He pulsed, jumping under her touch and she gave him another squeeze.

“Bloody hell,” he groaned, arching and thrusting in her grip.

The length of him, the generous girth of him folded in her hand, was as impressive as it was intimidating. Taking him into her body would be daunting.

Would be?

When had she started thinking of it as an eventuality?

She had vowed that would not happen but now, in this moment, she wasn’t scared at the prospect. She envisioned herself mounting him and easing down on his member so that it filled the gnawing hollowness inside her.

Of course her thoughts had traveled there. It was the nature of sexual congress. How could she have her hand on his cock and not think about it? She eyed the length of him, wetting her lips. Her body was afire, the ache something fierce between her legs. She wanted this for herself. Not just for him.

“Nora,” he said hoarsely, the sound a strangled plea.

Her gaze shot to his face again, ready to do anything right then—and not just because he was asking.

“Kiss me.”

Anything but that.

Chapter 21

Nora stilled at his request. “I beg your pardon?”

She did not know why she acted as though she had misunderstood him. She had heard him perfectly well. Likely it was because the request struck such a deep chord of alarm in her.

She had never kissed a man.

Granted, she had never stroked a man’s member before either, but the notion of kissing loomed as something much more personal and intimate and bound for failure. What if she was bad at it? She suspected there was skill involved with kissing.

She’d heard two maids tittering in the kitchens at home, giggling about the handsome and virile stablemaster’s prowess as they simultaneously mourned the fact that he had fallen in love and married. Both lasses had agreed that Blackthorne was a good kisser whose lips would be heartily missed by all. If the stablemaster was a good kisser, then that meant bad kissers existed. What if she was one of them?

What if Nora was a bad kisser?

“Kiss me,” he repeated, lifting his head up from the bed. “Nora. Please. Will you?”

Her gaze fastened back on his face. Gone was the composed duke’s heir. There was no dignity in this man. This man pled for her lips, his face contorting and twisting with emotion as though he might die if he did not have them.

It’s just the tonic. Not you.

“Nora,” he said again. “Kiss me so that I don’t feel as though I’m taking this from you. As though you are doing me a service with not a bit of enjoyment in it for yourself.”

She jerked. Was that what he thought? That she was performing some regrettable chore?