Gina Lamm - Geek Girls Don't Date Dukes

She wanted to scream, to curse the Fates for being so damned cruel. She’d been through so much to find him, and now he was being ripped from her forever?

“I’ll stay with you.” She rose on her knees, cupping his face with both hands. “I’ll stay here with you and we’ll be together.”

“I may well be hanged for murder. I have no money, no home, nothing to care for you—”

“I don’t care!” She pounded his chest with her fists. “I don’t have anything if I don’t have you! Don’t you fucking get it? I love you!”

He took her lips in a desperate kiss, and she clung to him tightly, their mutual sorrow burning into passion. This would be the last time they’d be together, and she clung to each second as if she could burn it into her memory.

After all, those memories would have to last her a lifetime.

Avery sensed his own desperate need to possess her in her passionate caresses. He knew what she was feeling because it was the same searing pain that beat in his chest.

His anger at their impossible position would do no good. His need to rail at God would gain him nothing. But he could give her his love, himself, to carry with her on her journey.

And he would.

He covered her body with his own, their mouths meeting and parting, delving deep and nipping lightly. Her hands roamed his body, playing along his broad shoulders, down the arms that held him suspended above her. Pulling his shirt upward, she arched her back.

“Please, Avery.” She pressed a kiss to his throat. “We don’t have much time.”

Her words were no less true than they were painful. Rising on his knees, he pulled his shirt over his head. Her fingers fumbled on his breeches.

“Let me, my love.”

She nodded, eyes darkening as he removed the last barrier and released his erection. He knelt beside her, hand delving beneath her skirts as her own soft fingers wrapped around his length.

“You’re the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen,” she said as he lifted her skirt to reveal her soft, white thighs. “I love to touch you.”

His hand trailed across the dark blond hair that crested her most secret flesh. “There cannot be a woman as lovely as you are to me.” He looked into her eyes, and his next words came without his forethought. “I would love nothing more than to have you as my wife.”

Tears sprang into the corners of her eyes, and she shook her head vehemently. “Stop talking. Come here and love me.”

She held her arms out to him, and he covered her body with his own. His tongue explored her mouth as his hands explored her body, loosening the buttons of her gown to release her breasts from their confinement. She gasped as his hand covered her pebbled nipple through the thin barrier of her shift.

“Avery, please,” she begged as she wrapped her thighs around his hips. “I don’t want to wait. I want you inside me.”

Though his body roared to claim her, he resisted the urge. He must make this last; he must carve this moment into his very being. Ripping her shift away, he bared her breasts to his hungry gaze. Her stays forced the beautiful orbs higher, and he took advantage of their perfect frame.

He bent his head and captured the tip of her puckered nipple between his lips.

Her fingers tangled in his hair and her hips thrashed as he flicked the tight bud with his tongue. He clasped her soft, round buttocks with both hands as he loved her breasts. Her body was made for him, though she’d had lovers before him, and would in all likelihood marry someday…

Growling, he refused to think of the future. This was their moment, and it was their forever.

He covered her breasts with his kisses, and he ravaged her body with his touch. His fingers delved between her folds as he kissed the pale column of her throat, lightly sucking the pulse that fluttered there.

She was so wet, her silky skin parted easily to allow his fingers entry. One, then two, slid within her heat, and she gasped.

“Avery,” she moaned, raising her hips to force him deeper. “Don’t make me wait, please.”

Though he wished he could draw their encounter out for hours, days, their lifetime, he knew that he could not. Kneeling between her parted thighs, he lifted her hips to receive him.

Poised at her entrance, her wet heat beckoning him, he hesitated. Looking down into her wide eyes, as blue as a summer’s day, he smiled.

“You are mine, Leah. My own angel.”

And he slid home.

There was nothing like that moment. Even in the times they had come together before, he had never known such pleasure as sinking himself into her heat. Holding her close to his chest, he stilled himself for a moment, letting himself sink deep into the cradle of her body.

“Oh please,” she panted. “Please.”

He moved against her in a rhythm that felt as natural as breathing. Breathing her in, he smiled. Her scent would forever be burned in his mind, that sweet exotic perfume that he had never smelled before and never would again.

Their bodies strained together, soft cries and intimate touches building in intensity until Avery thought he’d die from the pleasure. Her heat thrummed through him, almost as if they were connected in more than body. She buried her face against his chest, pressing kisses wherever she could reach.

When her cries grew more desperate, and her movements more frantic, he reached between them and found the hidden place, the one that seemed to call out for his touch more than any other part of her exquisite body.

She exploded and, a second later, so did he. He muffled his hoarse shout as he poured himself into her, shuddering as her body wrung every last drop of his response from him.

He stayed there for several ragged heartbeats, waiting for the world to stop swimming about him. When it did, he rolled to the side, gathering his bedraggled, half-dressed, and well-loved angel to his chest.

“I love you, Leah,” he whispered. “I shall never love another as I love you.”

“Oh, Avery.” She closed her eyes. “I love you more than anything, and I always will.”

They dressed quickly but with more kisses and touches than were wise. Though he’d just had her, he wanted her again. He wanted to chain her to his bed and never let her go. But she needed more than he could provide, and though the thought broke his heart, he’d let her go.

They descended the stairs, hand-in-hand, only a few moments later.

The duke and Lady Chesterfield sprang apart when Leah opened the sitting room door. Avery wanted to laugh at the obvious blushes on their faces, but such an expression was beyond him then.

Ella and Muriel entered the room behind them. When Avery would have released Leah’s hand, she gripped him tighter. He could not help but be relieved. Her touch was a commodity that would be ripped from him all too soon.

“Everyone,” Leah said. “This is Avery. I love him.”

Ella nodded pleasantly. “It’s great to meet you, Avery.”

“He and Mrs. Comstock repaired as much of the mirror as they could, but it’s only big enough for you and me to pass through.”

He could not help but be proud of the way her voice remained steady though her hands were shaking like leaves in autumn.

As Ella and the young maid carefully lifted the mirror and brought it into the sitting room, Leah stepped into his arms.

“Are you sure you can’t come?”

He tangled his hands in her yellow curls, holding her tight. “Even if the mirror were large enough, I cannot abandon my aunt.”

“I know.”

Their last moments together passed too quickly. Ella touched Leah on the shoulder, a compassionate look on her face.

“Leah, are you ready?”

His angel pulled free of his embrace, wiping the tears from her eyes. “Yeah.”