Marcus Wilding: Duke of Pleasure Read Online Free Page A

spilt his seed.
    To now find herself gazing upon Marcus’s muscled shoulders and chest, covered only by that thin layer of the finest linen and silk waistcoat, with those tantalizing glimpses of the olive skin at his throat, was—
    Julianna took a step back as Marcus rose to his towering and suddenly predatory height behind the desk. He stepped around it to stand before her, causing her to arch her throat as she tilted her head back to look up into the sinfully handsome face just inches above her own.
    Marcus had been aware of the trembling of Julianna’s body and the tightness of her clenched hands the moment she entered his study wearing a gown of pale russet, the colour a perfect foil for the richness of the red-gold curls secured loosely upon her bared head. A trembling that testified to her nervousness, despite the challenge in those deep grey eyes that spoke to her stubborn determination not to turn tail and run.
    He felt gratified for that stubborn determination, knowing it was, in all probability, the only thing that had brought Julianna back to him. She had certainly looked less than sure she would return yesterday morning once he had issued his list of dos and don’ts for their meeting this morning. Do not wear those widow’s weeds in my presence again, do not wear the unnecessary—and damned annoying—corset beneath your gown, soften the style of your hair, and so it went on, until Marcus felt sure that Julianna had been tempted to tell him to go to the devil with his instructions.
    Instead, she had clamped her lips together before departing Worthing House as anonymously as she had arrived, that black cloak once again covering her from head to toe as she stepped into the equally anonymous carriage.
    But here she was, after all, Marcus’s cock instantly leaping to attention as he gazed upon that red-gold hair loosely secured at her crown. Unless he was mistaken, and he was sure he was not, she was wearing no corset beneath the becoming russet gown that revealed the swell of the tops of her ivory breasts. Their proximity also allowed Marcus to detect the faint and tantalizing smell of roses upon that luminescent flesh.
    ‘I—is your study not a strange place in which to—to carry out our second meeting?’ Julianna now asked nervously.
    Marcus smiled slightly. ‘The location of lovemaking, even the danger of discovery, can often be an arousing introduction to the act. Do you not find it more exciting being here, in my study, an obviously masculine room that you would normally never have reason to enter?’
    She did, Julianna acknowledged wonderingly. There was something so—so forbidden about being in Marcus’s study with him, the only furniture being that huge mahogany desk and the chair behind it, and an ornate Japanese screen beside the bay window. How delicious it was to imagine sitting upon Marcus’s thighs as he sat in the chair, or having him drape her across the width of that desk—
    ‘You do.’ Marcus nodded his satisfaction as he obviously saw the flush to Julianna’s cheeks and the fevered glitter in the grey of her eyes.
    ‘Yes,’ she breathed softly, forcing herself to remain unmoving as Marcus lifted one long and elegant hand to begin removing the pins from her hair, the wideness of her gaze fixed upon his bared throat. She could see the way Marcus’s pulse leapt as he removed the last pin and the cascade of her hair fell loosely onto her shoulders and down the length of her spine.
    Marcus certainly seemed to enjoy the sight of a woman’s unbound hair, his expression completely distracted as he gazed appreciatively at the silky length of her curls. ‘I believe I shall one day very soon enjoy the painful anticipation of having the feel of this silky flame draped across the bareness of my thighs.’
    Julianna’s breath caught in her throat as she tried to imagine under what circumstances her hair might come into contact with Marcus’s bared thighs. Was Marcus saying—was he