both remained fully dressed.

But she was moving ahead of herself again, had yet to get through the ordeal of today’s lesson. For an ordeal it must surely be, if Marcus intended to go through with his instruction of having her touch herself. As she had touched herself yesterday evening after bathing.

Julianna had gazed at herself often in a mirror before her marriage to John Armitage, youthfully pleased with the image reflected back at her, and hoping that her husband would be pleased, too, once she was married. The years of being John’s wife, of his complete indifference to her body or physical pleasure, had resulted in Julianna slowly but surely avoiding looking at her nakedness in a mirror again.

Until yesterday evening.

Marcus’s arousal that morning had shown an appreciation for her body as well as her looks, and had caused Julianna to feel curious enough to see for herself what it was he had found to appreciate.

The reflection in the mirror had shown she was far more slender than she had been at eighteen, but that slenderness only served to emphasize the fullness of sloping breasts tipped with rosy nipples, her waist dipping inwards, with red-gold curls nestled between curvaceous thighs.

Julianna had skimmed her hands along those red-gold curls and up the slenderness of her waist before cupping beneath the fullness of her sensitive breasts. Her eyes had widened at the sensitivity of the rosy nipples at their tips, her knees almost buckling beneath her when she touched them out of curiosity and felt the pleasure of that caress course through the whole of her body before it settled intensely between her thighs. A pleasure Julianna had then touched wonderingly with her fingertips, trembling as she briefly felt the sensitive folds beneath and breathed in her own musky perfume.

Just the thought of having to do that again today, in front of Marcus this time, was enough to weaken her knees all over again.

‘Shall we begin?’ she prompted. ‘I have an appointment with the dressmaker later this morning, the last fitting for the new gowns necessary for my return into society next month following my year of mourning.’

Marcus scowled at thoughts of the man she had supposedly been in mourning for, and at the idea of other gentlemen very soon being able to fully appreciate Julianna’s alluring beauty in a no-doubt delicious array of coloured gowns. Men, he knew, would be intent upon winning Julianna for their own.

He stood up abruptly. ‘Take down your hair and then we shall sit on the chaise together.’

Julianna turned in surprise to look at the red velvet chaise in the window. ‘Was there not a beautiful Japanese screen here yesterday?’ she asked uncertainly as she removed the pins from her hair and allowed it to fall silkily about her shoulders.

‘It was damaged,’ Marcus dismissed.

‘That is a pity.’

‘Yes,’ he acknowledged as he took her hand in his uninjured one to accompany her over to the chaise, waiting until she was primly seated upon its edge, her back defensively straight, before lowering his long length to sit beside her, their thighs almost touching.

Almost.

Because, much as it physically pained him to be in this continuous state of arousal, Marcus was enjoying these private times with Julianna too much to wish them over too soon. He intended to use every advantage he had, in the short time she had allotted to him, not only to instruct her in an appreciation of the pleasures of the flesh but also to try to captivate Julianna himself.

He lowered his head toward her throat, breathing deeply. ‘Your perfume is of roses again today,’ he murmured huskily. ‘And something else,’ he added curiously.

Julianna trembled slightly even as she felt the bloom of warmth in her cheeks as she easily guessed that other perfume to be the arousal deepening between her thighs. An arousal she knew was caused not only by Marcus’s close proximity but also by thoughts of having to touch herself in front of him.

‘Julianna?’ Marcus prompted huskily as he saw the fevered glitter that had appeared in those dark grey eyes.

She avoided meeting his gaze. ‘I—could we please hurry? As I said, I have another appointment. Marcus?’ she said sharply as he placed a hand beneath her chin and turned her flushed face toward his.

‘Something has happened.’ Marcus looked down at her searchingly, noting those fevered eyes, the flush to her cheeks, the redness of her pouting lips. ‘Tell me, Julianna.’ His hands lightly grasped the tops of her arms as he refused to allow her to turn away from him. ‘Tell me, damn it!’ He shook her slightly.

‘I—I cannot!’ she said on a sob, head bowed. ‘I—it is too shameful. Too embarrassing! I should not have—I cannot say it!’ she gasped on another sob.

What on earth?

Marcus stilled as he contemplated those over-bright eyes for several more seconds, the flush to her cheeks, the pouting and aroused lips, and the way the fullness of the tops of her breasts pressed up and over her gown, as if bursting to be free. ‘Ah,’ he finally murmured with satisfaction. ‘Perhaps part of our lesson today is superfluous?’

She raised startled eyes. ‘What?’

Marcus smiled slightly. ‘Tell me, Julianna, did you perhaps touch between your thighs last night, breathe in the perfume of your arousal, as I had suggested you would do for me today?’

‘No!’ Her face paled slightly as she pushed against his chest in an attempt to pull away, breathing heavily as she failed to free herself. ‘I—yes! Yes, I—I touched myself!’ she admitted as she glared up at him heatedly, challengingly. ‘It was your fault!’ she continued defensively. ‘All your talk of arousal and... Yesterday evening, after I had bathed, I looked at myself in a mirror, at my nakedness, and then—then I touched my breasts, and the moisture you spoke of gathered between my thighs, and ... and ...’

‘And?’ Marcus encouraged her.

‘And I am ashamed of what I did! So ashamed!’ She broke off with a wail as she collapsed against his chest and cried in earnest.

Marcus took her into his arms, allowing her tears. While he stroked the length of her spine, he enjoyed the sensation of having Julianna cling to him, of knowing that he had been responsible for Julianna’s arousal yesterday evening. ‘And did you like it, pet?’

‘Too much!’ She trembled at the admission.

‘One can never like physical pleasure too much, Julianna,’ Marcus chuckled huskily.

‘No?’ She sounded uncertain.

‘No,’ he assured her softly. ‘Did you breathe in your own unique perfume?’

‘Yes!’

‘And did that arouse you even more? Enough so that you stroked yourself there?’

‘S-stroked myself?’ Her voice was muffled against his chest, but he could hear her shock nevertheless.

‘Did your pleasure increase as you touched yourself? Did you climax?’

‘Yes. Yes. I don’t—’ She burrowed her hot face closer against his chest. ‘No, I do not think I climaxed.’

Marcus chuckled again. ‘You would remember it if you had. Are you wet now, Julianna? The truth now,’ he warned as he felt her hesitation.

Julianna groaned softly in her throat as she felt her desire grow just talking to Marcus in this way, having him so close to her, breathing in the warmth of lemon and sandalwood that was so uniquely him. ‘Are you not shocked?’ She frowned as she looked up to find him looking at her with curiosity rather than condemnation. ‘Disgusted, at least, at my having behaved so—so shamefully?’

He gave a shake of his head. ‘I believe I feel pride more than anything, in knowing that our short time together has broken down your previous inhibitions so readily. I am not in the least shocked or disgusted by your behaviour, Julianna,’ he assured her huskily. ‘Rather, I should like to have been there, to have been allowed to watch you.’

She blinked. ‘You would?’

He nodded. ‘It would have aroused me to do so.’

‘Sight...’ she breathed softly, wonderingly.

‘Yes. That you now know some of the pleasure of your own body is a natural process, pet,’ he explained as she still frowned her uncertainty. ‘And a necessary one, too, if you are to help guide a partner into also learning what pleases you.’

It was all too much for Julianna to take in. Far too much, after the things she had already revealed to Marcus today, and when her body trembled and ached with heated arousal just being close to him in this way, able to feel his hard strength beneath her cheek and against her sensitive breasts, to breathe him in.

‘You said my—my actions yesterday only rendered part of our lesson today superfluous?’ she reminded softly.

He nodded. ‘You have still to learn of a man’s...musk.’

Julianna’s gaze instantly moved lower, the lengthy throb so clearly visible between Marcus’s thighs telling her of his arousal. ‘Now?’ she breathed softly. Curiously. Eagerly.

Marcus released her to lean back against the chaise, giving her easier access to the buttons fastening the sides of his pantaloons. ‘Right now,’ he said throatily.

Chapter Seven

Marcus’s erection surged up thick and long, and his heart began to beat a loud and wild tattoo in his chest as Julianna’s hands moved tentatively, and then more surely, to unfasten the buttons of his pantaloons.

And again he worried that, after wanting her, desiring her, loving her for so long, he wouldn’t be able to retain control over the increasingly desperate need he felt to make love to her completely.

The last thing Marcus wanted to do was hurt Julianna, frighten her with the depth of the passion he felt for her, as that bastard Armitage had so obviously hurt and frightened her in their marriage with his coldness and brutality.

‘Marcus?’

Damn it, he could see by the uncertainty of Julianna’s expression, as she hesitated about folding down the flap of his pantaloons that would bare him to her completely, that she was already doubting the wisdom of her actions, that if he did not do something, say something soon to alleviate that uncertainty, she might cut and run. Perhaps, this time, forever.

Her next words confirmed it. ‘If you would rather we put an end to our bargain now, I believe I have learnt enough to—’

‘I have no intention of putting an end to our bargain!’ he bit out, instantly regretting that hardness as he saw the way in which she flinched. ‘We made an agreement, Julianna,’ he reminded evenly. ‘And I am not about to renege on that. I hesitate only because—I know you have been married, Julianna, but the things you have said of that marriage have not... Have you even seen a man naked?’

‘Not John, certainly.’ She raised her chin determinedly at the enormity of her admission, at what it must tell Marcus of that loveless marriage. ‘But I saw my brother, Christian, in his drawers often when we swam together as children—’

‘I said a man, Julianna. Nor was I referring to his chest,’ Marcus added dryly.

Colour blazed in her cheeks. ‘I—then no, no, I have never seen a man naked.’

Marcus breathed deeply. ‘Or aroused?’

‘No.’ Her eyes were now wide grey pools of anticipation.

‘But you would like to?’

‘I—’ She moistened her lips with that little pink tip of her tongue.

A tongue Marcus longed, ached, to feel against his aroused flesh. Just to think of it, imagine it, was enough to cause his cock to throb.

‘Yes,’ she breathed softly. ‘I believe I should very much like to see you aroused, Marcus....’

His breath left him in a shaky sigh of relief. ‘Then do so, Julianna,’ he encouraged. ‘Fold back the flap of my pantaloons and look your fill,’ he invited gruffly.

Julianna’s breath caught in her throat as she slowly did as he instructed. Her eyes widened as she looked at the length of his arousal, which jutted up thick and strong from the thatch of dark curls between his thighs, engorged veins running along the length of the pulsing shaft, the bulbous tip glistening with moisture.

She found it impossible to look away from the beauty and the power of Marcus’s arousal. ‘I—will you touch it or shall I?’ she breathed longingly.

‘You do it,’ he encouraged hoarsely, hands clenching into fists at his sides.

It was not exactly what they had decided upon yesterday, but Julianna was only too eager to reach out and touch that burgeoning length, instantly surprised by how silky the skin over that hard and pulsing flesh was, only vaguely aware of the way Marcus’s breath hitched in his throat as she wrapped the fingers of both hands around his length, a length that seemed to grow even longer and thicker in her encircling fingers. A bead of moisture escaped from the slit at the top, before it was joined by another, and then another, until it dribbled down that length to dampen the back of her hand.

Fascinated, Julianna was too enthralled to feel embarrassed by this depth of intimacy as she brought that hand beneath her nose, breathing in deeply, the scent a pleasing and arousing mixture of earthiness and an underlying sweetness. Was this the ‘musk’ Marcus had spoken of?

‘It is the lubrication that is needed, along with your own, in order to make penetration easier,’ Marcus murmured gruffly.

And not the painful business it had always been with John, Julianna instantly recognized. Because her husband had not taken the time to prepare her. Even on their wedding night he had just climbed into bed beside her, pushed up her night rail and pushed himself inside her, ripping through the thin barrier of her virginity, and eventually grunting his release, before leaving her.

A cold and painful introduction to the marriage bed.

And John’s member had been nowhere near as—as long as Marcus’s, or as thick, meaning it would surely take more than just their mutual arousal in order for Marcus to penetrate her without causing that same pain.

But Marcus had not expressed a wish to penetrate her. By showing her these things, teaching her, he was merely fulfilling his part of the blackmail she had practiced upon him, nothing more. This blatant evidence of his arousal was how any man would react to having a young woman fondling him so intimately.

Julianna released him abruptly before sitting back, only to stare down in fascination as that hard shaft pulsed eagerly upward while more liquid escaped the glistening bulbous tip.

‘He is asking for more,’ Marcus drawled ruefully, reluctantly refastened his pantaloons as he realized, as far as Julianna was concerned, this particular ‘lesson’ was over and he would have to deal with the results of that lesson himself once Julianna had gone.

‘“He”?’ Julianna echoed curiously.

Marcus nodded. ‘Most men refer to their genitalia as a separate entity—probably because it has a will, a determination, completely separate from the logic of a man’s brain!’

Which meant it was only Marcus’s cock that had just reacted to her touch, Julianna accepted heavily, not Marcus himself. No doubt it could penetrate her, too, take its pleasure, and feel none of the regret in the act the man—Marcus—most assuredly would. Because, she reminded herself fiercely, Marcus was only doing these things, allowing these intimacies, because she had forced him into it. He did not care for her personally, had no real interest in making love to her. And he was probably longing to be rid of both her and her ridiculous demand to be taught how to make love to a man.