Chapter 22 #2
Verity turned back to King, bursting with the news she had for him and unable to wait a moment more. “I also have a gift for you, my love.”
He cocked his head at her, his expression curious, and that was when she noticed that his coat and waistcoat didn’t complement one another, the waistcoat missing a button.
“Samuel,” he explained, tapping the loose thread where the button had been. “He tried to eat it, but I managed to thieve it from his jaws before the little scoundrel swallowed.”
Verity laughed, then dashed at her tears before pressing a hand to her middle. “The gift I have for you is here.”
“There?” He followed her hand, frowning. “But what do you…are you…angel, are you saying…”
His lack of composure made her smile. “A babe.”
His mouth fell open. “My love. Are you sure?”
She nodded. “I’m as certain as I can be.”
He took her back in his arms with a whoop, spinning her about in a circle this time until she was dizzied and laughing and weeping all at once. She had never been happier.
When he at last set her back on her feet, they were grinning at each other like fools. King cupped her face and kissed her soundly on the lips. It was short and chaste in deference to their audience, but it was laden with love and promise and filled her with yearning.
“I love you,” he whispered.
“And I love you,” Verity returned.
“Don’t leave me again.”
“Never,” she promised.
Emma giggled, and they turned as one to see that Samuel had begun to eat her bonnet.
“Samuel, no,” King said with a groan.
“He told me it tastes better than Cook’s biscuits, it does,” Emma said.
King and Verity laughed at the pair, who were clearly going to have many mischievous adventures together.
“Let’s go home, my loves,” King said.
Hand in hand, they made their way to the waiting carriages.
“If I may say, Your Grace, you are looking decidedly happier this evening,” Hutchens commented as he emerged from the dressing room where he had deposited King’s freshly shined shoes.
“That is because I am.”
“I am heartened to hear it,” the valet said as he went about placing some garments in the wardrobe.
“You seem in excellent spirits yourself,” King observed wryly. “You didn’t even complain about my missing button.”
“Easily fixed,” Hutchens intoned. “Now, had the scamp eaten the button and I had to wait to procure it so that it could be soundly washed and refastened…”
The valet finished with a shudder.
King grinned, in excellent spirits because all was right in his world now that his wife and Emma were once more in residence at Castelyn House. “I daresay another button could have been purchased in its stead. I’d never expect you to poke about in Samuel’s leavings, you know. I am not an ogre.”
“Of course you aren’t, Your Grace.” Hutchens’s countenance, like his tone, was bland.
Fair enough. King had been beastly without Verity. But she loved him. Him, not the ghost of the man she had once loved, but King himself, with all his imperfections and flaws. She had been coming back to him. And she had forgiven him.
“I am no longer an ogre, then,” he corrected. “You may thank my lovely wife for that.”
“I speak on behalf of the household when I say how very pleased we all are at the return of the duchess and young Miss Emma,” Hutchens said, closing the wardrobe.
“I can assure you that no one is more pleased than I am.” King grinned.
The valet continued his toils, but King couldn’t wait any longer, desperate for the private reunion with Verity that he had been awaiting all bloody day.
“Leave the rest for the night, Hutchens,” he said. “That will be all, thank you.”
Huchens inclined his head. “Of course, Your Grace.”
With a careful bow, the valet quit the chamber, leaving King to await his gorgeous wife alone.
He was desperately impatient, tearing at his clothes as if they had paid him a grievous insult.
In scarcely any time, they were blessedly removed and he was naked beneath a dressing gown, his cock harder than steel.
A quiet knock came at his door, and his heart and prick both leapt in anticipation.
“Come,” he called, trying to restrain himself.
It wasn’t going to be easy.
He had never wanted any woman the way he wanted the one who stood at the threshold as the door swung open, her bare feet and trim ankles peeping from beneath the hem of her own robe de chambre.
Verity’s hair was unbound, falling in wild chestnut waves around her shoulders and down her back.
Atop her thick, glorious hair, nestled the sparkling diamond tiara she had last worn the night of the ball, just before their lives had so spectacularly combusted.
But that wasn’t all. The matching teardrop earrings hung from her lobes, and the elaborate necklace circled her creamy throat.
His breath caught as he drank in the sight of her, realizing the significance. “Angel,” he managed. “You bring me to my knees.”
A smile curved her lips, her expression filled with tenderness and love for him. So much love. Feeling welled in his chest, his heart beating hard and fast from the heady combination of desire, yearning, and love he felt for her.
“You said you wanted me naked,” Verity murmured slyly, “wearing nothing but these diamonds. I thought that tonight of all nights would be an appropriate one to oblige you, Your Grace.”
With a flourish, she pulled open the robe and shrugged, sending it falling to the floor.
She stood there, gloriously nude, save for the diamond parure he had bought her, all sleek curves and mouthwatering femininity.
Her breasts were plump and full and tipped with hard, pink nipples, the flare of her hips emphasizing the nip of her waist. And he didn’t know if it was his imagination or if her belly was slightly swelled and rounded with the hint of their growing babe.
“You are the most beautiful sight I have ever beheld,” he bit out.
Overwhelmed, he crossed the room in three strides, scooping her into his arms. She clutched his shoulders with a squeak, pale eyes wide.
“King, I’m too heavy. What are you doing?”
“If I recall correctly, I also said I wanted you naked, wearing nothing but these diamonds, in my bed,” he told her as he turned and strode toward the massive piece of furniture dominating the opposite wall. “I’m simply putting you back where you belong.”
As he reached the bed and lay her on the mattress, he kissed her slowly, deeply, showing her how much he loved her, how grateful he was that she had come home to him.
She kissed him back, threading her arms around his neck, and for a time, they simply remained that way, kissing and holding each other tightly.
Finally, he ended the kiss with great reluctance and straightened, shedding his own dressing gown so that he was as naked as Verity when he joined her on the bed.
“I am so sorry I left you the way I did,” she murmured, reaching for him, her hands caressing his chest and sending fire shooting through him wherever they touched.
“Don’t be sorry.” He kissed a path across her collarbone, cupping her breast with one hand. “I don’t regret a single moment of anything that’s happened, because it has all led us to here. To this moment.”
He kissed lower, finding the tip of her breast and sucking hard until she arched her back and moaned beneath him. She was so responsive, so perfect for him. His cock was already leaking as he slipped a hand between her legs to slick two fingers along her drenched seam.
“You’re so wet for me, my love.” He lapped at her other nipple, teasing it into a tight peak.
Verity sifted her fingers through his hair then held his head to her breast where she wanted him. “I’ve missed you.”
King stroked her swollen bud, pleased at the way her hips jumped beneath his touch. “I missed you more. Let me show you how much.”
He kissed his way down her stomach, tonguing the dip of her navel, and lower until his mouth replaced his fingers and he sucked her clitoris, then flicked his tongue over the distended bud.
He found her entrance and sank inside her, licking deep, worshipping her in every way he could.
Verity twisted under him, crying out his name.
He flattened his tongue, fucking her with it, drowning in her wetness, soaked in her and loving every second until she came, shuddering and thrusting her sweet pussy into his face.
Then he rose, aligning his body with hers, and guided his cock to her entrance.
One hard thrust, and he was inside her to the hilt, her molten heat clenching tight around him.
It was good, so good that he knew he wouldn’t last long.
The fortnight without her had been interminable. But she was home. And she was his.
And sweet bloody hell, nothing had ever felt better than this.
He moved, pumping in and out of her as he bent and took a nipple back into his mouth.
He rode her, giving them both what they wanted, his fingers slipping between them to fly over her pearl in the way he knew she liked.
She whimpered, meeting him thrust for thrust, every bit as desperate for completion as he was.
White-hot flame rolled up his spine, his groin tightening. She came hard and fast, her cunny clamping down on him. He released her breast and groaned her name before finding her lips with his. Their mouths met in a messy tangle of tongues, the decadent musk of her flavoring their kiss.
He lost himself in the next instant, thrusting deep as her inner walls milked his cock and he spilled inside her. King gentled the kiss as the pleasure licked through him, raising his head to meet her blue, blue eyes.
“Welcome home, my love,” he whispered.
She was his forever now, and he had never loved her more.
He would happily spend the rest of his life proving it to her.