Chapter Twenty-Seven #2
Her maddeningly thoughtful husband did everything in his power to resist her attempts to draw him into her web of desire, often leaving her emotions stewing and her body humming and throbbing.
He was far too careful for his own good.
What she wouldn’t have given to climb across his lap and ride him…
But the man knew it, and he always found a way to escape.
She knew it was not from lack of desire—she’d seen the thick outline of his arousal enough times to know that was not the case—but out of his fervent need to keep both her and the baby safe.
Well, Caroline decided one week after Bianchi’s visit that she’d had more than enough of that.
She chose her moment carefully, retiring early and then feigning sleep when Gideon finished the last of his correspondence in his study and finally came to bed.
She listened to him enter the dressing room, the rustle of clothing and the gentle murmur of male voices as his valet helped him undress.
She held perfectly still when she felt the dip in the mattress as he finally joined her in bed.
Only when he pulled her into his body, as was his habit, did she move.
Caroline rolled to face her husband, slung her arm over his neck, and wrapped her leg over his hip so he could feel the heat of her sex hovering just above the part of him she craved with feral hunger. She wanted to leave no excuses to chance and had retired that evening completely nude.
“Caro! I thought you were asleep.”
She loved how his arms instinctively enfolded her, but he stopped just shy of pulling her flush to him.
The crisp whorls of hair on his chest tickled the erect, sensitive buds of her nipples and it was all she could do not to rub against him like a cat.
Still, she closed the gap between them and thoroughly enjoyed the way his pupils blew wide within the molten silver of his eyes.
His fingers flexed against her lower back, just above the curve of her bottom.
“I was waiting for you,” she purred as she pressed slow, open-mouthed kisses against his jaw and throat.
“Hm?” His tone was distracted—especially when she ran her nails along the back of his scalp, stroking furrows in the thick, dark locks. She was pulling him in.
“Indeed. As a matter of fact, I have been waiting for you for far too long.”
“I am right here,” he breathed.
“And yet…I desire more…” She dipped her head and closed her lips over his flat male nipple.
A rush of liquid heat flooded her core when he hissed a breath through his teeth.
She suckled and nibbled while slowly trailing her fingers down past his clenching abdomen, finally locating the thick staff lengthening and throbbing between them.
“God, Caro!” he gasped as she wrapped her hand around him. She’d missed feeling him pulse against her palm, the velvet heat of his desire. He thickened further when she pumped her hand in three agonizingly slow strokes.
“Haven’t you missed this as well?”
“You know I have,” he growled even before she’d finished speaking. Finally, his hand drifted lower to her bottom, his fingers spreading wide and clutching her in a pleasantly possessive hold that made her molten core clench in anticipation.
“And you have made me wait far too long,” she chided.
His hazy eyes met hers, so dark they were nearly completely black in the unsteady firelight. “You know why.”
“And I appreciate your thoughtfulness, but right now, Gideon…I want you inside of me.” His eyes rolled back with a groan at her words. “I need to feel you, and I am weary of waiting. There is nothing else I crave more in this world than your body—”
Gideon’s mouth crashed down over hers. His tongue delved deep, mimicking the confident way she stroked his cock. She tightened her leg around his hip, pulling his pelvis closer to hers and allowing the broad head of his member to rub through her dripping folds with every stroke.
It seemed that Gideon’s restraint had finally given up the fight because he nipped her lip, and nuzzled her nose, and commanded her to roll over.
Too aroused to do anything but comply, Caroline rocked her body and did as she was told.
Immediately, her husband moved flush to her back, grasped her hips, and brought her bottom in contact with his pelvis.
He hiked up her top leg and hooked his arm beneath it to keep it aloft.
A deep rumble of pleased laughter tickled her spine when he discovered how wet she was for him.
“You have missed this…” She could hear the pride in his voice.
Each rock of his hips pushed him deeper into her folds, coating him in her nectar and rubbing against the pearl of her sex.
Each movement urged her higher toward a rapid ascent the likes of which she’d never before experienced.
She arched back into Gideon as much as her ripe body would allow her to and he slid into her tight sheath in one long, glorious thrust. Caroline barely had time to catch her breath from the delicious stretch of it before he retreated and filled her again and again.
“Yes!” she cried, her nails clutching at his arm holding her leg aloft. “More like that.”
He groaned into the back of her neck, burying his nose in her hair. “I won’t last long. You feel too damned good…”
The pain in his voice, the bucking of his hips, the angle of his body inside of hers was overwhelmingly delicious.
When he demanded she cup her perfect breasts and caress her nipples, her body zinged with awareness.
When he described in great detail how she should touch herself, she began to pant for air.
“Pinch them,” he commanded through clenched teeth.
She moaned as she did as she was told. “Yes. You have the most delectable breasts. Merely the thought of them makes me hard. When I think of how those ripe nipples taste…” His breath caught, sending a bolt of lust straight from said nipples right to her center.
“They are one of the sweetest things I’ve ever had on my tongue… aside from your cunny.”
Caroline shattered. She fractured into a thousand stars sent spiraling outward in all directions.
Her body bore down on his, grasping him with every thrust. She was still rippling from her climax when he buried himself to the hilt and flooded her with his seed, his hips jerking uncontrollably as he finally reached the release he’d denied himself for so long.
His hand released her leg, but he wrapped his arm beneath her breasts to hold her close, his member still firm and throbbing deep inside of her.
They nestled into one another, eyes closed, bodies still wracked with the final ripples of pleasure as they drifted off into sated sleep.
Gideon was quite content to indulge in Caroline’s sexual appetites from then on.
For all the restraint he’d shown over the previous months, he dove in with gusto.
He recognized moments when Caroline was overly conscious of the changes heavy pregnancy had wrought upon her body, but he took every opportunity to tell her the truth—he found everything about her body to be enticing.
She drove him wild.
He took her with possessive passion, marking her as his own each time she screamed his name, came on his tongue or his fingers or his cock, or welcomed his spend into her body. It was his seed quickening inside of her.
His wife.
His child.
He felt a swell of pride whenever he brought her glowing, sensitive body to a shuddering, trembling release.
The night everything changed, Caroline rode out the tide of her orgasm as she rocked her body slowly atop his.
She’d taken him deep and dictated the pace, chasing her own pleasure as he was content to be at her mercy.
He couldn’t help but follow closely behind his wife, each pull of her inner muscles dragging blinding bliss from his body.
Well pleased and exhausted, Caroline collapsed beside him as the final tremors of her climax drifted through her limbs like ripples in a pool. He pressed a kiss to her glistening brow and held her as close to his side as her firm, round stomach would allow. They panted together in the afterglow.
“That was…” she breathed. “I feel… My goodness…”
Gideon chuckled. “My sentiments exactly.”
“I am—” Caro’s words died abruptly, and her hand flew to her stomach. She looked up into his face when the pain passed.
“Was that…?”
“A contraction. I believe so.” Their wide eyes met. Excitement and nerves roared through Gideon’s blood in equal measure.
When another contraction came some fifteen minutes later, then again at increasingly shorter and regular intervals throughout the night, they both knew Caroline’s time had come.
Bianchi had agreed to continue on as Caroline’s physician—likely thanks in part to a sizable donation Gideon had made to McCullom’s charity as a show of gratitude for all their help—and he was summoned.
It was not until the following evening, however, that Gideon was able to hold his mewling son in his arms. One look at the child’s distinctive coloring gave evidence to his father’s identity and, for the second time that year, Gideon knew what it felt like to have his family grow.
Caroline lay resting in the bed as he sat nearby in a wingback chair by the hearth. He hadn’t wanted their son to become chilled by the dampness outside, so he’d ordered the fire stoked and the room kept at a comfortably warm temperature.
Staring down into the child’s impossibly small face, examining the tiny shell of his ears, the perfection of his precious hands, the cupid’s bow of his parted lips, the dainty nose so like his mother’s, he felt supremely content and proud.
He was proud of his son’s strong wail and sturdy build.
He was proud of Caroline’s strength.
Perhaps it was strange, but he also felt pride in himself—pride that, as he stared into his son’s face, he knew he would break the cycle of neglect his parents had begun.
The absolutely overwhelming love he felt for this little soul in his arms told Gideon he could never treat the child as his parents had treated him.
A cloud of sadness attempted to edge in, but he refused to blight such a beautiful moment wondering if his own parents had loved him at all.
Instead, Gideon looked forward to spending the rest of his days proving he was a better man than his father had been.
No matter how hard the old marquess had tried, he would never have the satisfaction of knowing that he’d warped Gideon into an image of himself.
With Gideon’s acceptance of Oliver and both brothers’ determination to improve upon their pasts, his legacy would forever rest with him.
Gideon ran a finger along his son’s alabaster cheek, marveling at the perfection he held in his arms, and forever grateful to the woman who’d given it to him.
Caroline woke to find Gideon dressed only in his breeches as he paced slowly back and forth across the room.
He held in his arms an impossibly tiny bundle of grunting, cooing newborn boy.
She held very still so as not to alert him that she was awake; she enjoyed watching the scene far too much to disrupt it.
She was exhausted, she was sore and in pain, but the sight was like a balm to all of it.
Neither she nor Gideon had had the benefit of a loving, supportive family. She’d been considered an inconvenient embarrassment while he’d been a pawn to cold, volatile parents. Still, she did not worry about their son in the least, and this belief was only solidified by the sight before her.
“Now you’ll want to look into both the dam and the sire’s lineage,” Gideon explained softly.
“Some will tell you to look at only the sire, but those shortsighted imbeciles should be disregarded—especially when placing a sizable bet.” He continued on like that for several minutes, detailing all the best physical attributes to look for when selecting horseflesh.
Caroline smiled; some things never changed.
Finally, Gideon’s eyes looked up from their son and he caught her watching. He had the good grace to appear slightly bashful.
“The topic is fine for now because he is too young to appreciate anything but the sound of your voice, but we will have to come up with more suitable subjects when he is older.”
Gideon chuckled and crossed the room to the bed. He pressed a kiss to her brow and she caressed his cheek in return before holding out her arms for the baby.
“He is so beautiful,” she whispered in awe, petting the black down on his head and running her finger along the sweet curve of his cheek. His eyes were a deep blue, but McCullom had said they’d likely change drastically in the coming weeks. “He looks just like his father.”
Gideon chuckled. “Poor lad.”
“We must settle on a name.”
“Percy?”
Caroline wrinkled her nose.
“Bartholomew, Hadrian, Zeus—”
“Now you are being absurd,” she said with a laugh and looked down into her son’s face. “What about Theodore?”
Gideon paused as if weighing the name. “Theodore Bray, Earl of Easton and future Marquess of Swanleigh. It does sound nice, doesn’t it?”
Caroline grinned. “Hello, Theodore,” she whispered and kissed the top of his head.
Gideon climbed onto the mattress beside her and they lay there contentedly, the three of them, quietly looking forward to what the future had in store for their family.