The Dying Duke's One-Year Wife Is a Nurse novel · Chapter 3 of 24
Chapter 3: The Minute Glass
The household finds the Duke ate breakfast; that night she rides his mouth with two fingers on his pulse, then takes him in hers.
On the second night she undressed before he could say a word.
She stood at the foot of the bed in the candlelight and unlaced the nightgown herself.
She let it slide off her shoulders to the floor.
Lysander forgot to breathe.
She heard it, and she turned the sand-glass on the bedpost with her heart hammering.
"Pulse," she said, to give her hands something to do.
"A hundred and one, I'd think, and rising," said the Duke faintly.
"I have been counting. It's a habit I picked up from my nurse."
"Good boy."
His eyes closed for half a second.
She was not a slim woman, and she had never wished to be.
She was strong in the thighs and soft in the belly, with heavy breasts and wide hips.
In this body there was nothing about it to hide.
He looked at every inch of her.
"Come here," he said. "Duchess, come here."
"Careful."
She climbed up the bed and knelt astride his hips.
She kissed him, with her breasts crushed against the thin cotton of his shirt.
His hands rose and stopped in the air above her waist, and she felt him fighting not to touch.
"You may," she said into his mouth.
His palms landed on her back, warm and wide, and slid down to the curve of her hips.
He groaned.
"You are soft," he said. "Everywhere. I had forgotten that anyone could be soft."
"Tonight you're staying propped on those pillows. Don't sit forward, don't lift your hips, and keep your head back."
"Is this the medical part of the evening?"
"This is the part where I sit on your face."
He made a sound she'd never heard from a man.
It was half a laugh and half a prayer, and his cock jumped against her thigh.
She stripped his shirt over his head, careful of the old scars on his arms, and pushed the covers aside.
Then she rose on her knees.
She shuffled up the bed until she was kneeling over his chest, facing the headboard.
She gripped the carved wooden rail with both hands.
Below her, he was looking up between her thighs with his hair wild on the pillow.
"Rosalind," he said hoarsely.
"Tongue flat. Start slow."
She lowered herself.
The first touch of his mouth made her whole body go tight.
He licked her once, a long careful stroke from her entrance to her clit.
The sound that tore out of her shook the bed.
"Oh," she said. "Oh, yes. Like that."
He did it again.
He was clumsy for the first minute, and then he wasn't.
He learned her.
He felt which stroke made her thighs shake, and he gave it to her again and again.
His hands were spread on her hips, and his tongue was hot and slow and endless.
She let her head fall back.
"Lysander. Your hands, hold me. Don't pull, just hold."
His fingers tightened on her flesh.
She dropped one hand from the rail to the side of his throat and felt the pulse leaping there, strong and quick.
"Ninety-nine," she managed. "You're fine. Keep going."
He moaned into her, and she felt it all the way through.
"You taste of lavender soap," he said against her, thick and low.
"And of something under it that I want to drink until I'm dead."
"Don't say dead."
"Drink until I'm full, then."
"Better."
She rocked on his face, helplessly now, her hips rolling against his tongue.
He closed his lips around her clit and sucked, soft, and her knuckles went white on the rail.
"Yes, there, don't stop, don't you dare stop."
"I have no intention," said the Duke, breathless, and went back to work with a diligence that made her whimper.
He slid his tongue down and into her, and she cried out.
It was hot and wet and unhurried, a slow fucking with his mouth, and his nose pressed to her clit with every thrust.
She'd never been eaten like this by anyone.
She'd never had anyone want to.
The pleasure built and built, rolling up from her thighs, until her whole body shook and she could hear herself babbling.
"Good. You're so good. Right there, Lysander, that's it, I'm going to..."
She came with her fingers tangled in his hair and her thighs clamped around his head.
It tore through her, long and violent and bright.
Her cunt pulsed against his tongue while he held on and licked her through every wave.
He didn't stop until she shoved at his shoulder.
She slid down off him on boneless legs, and sprawled over his chest.
His mouth was wet and red.
His eyes were shining.
She put her ear to his heart.
It was fast and strong, but the rushing murmur under it was no worse than yesterday.
"That was a hundred and ten," she said. "You've earned a rest."
"I don't want a rest."
"I know. That's why I'm in charge."
She kissed him, tasting herself on his tongue, and his hand tangled in her hair.
Then she slid down his body.
She kissed his collarbone, his ribs, the soft sunken place under his navel, and he trembled at every touch.
His cock stood up thick and flushed, curved a little to the left, with a bead of fluid at the tip.
"Hands flat on the sheets," she said.
"Rosalind..."
"Flat."
He put them flat.
She settled between his thighs and took him in her fist and licked the slit.
He swore, soft and broken, and his hips twitched.
"No hips."
"I'm sorry. Dear God, I'm sorry."
"Don't be sorry. Be still."
She took the head into her mouth, slow, and swirled her tongue around the rim.
He tasted of salt and clean skin.
The sounds he made went right through her.
She sucked him deeper and drew back, and his fingers clenched in the sheet.
"You're perfect," she said, with her lips against him, "you're doing perfectly, look at you."
His grey eyes were fixed on her through his lashes, wide and wet.
She went down again, taking more of him, until he nudged the back of her throat, and she hummed.
"Oh, God," he whispered. "Oh, my love, I can't."
"You can."
"Nobody has ever done this. Nobody. I have not been touched by anyone in two years who didn't want something."
She lifted her head.
"I want something," she said, her voice wet and rough. "I want you to come in my mouth."
He shook.
She took him back in.
She slid her free hand up his thigh and cupped his balls, tight and heavy.
She rolled them gently, and his breath tore on a sob.
She swallowed around him and sucked hard.
She bobbed her head in a slow steady rhythm, with spit running down her chin.
She slid her own hand between her legs and rubbed her clit while she sucked him.
She was still swollen and slick from his mouth, and she moaned around his cock.
He felt the hum of it and cried out, and his hands clawed at the sheet.
"You're," he said, and lost the word. "Are you touching yourself?"
"Yes."
"Dear God. Rosalind, I'm going to die."
"You're going to come," she said, pulling off him for one breath, with her lips swollen and shining. "Not die. Come."
She took him deep again and rubbed herself faster, and a small second orgasm rippled through her, and she moaned out loud around him.
"Rosalind. Rosalind, I'm..."
"Mm."
"I'm going to..."
"Mm-hm."
He came with a hoarse shout.
It was hot and bitter and thick on her tongue, pulse after pulse.
She held him in her mouth and swallowed it all.
She stroked him through the shudders until he gasped and begged her to stop.
She let him slip free with a soft wet sound.
He lay gasping on the pillows with tears running down the sides of his face into his hair.
She crawled up and gathered him against her, with his head under her chin, and counted his pulse against her own ribs.
A hundred and six.
A hundred.
Ninety-six.
"I forgot it," he said at last, muffled, against her breast.
"For a while I forgot all of it. The pain. The count of days. I haven't forgotten once in eight years."
She pressed her mouth to the top of his head.
"That's the best medicine I've got," she said.
He was quiet for a minute.
Then he lifted his head, and his grey eyes were clear and steady.
"You have given me everything," he said.
"Tell me what you want for your own year, Duchess."
"I have a house and a lake and not much else, but it's yours to ask."
She smiled against his hair.
"Everything on the list," she said.
"What list?"
"I'll show you in the morning."
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