"Is that why you're here?" One brow lifted in skeptical regard.
"Do you really care?"
He gazed at her for a moment, voluptuously nude, beautiful beyond the general standards for beauty, impatient for her first orgasm with a man. "No."
Her mouth quirked in a faint smile. "I didn't think so."
"Are you finished, then?" He nodded at the note, his momentary cynicism dismissed. "Claude's on his way up."
As aware as he of the reasons that had brought them there, she quickly folded the sheet of paper, slid it into the envelope and handed it to him.
Taking it to the desk, he sealed it. Then pulling a gray silk robe from the armoire, he slipped it on and walked from the bedroom, shutting the door behind him. The knock on the suite door sounded as he was counting out a number of bills guaranteed to buy silence from the staff. If Miss Greenwood lived in Monte Carlo, it would be best if her stay with him were forgotten. When he opened the door a few moments later, he conveyed his instructions to Daniel's brother with a decisiveness that couldn't be misconstrued. And money aside, the soft threat in his voice would have been sufficient to see his orders obeyed.
"Your note is being delivered," the duke declared, reenter-ing the bedroom shortly after, "and I was assured not a hint of your presence here would go abroad."
Lounging against the pillows, she lazily scrutinized him. "You must be dangerous or very rich."
Some might say both, but choosing to disclose as little of his life as possible, the duke said instead, "I gave Claude some of the money I won tonight."
"A lot, no doubt."
"Enough." She was so lush and inviting lying on his bed, he would have willingly spent more if necessary. "Now that your concerns for your servants are alleviated, you no longer need worry." His smile gave evidence of his supreme good humor. "And we can concentrate on pleasure until morning."
"You make this very, very easy."
"I have the most selfish of motives."
She playfully shifted into an odalisque pose. "You're sure I'm worth it?"
"Definitely, and I'm always right."
She laughed, delighted to be the object of such regard. "And modest, too."
"Modesty is much overrated." He untied his robe and slipped it off.
She gazed at his tall, muscled form, bronzed from the sun, honed and taut, exquisitely aroused. "You could never be regarded as modest in any way."
"Nor you." He climbed into bed and settled between her legs with a comfortable ease that bespoke much practice. "Let's begin your first lesson in having an orgasm with a man," he murmured with a smile, guiding his penis to her heated cleft. "Stop me at any time if you have questions."
"I have no intention in the world of stopping you." The feel of him poised to enter her sent waves of pleasure upward from the thrilling point of contact.
"A woman after my own heart."
Her gaze came up, the sentiment oddly put.
"A generic phrase," he quickly noted, mildly confounded himself when he scrupulously avoided romantical utterances.
"Do make love to me," she purred, moving her hips in invitation. "And I mean it in the most generic way."
He moved forward, penetrating slowly, gliding into her heated interior with deliberate languor, wanting to give pleasure, but also selfishly wishing to feel each centimeter of the intoxicating invasion. He couldn't remember when he had had sex with such an inexperienced woman, and her breathless desire brought new dimension to his arousal. "Stop me if I'm hurting you."
"Au contraire…" Her hands were hard on his back, her hips rising to meet him, the melting heat of her desire flowing around his long, rigid length. "Please… more…"
As he obliged her, he met a small resistance and, unsure, hesitated.
"It doesn't hurt… really…"
Gazing down, he saw the entreaty in her lavender eyes, the glowing flush on her cheeks.
"Don't stop… I want it all…" she implored.
A saint couldn't have withstood such a plea and he had never aspired to sainthood. "You're sure?" he asked when he wasn't sure himself how much longer he could act the gentleman.
"I'm dying," she whispered, desperation in her voice.
So long celibate, she couldn't wait, nor in truth could he, his explosive need controlled only with superhuman effort. With her breathless consent, he gave in to his own rapacious urges and plunged forward, burying himself deep inside her, holding himself immobile against her womb, filling her, stretching her. The pleasure was so intense tears came to her eyes. Then he gently moved, and she moaned, the sleek friction stimulating every sensitized nerve and cell to fever pitch. Inhaling sharply at the agony of restraint, he forced himself to ignore the savage pleasure bombarding his senses. Although it wouldn't be much longer, he recognized. Her thighs opened wider to accommodate him, and her panting cries had reached a new level of need.
Settling into a slow, luscious flux and flow, he gave her what she wanted, what they both wanted, the exquisite rhythm of thrust and withdrawal overwhelming all but stark, finite sensation. She cried out, and he softly grunted each time at the blissful point of deepest penetration when the focus of the world centered on the tremulous imprint of his engorged penis against her throbbing tissue. And then breath held as he withdrew, gliding back to the farthest limit, they waited in sweet, shuddering agony for the next powerful downstroke.
The scent of sex engulfed them, the heated odor of passionate bodies in sleek fusion, the raw, primitive act of mating permeating the civilized luxury and sumptuous decor of the bedroom in the Hotel de Paris. An incongruous concept for a man who viewed sex as a casual game, equally incongruous for a woman who had spent the greater part of her life as pure as a vestal virgin.
But at that moment they existed in their own universe, joined in a dance as old as time, abandoned to a wild, audacious carnality, body to body, torrid desire to torrid desire, fevered, delirious, ravenous for each other. Until she whimpered and he instantly shifted direction, recognizing how close she was to the brink. Plunging forward, he buried himself so deeply she gasped. And then her low keening cry shattered the night air, the sound rising in soaring exultation as her orgasm tempestuously broke, surged, swelled. With blessed relief, he allowed his own fierce urges free rein. His long withheld climax exploded, flowing downward in such violent ejaculations he shut his eyes against the savage assault.
For reeling moments in the self-contained paradise of the canopied bed, convulsed with rapture, they clung to each other, experiencing a wild, tumultuous consummation so intense the world narrowed to blissful sensation and the heated contact of their bodies. How could she have known, she thought, ravished and saturated and filled with sperm, that sex could be so shockingly good. Was her naivete alone capable of such sorcery? he wondered, his senses still on fire despite his climax.
But resisting the notion of intense feeling on principle, intent on retaining the comfortable habits of a lifetime, he dismissed his errant feelings and, raising his forehead from the pillow, brushed Felicia's cheek with a casual kiss. "That was fantastic."
"And now I know what it's like." Her voice was the merest wisp of sound, her eyes half-shut in languor.
"When the world is perfect," he murmured, adjusting his weight on his elbows and smiling down at her.
"With you, you mean." Her lashes lifted, and contentment shone from her eyes.
"Is it better than alone?"
Her smile appeared, beatific and radiant. "As if you didn't know, you arrogant man."
"Just checking." He glanced at the clock on the mantel. "And I can make it better again."
"Impossible. Really," she murmured. "I couldn't."
"Are you sure?" He moved inside her.
She softly groaned, tremulous rapture in the delicate sound. "Don't do that. I'll expire of bliss."
"This kind of bliss?" He slid forward marginally, his erection seemingly undiminished despite his orgasm.