The Tattooed Duke Read Online Free PDF Page B

tattooing; of learning the native language, the social rules, and plant-hunting expeditions far inland; of gloriously lazy afternoons swimming in the turquoise surf.
    She flipped back to the very vivid illustrations. She turned the book sideways. She tilted her head. And then she dared to dream . . . dared to imagine herself with the duke in these positions no English maiden would ever try.
    A gasp escaped her lips. Her heart was thudding hard and fast in her chest. She felt positively strangled by her dressing gown. This was becoming too much.
    Eliza slammed the journal shut, placed it back on his desk and blew out the candle. She had not read much that could be used in her column—unless she wanted to ruin every maiden in London, and perhaps a few marriages, with some very graphic descriptions of outrageously pleasurable lovemaking.
    Such were Eliza’s thoughts and she tiptoed down the hall and crossed the foyer, barely concealed by the sconces that had been left burning. The duke. His pleasure. Her writing. The pangs of guilt returned, but still they were no match for the hot spark of desire that, tonight, had been nurtured into a slow, smoldering fire.
    She was halfway across the wide expanse of the marble foyer when the duke entered through the front door. Apparently, he had been out.
    “Eliza.” His voice was low, but lud, did it carry in the vast, empty hall.
    “Your Grace,” she whispered. How did one greet a duke in the middle of the night, whilst in her dressing gown? Well, she knew how Miri would greet him . . .
    She haphazardly bobbed into a curtsey instead.
    Slowly, Wycliff crossed the foyer, with those long, determined strides of his, and she had every opportunity to admire the power, barely restrained, in his every movement. He stood before her.
    It was dark. Late. She’d just been reading the very intimate details of his passionate lovemaking and found herself breathless.
    “It’s late for a housemaid to be scurrying through the halls,” the duke remarked. “And in her dressing gown, too . . .” His voice dropped to a whisper and trailed off. That awareness she’d felt earlier she felt again now, in spades. Her every nerve was at attention, awaiting something, anything, from him.
    “I had forgotten something,” she managed.
    “What would that be?”
    My wits, Eliza thought. My sense of decency. My respect for other people’s private property and privacy. And a bit of maidenly virtue, too, she realized, given the tantalizing descriptions and images she’d just read and seen.
    “I wanted to check on the fires . . .” she said, like a practiced actress. Or liar. It was definitely pangs of guilt that she was experiencing, and they were growing stronger now, overtaking any feelings of curiosity or desire she’d felt earlier.
    He was a man—albeit one who’d led a fascinating life and who was devastatingly handsome. He was a man who deserved his privacy, his reputation. And he was a man who made her heart skip beats just with a glance, who made her feel breathless and light-headed with every knowing smile he threw her way. A man who intrigued her, set her aflame, a man who . . .
    . . . was clasping her waist with one, warm hand. Who knew that the curve of her hip possessed such sensitivity?
    Eliza tilted her head back to look up at him. His eyes were unbelievably dark in this light, but there was no mistaking the spark there—desire, or mischief, she wasn’t sure. Did not much care at the moment.
    His mouth closed down on hers. His lips were warm and she was hot and melting under their gentle pressure. With his tongue, he lightly traced the seam of her lips, urging her to open to him, and she did. He tasted of drink—but also danger and experience and power and the sort of wicked pleasure that had never occurred to her before tonight.
    Wycliff clasped his hands on her cheeks, his fingers threading through her hair. That heat was overwhelming now. She wished for a sultry island