Chapter 395: An Embarrassing Lesson

Chapter 394: An Embarrassing Lesson

Lyria’s POV

"Then I went to my knees before her like the servant I was. I spread her legs with careful hands and placed one slender limb over my shoulder. I kissed the soft skin of her calf, then higher, along the sensitive place behind her knee, then higher still."

My throat felt suddenly dry.

"When at last I reached the dampness between her thighs, I drew in a long, slow breath. The scent of her filled my lungs until I felt nearly dizzy with it."

I swallowed once.

The movement seemed strangely loud within the quiet chamber.

Duke Thorncrest did not glance up.

His eyes remained upon the page, yet the quality of his voice had altered completely.

"’You are intoxicating,’ I told her, my mouth so close to her that my breath must have brushed the softest part of her. ’You have tormented me with this scent all my life, especially tonight. Did you enjoy it, Your Highness? Did you like knowing I was affected by you while you danced with another man? Did you like knowing how much I wanted you, and still want you, whilst you continued to ignore me?’"

The heat in the chamber seemed to thicken.

All my attention had narrowed to the low, deliberate cadence of the Duke’s voice and the manner in which each word seemed to settle against my skin.

"’As I spoke, I slipped my hand beneath her skirts and removed the thin barrier of her drawers. The moment her need reached me fully, my mouth watered. I pressed open-mouthed kisses along the highest part of her thighs, and she moaned above me—loud, helpless, beautiful. With one careful finger I parted the soft lips of her sex and simply looked at her.’"

His voice had become almost a murmur now, though every syllable remained perfectly distinct.

I felt as though the man in the novel and the man seated only a few feet from me had somehow become the same person.

The hunger pouring from the page seemed no longer to belong to some distant gentleman in a fictional story.

It seemed to belong to him.

And, most embarrassingly of all, I found myself imagining that it was directed at me.

"’Look at you,’ I whispered, my voice filled with wonder, the need in me to claim her so fierce I could scarcely speak. ’So ready for me. So perfectly, beautifully ready. I have burned for this all night. Every moment you were out of my reach, I thought of this—of tasting you, of holding you until you forgot every other man who had ever dared look at you.’"

I ought to have looked away.

I ought to have stopped him sooner.

Yet I remained still.

The cat lay quietly against my hold, utterly indifferent to the increasingly mortifying nature of the conversation.

"I leaned forward and drew my mouth along her in one long, deliberate stroke. The taste of her nearly undid me. I groaned against her, the sound rough with pure, desperate want, and then I set my mouth upon her properly—until she cried out above me, her hips rising helplessly beneath my hands."

I swallowed again.

"P-p-please stop," I said, my voice scarcely more than a breathless whisper.

The Duke stopped and I lowered my gaze immediately.

This was not what I had expected when he suggested reading to me.

Nor was it what I had imagined when Debbie had assured me that the books would be quite educational.

I was mortified.

But, to my greater embarrassment, my mortification did not arise merely from the Duke having read such a passage aloud.

It was because, at some point during his reading, I had ceased imagining Princess Cordelia as a stranger.

I had imagined myself in her place.

I had imagined myself receiving the attention described upon those pages.

I knew what such things were, at least in the vaguest sense. I knew that husbands and wives possessed intimacies of their own, though no one had ever considered me sufficiently knowledgeable to explain them. I also know what it is when it is done without consent.

But to have them written so plainly—to hear a gentleman speak of them in such detail—was entirely different.

I shook my head faintly.

There was an unfamiliar ache between my legs, and I did not quite understand it.

It reminded me, in some strange fashion, of the sensation I had experienced when Earl Hawthorne had bitten me.

That thought only made matters worse.

Duke Thorncrest did not immediately look up.

He remained as he was, the book still open upon his knee, his expression composed yet somehow altered.

When at last his brown eyes lifted to meet mine, the mischief that had earlier danced within them had deepened into something far more intent.

He closed the volume with a soft, decisive sound.

For a long moment, neither of us spoke.

I was aware of the cat’s steady warmth against me, of the manner in which my fingers had tightened unconsciously in its fur.

I was aware, too, of the flush burning along my cheeks and the strange lingering heat that seemed to have settled into the very air of the chamber.

It had nothing to do with the morning sun.

It had everything to do with the voice that had just finished speaking.

Duke Thorncrest regarded me in silence, the closed book resting lightly upon his knee.

"This," he began at last, his voice once more composed, "really is quite educational, Your Highness."

I stared at him.

For several seconds, I found myself utterly incapable of producing a sensible reply.

There were, I discovered, certain moments in which being a princess offered remarkably little advantage.

This was one of them.

I had no words with which to answer him, so I resorted to the first thing that came to mind.

"P-p-please leave, Y-your Grace," I said, swallowing nervously.

I deliberately looked anywhere but at him.

I heard no immediate movement.

Then his voice came softly through the silence.

"Your Highness."

I stiffened.

"Y-yes?" I asked, still refusing to look at him.

There was a pause.

Not a long one.

Yet somehow it seemed considerably longer than it ought to have been.

"Could you spare me a look?" he asked.

Then, after the smallest hesitation, he added, with an unusual gentleness,

"Please."