My Dangerous Duke (The Twisted Dukes #2)

Chapter 16

“ H ow?” Xander demanded, looking at Rhys from across his desk. The moment Rhys had said those magic words, Xander had grabbed ahold of him and all but dragged him into his study.

“You have your ways, I have mine,” Rhys replied with a grave expression, no longer joking. “What is important is that they have been found and confirmed with an eye witness in Langley’s wife’s cousin’s house in Bath. It is not his house so he had to be clever with his hiding spot, but we found it.”

“Did you get them?” He asked, feeling his shoulders tense. “Are they here?”

“No,” Rhys replied quickly, crossing his legs and lacing his fingers together.

“Why the bloody hell not?” Xander growled.

Rhys looked at Xander steadily for a long, infuriating moment before he finally said, “Because I want you to be sure about this, Larsen. I am not your friend, I understand that, but Eleanor is Penelope’s friend. And what I saw this evening was not two strangers just muddling through marriage, but two people who greatly enjoyed each other’s company. You bicker quite frequently, sure, but it is so obvious that the two of you love it.”

Xander struggled for a moment as the truth was thrown to his feet, but he quickly regained composure. It did not matter. It was not just about them. It was about the principle of it all. Victor Langley had to pay for his blackmail. And Eleanor… Eleanor would find her prince charming one day. Someone who knew exactly how to love her.

“Get the letters as soon as possible,” Xander rasped, rubbing the tension at the back of his neck. “For her sake more than anyone else’s.”

“It will be a few weeks,” Rhys explained. “The house is brimming with summer guests. It will be too easy to get caught. But at the end of the Season, it will be empty of everyone but a ghost staff. It will be easy then. Can you wait that long?”

“Do I have a choice?” Xander bit out.

“Patrick, stop,” Eleanor laughed, shooing his hands away with her fan, “Your stories are deplorable.”

“I am in love,” he stated tipsily, giving her a sloppy grin. “Why, oh why, did you not marry me, Ellie girl?”

“Please!” Eleanor laughed loudly, also a bit too deep in her cups. In fact, the entire dinner party had seemed to be so. Grinning from ear to ear, she reached up and patted Patrick on the cheek. “You are like a brother, little Patrick.”

A look of feigned shock and disappointment came over Patrick’s face as he dramatically staggered back.

“ Little ?” He breathed, looking devastated. “You wound me, Your Grace.”

A deep belly laugh poured from Eleanor at the site of Patrick’s feigned heartbreak.

“What is so funny over here?” Xander’s cousin Richard asked, joining them with a mirthful grin.

Tonight was the first time Eleanor had been given a chance to meet the man, and though he had seemed a little reserved at times, she could not quite figure out what it was about him that infuriated her husband so.

“Eleanor has just given me those most terrible of insults,” Patrick continued dramatically, clutching his chest.

“Oh, do tell.” A shiver went down Eleanor’s spine as she heard Xander’s voice, but as she spun to face him, her smile vanished when she saw his scowl.

“I also heard you laughing,” he told her, keeping his silver eyes on her. “I do not think I have ever heard you laugh quite so hard.”

“I make her laugh,” Patrick shrugged drunkenly, leaning on Eleanor’s shoulder.

Eleanor sensed danger for Patrick as Xander’s glare moved from her to him, and she shrugged his elbow off her shoulder. He looked with the pouty look of a toddler, but this time, no one laughed. In fact, the room had grown very quiet.

“She called me little,” Patrick explained too drunk to sense the danger he was in.

Still glaring, Xander cocked a brow.

“And what would she know about your… size?”

“Patrick is Penny’s brother,” she explained, looking carefully from Patrick to Xander. “I have always looked at him in a similar fashion.”

She then let out a laugh as she threw a teasing look at Patrick.

“He may be older but I have always found his nature is quite childlike. Hence why I call him little.”

A satisfied smirk touched Xander’s lips briefly as Patrick threw her a wounded look, but then his mouth formed into a grim line once more.

“Patrick, have you been drinking again?” Penelope rushed to gather her brother before he caused more of a scene.

“Come, cousin!” Richard yelled drunkenly, breaking the tension. “We are all family here! Brothers, sisters, cousins.”

He drunkenly turned toward Eleanor and pointed at her.

“And you. You are a little bit everything, are you not, you little minx.”

“Watch it, Richard,” Xander warned, turning his glare toward him.

“I am just saying she must be something special,” Richard went on, ignoring the danger. “I mean, I got sent away because of all of this, but her? She gets rewarded with a title and my home!”

“What are you talking about?” Eleanor asked, her tipsiness beginning to fade as concern took over.

“Nothing,” Xander ground out, moving her out of the way so that he could go chest-to-chest with his cousin.

“You. Get. Everything!” Richard boomed in his face.

Xander did not blink or flinch at the verbal assault, but Eleanor did. Worriedly, she looked around and caught the Dowager's fearful look in particular.

“Everything,” Richard growled out again, losing his composure. He threw a dirty look toward Eleanor. “Even the things you do not want.”

“Larsen,” Rhys said, moving to step in. Before he could follow through though, Penelope was suddenly yanking him backward and giving him a threatening glare.

“He does not want either of us around, you know,” Richard said, continuing to focus on Eleanor. “Now all three of us are in hell because of your father.”

“That is enough!” Xander growled, grabbing Richard by the lapels.

Not bothering to think first, Eleanor rushed between the two men, facing Xander, and placed her hands firmly on either side of his jaw. Behind her, she heard Richard being restrained by Patrick and Rhys.

Xander tried to rear back from her hold at first but she kept her grip, forcing him to look at her. His silver eyes seethed with anger as he glared back at her, but as she continued to refuse to stand down, they eventually simmered into a cool rain gray. His jaw finally unlocked then, and she felt him lean into her touch.

“I believe we have all had enough fun for tonight,” the Dowager announced with a clap of her hands from behind them. “Thank you for coming, everyone, but it seems we have let our cups get too full.”

“Richard, come with me,” the Dowager commanded calmly as she approached the still-frozen trio.

“ No,” Richard all but sobbed, still glaring at Eleanor and Xander. “He keeps saying this is my fault. But this? This is all her doing!”

“Come to bed, sweetheart, now!” the Dowager coaxed.

Two servants arrived at her side to help her while Eleanor continued to hold Xander’s gaze. She waited long after she heard the door close and silence filled the room before she finally let him go and spoke.

“What in the hell was that?” She asked.

“Watch your language,” Xander bit out, quickly growing angry again. “And you tell me.”

Eleanor looked at him in shock.

“Tell you what?” She asked, flabbergasted.

“I have never heard you laugh like that,” he repeated again.

Eleanor huffed out a laugh, thinking he could not be in earnest, but when she saw the look on his face, she immediately frowned.

“You cannot be serious,” she stated in disbelief.

“How much time have you and Patrick spent together?” He asked next. “How well do you know each other?”

Utterly stunned by this sudden jealous behavior, Eleanor turned on her heel and walked away.

“Where do you think you are going?” He asked, following her. “Do not just walk away from me while we are talking!”

“We are not talking, Your Grace,” she replied matter-of-factly-, “you are accusing, and I do not have to stay put and accept such disrespect. Especially when I have done nothing to earn it!”

“You must control yourself,” he insisted, catching up to her as they walked briskly up the stairs. “We are in a precarious position.”

“ Control ,” she scoffed, not moving, “That is all you want, isn’t it? You just want everyone around you to obey and behave exactly as you wish.”

“Do not dare take Richard’s side on this,” Xander growled, following behind her closely as she opened the doors to her quarters. “You have no idea of the responsibilities that come with my role and how many times he has made me hate that reality. I do not like what I have become but I did it in order to protect this family. A family that you are now a part of!”

“For how long?” She shouted back, whirling on him so fast that his eyes widened in surprise. “You cannot wait to get rid of me, can you not? Just like your cousin. What did we ever do to you?”

Xander was on her in an instant, his much bigger body pressing her against the wall as his left hand touched her chin. Heat poured through her body and pooled in her lower belly as his eyes burned into his.

“You do not put yourself in the same category as him,” he stated, deathly serious. “You did nothing wrong. You hear me? Nothing you did was wrong. You are the only innocent one in all of this. Which is why I am trying to protect you until I can get this sorted out.”

Eleanor reached out and put a palm on his cheek, and saw that he fought not to pull away.

“You are putting so much on yourself,” she whispered, worried for him. “It will destroy you if you do not stop. Talk to me. I can help.”

Several tense seconds ticked by before Xander answered.

“It is best I handle things alone.”

“But if you allowed help, you would have more time to rest,” she explained with a sigh. “More time to discover what makes you happy. Don’t you want to do what makes you happy?”

“Trust me, you and the world do not want that,” he scoffed bitterly, glancing away.

“Of course, I do,” she answered, giving him a puzzling look. “Why would I not?”

Xander’s eyes turned back to her possessively, making her breath hitch.

“For starters, I would have beat your dear little Patrick to a bloody pulp for putting his arms on you.”

Although she was sure Xander was trying to shock her, Eleanor’s body only grew more sensitive instead. She knew it was wrong, but the image of Xander defending her only made her nipples harden and a warm moisture seep between her legs.

“You are jealous,” she panted, suddenly unable to catch her breath. Xander growled as he braced his free hand against the wall beside her ear, and stared at her like a predator ready to catch his prey.

“I. Am. Not. Jealous.” He bit it, emphasizing each word with both his voice and the tightening of his fingers around Eleanor’s throat.

She smiled up at him almost wickedly, meeting his stare full-on.

“Yes. You. Are.”

Eleanor had no time to think or react before Xander’s mouth slammed down on hers with a possessive growl. Unlike before, she did not simply let him kiss her into submission. Instead, she kissed him back with just as much fervor, letting her tongue and lips battle his as she drove her fingers through his hair.

Pleasure laced through her as she felt Xander gather her skirts and then lift her off her feet. Immediately, she wrapped her legs around his waist, pressing her sex tightly against the hardened length between his legs.

Xander moaned and she gasped as she flicked her hips subtly, discovering how it could bring her great pleasure if she glided against one particular spot. Clinging to him tightly, she did it again, this time more boldly.

A whispered curse broke through Xander’s lips before he delivered a nip to her bottom lip for such dirty tricks. She yelped, at first, but something wild had been unleashed in her. Moving her lips down to his neck, she sank her teeth in deeply, reveling in the way Xander hissed out a breath and pressed her closer.

“You should not have let him touch you, Honey.”

After a few fevered steps, Xander pushed her through her bedroom door and the two of them fell in a tangle of limbs onto the bed as they reignited their kiss. Eleanor’s hands gripped needily at his jacket, pulling it away from his shoulders before attacking the buttons on his vest.

“I did not…” Eleanor’s reply melted into a sigh as she tried to undress.

“Do you want to know why?” Xander continued as if she had not tried to answer him. “Because you are mine . Because I cannot take my mind off you all day, even if I want to…”

Euphoria filled her as Xander moved not to stop her but to aide her in her efforts, and once the thing was flung off, he tore at the top buttons of his white collared shirt, spraying them to the floor before he yanked the thing over his head and threw it away. Eleanor’s mouth watered as she saw the broad, naked expanse of her husband’s well-muscled torso. She had never seen the male form nude before, not even in a sculpture garden. But now she understood why it was so obsessed over.

“Get over here,” Xander commanded, gripping her wrist and yanking her toward him.

Eleanor gasped as Xander gathered her back in his arms and kissed her feverishly again. With quick work of his fingers, he untethered her layers until she left in nothing but her short, see-through figure-hugging white chemise. When he finished, he pulled her back to rake his eyes down her figure, and when he did so, Eleanor felt a deep satisfaction as she saw the blatant desire in his eyes.

Needing him, she wrapped her arms around his neck and used her legs to bring him back down to the bed. Xander came willingly, but as he tried to pin her to the mattress, Eleanor fought, and somehow ended up atop him, her thighs once more straddling the ample-sized rigidness beneath his breeches.

A bite here or swivel of her hips there and she was back on top. A breathtaking kiss or the feel of his rough hands massaging her breasts and abdomen and he was back on top. For a moment, Eleanor thought she was winning the erotically fun game they had just created, but as she moved to bite his neck again, Xander suddenly twisted his body, regained control, and this time, when he pinned her down, she could not get up.

“You are driving me mad,” he panted, holding her wrists tight as his nose brushed against hers.

“And what do you think you are doing to me?” She whispered, leaning up to lip at his bottom lip.

With a groan, Xander once more kissed her possessively, ripping his lips away from her only when she was just about to run out of breath. His kisses continued down her jaw, behind her ear, and down her throat; further down until he reached her breasts and swirled his tongue teasingly over the thin, white material that covered her taut pink nipple.

Eleanor gasped as her back arched, thrusting her right breast further into his hot mouth for more. To her relief, Xander quickly obliged, his tongue lapping greedily at her flesh. His one hand released her wrists, moving down to caress her left breast and begin to tease her other nipple with her fingertips.

“Xander,” Eleanor gasped, her eyelashes fluttering as his tongue and fingers drove her wild. His touch was somehow both too much and nowhere near enough, and she could not help the uncontrollable tremors that raced through her as he continued to devour her.

Eleanor let out a moan of relief and sadness when Xander’s lips and hand moved away from her breasts and down her abdomen, but she quickly forgot what she was sad about when she felt him push her chemise up around her hips; exposing her glistening petals.

Xander groaned in what seemed like pleasured agony as he rested his forehead on her lower abdomen and inhaled deeply. Finally letting go of her wrists with his other hand, he pushed both arms under her legs and possessively pulled her sex directly to his face.