Page 44 of Duke of Seduction
Though Helena was wildly curious as to what those things were, she simply nodded, and after Morgan inspected her once more to be sure she was properly reassembled, he stepped in front of her and unlocked the door.
“Hades.”
A man’s voice broke through their hypnotic reverie, deep and thick with aggression and lust. Morgan seemed annoyed by the person before them, and Helena looked at the stranger with equal irritation, and expressing no desire whatsoever to discern what he wanted from them.
“Apollo?” Morgan chuffed.
The man, shirtless and well-muscled as he stood in his black trousers and matte black, full face mask, nodded towards Helena.
“How much?”
Helena did not have time to worry before she saw Morgan’s muscles tense under the back of his jacket as a low, warning growl only she could hear poured from his chest.
“She is not for sale.” Morgan responded in a clipped and threatening tone.
“Name your price, Hades. I want her.” Apollo went on as though not hearing him.
He dared to crane his neck to look around Morgan’s shoulder, as though heneededto lay eyes on her. A shiver of revulsion coursed down her spine, and she gripped the back of Morgan’s jacket. Her heart thudded for a second when her hand touched something hard that lay against Morgan’s back, then began to beat in a calmer rhythm once she realized what it was.
She outlined the pistol with one finger before she felt his hands slide back and grip the handle. Helena smiled when his fisted hand instantly opened and embraced it, keeping it behind his back while showing her his willingness to protect her. Helena lifted her head in challenge and held the man’s shocked gaze as she peered around Morgan’s torso and ran a possessive hand down his chest.
“I do not believe the lady is interested in your offer,” Morgan drawled. He did not raise the pistol. He did not need to even show it.Howshe had molded to him had been enough of an explanation.
CHAPTER TWENTY
“Tell me how you are feeling now,” Morgan commanded softly, untying the braid in her hair.
Pleasure rippled through him as he gently ran his fingers across her scalp and down her free tendrils. In his lap, Helena’s smile slowly spread as she kept her eyes closed, her body stretching languidly into his touch. He had gotten her back to his home and out of her gown, and he had just finished massaging ointment into the handprint shaped bruises that now branded her bottom.
He did not do this. Not typically. When he took a lover, he often left her feeling euphoric and sated just as Helena was, but he had never stayed around after they had finished. He had never checked the prints his hands had left behind and had certainly not massaged the sore muscles within their supple bodies. He would just pay them their coin and go, sometimes with a ravaging kiss that would send them spinning again, but nothing more than that.
Helena’s submission to him had been a gift. He had never experienced anything so addictive, soperfect.It was as if she had been made just for him. He had known her all her life, and yet all this time, he had never realized that they were so alike.
Like him, Helena had two sides. One that she showed the world — haughty, intelligent, kind yet willful, and one that she kept to herself. One meant only for the darkness, like his own. He wanted to make women fall to their knees, but Helena? She desired a worthwhile reason to go to her knees. She now understood that not all men were worthy of her, and comprehended why she became so waspish around weak men.
Morgan mentally shooed the thoughts away as he focused once more on the woman before him, laid out on his lap like an offering he did not deserve. He could tell by the look in her misty eyes that she was still immersed in the lulling sensations that her submission to him had created. He suddenly wished that he did not have to send her home. He wanted to keep her with him, just as she was, dazed and aroused for days on end.
Perhaps forever.
“The same as I was in the carriage,” Helena sighed, nuzzling her head into his massaging hand.
Morgan chuckled softly, loving how exhausted and sated she looked in that moment.
“Then say it again,” he encouraged, moving his hand down to her neck. He squeezed gently, and Helena’s eyes fluttered open as her smile grew.
“You take me to places,” she explained again, her cheeks turning pink. “In my body. In my head. You make the room spin and disappear.”
“And how do I do that?” he mused, his own smile growing.
He found it adorable that she had not blushed at all when he had shoved his phallus down her throat at the masquerade but was now turning as red as a strawberry while he asked her intimate questions.
“The way you touch me,” she whispered, her blue eyes slowly dilating again, “The way you speak to me. Command me. You are so rough… yet so tender. It makes my head spin and my body yearn for more.”
Morgan swallowed hard.More.God, there wassomuch more he wanted to show her. They had four lessons left, but there was a certain line he knew he could not cross. And right now he hated that damn line more than anything in his life.
“I now know why ladies are always pouring themselves over you,” Helena giggled, turning in his lap so she could look directly up at him.
Morgan’s brow arched as he reached down and gently removed the collar from her neck, massaging his hand gently around the dark pink line it had left; it would be gone by morning.
