Chapter 26
“Adrian?” Bridget whispered.
He turned back to her, those piercing blue eyes still aglow with ferocity. Slowly, she watched it turn to something else, and with a deep breath, he released his tense stance and walked toward her.
“Adrian, I am so sorry. I feel terrible about this whole situation. Being married to me has caused you all that trouble, and now Victor…” she apologized. “My guardians did not give me much choice when it came to marrying into Warren’s family; I could only do as I was told.”
“My love, stop,” Adrian insisted, wrapping his arms around her waist. “You have nothing to apologize for. Being married to you was a dream come true.”
Bridget sighed in relief as she rested her head against his chest and sank into his muscular form. What a relief this was; to snuggle and relax into the man that was her husband. The man who protected her. The man who cared about her.
“You are not angry that he used me to threaten you? Or that I am the cause he did so in the first place?” she asked.
To her surprise, Adrian chuckled as he trailed his fingertips up and down the back of her yellow silk dress.
“The only time I became angry was when he insulted you,” Adrian replied. “But now, I am wondering if I should go after him and thank him.”
Shocked, Bridget pulled back from Adrian’s embrace, and sure enough, there was a sparkle of mirth in his piercing blue eyes.
“Thank him? Why?”
“He gave me the opportunity to passionately declare that you were mine and I am yours,” Adrian replied, stroking his hand over her cheek.
Heat erupted everywhere he touched, making Bridget’s breath catch in her throat.
“And it reminded me that there is one more thing I need to do to seal that union,” he purred into her ear.
Bridget’s heart began to beat faster as Adrian’s thumb caressed over her lips, leaving a streak of fire from her mouth, down her chin, and to her throat, where his touch trailed.
“What is that?” she whispered.
Adrian’s eyes dipped down her figure, a smile tugging at his lips.
“I believe, darling Bridget, that it is time that you and I consummate our marriage once and for all,” he replied, his deep voice growing thick with desire as he picked her up and carried her toward the stairs without another word.
It was not fear, but excitement that sparked through Bridget’s veins as Adrian spoke of consummating their marriage.
He had taken great care to ease her into the pleasures of the flesh, and as she reached for that anxious state she had been in with Warren on their first night, she realized there was nothing of the sort to grab onto.
“Are you ready, Bridget?” Adrian whispered, his hands making soothing circles over the nape of her neck and around her throat. “Are you ready to finally be mine, in body as well as mind?”
“Yes,” she breathed, feeling her legs tremble as Adrian pulled her closer. “Yes, I am ready.”
A deliciously masculine groan erupted from Adrian’s chest only a moment before he lowered her head and kissed her deeply. She whimpered as she slid her fingers into the locks of his raven hair, holding him to her as tightly as he held her to him.
“Oh, Bridget,” Adrian whispered when he pulled her into his arms again. He kissed her lips tenderly this time, as if showing her how the night was going to unfold. “My sweet, sweet, Bridget,” he rasped, tracing his kisses down her throat as his hands began to untie the strings of her gown.
Goosebumps erupted down the flesh of her back as he slowly worked at ridding her of her gown. She wanted him to feel her desire for him, too, so she reached for his black cravat with trembling fingers.
Adrian’s fingers left the stays of her dress to capture her hands.
“Patience, love,” he whispered, kissing her fingers as his gaze burned into her own. “Tonight we tread softly. Slowly.”
He lowered her hands, then trailed his fingertips up her arms until they once more met her stays.
“Turn around,” he whispered, and without thought, she obeyed.
Adrian slipped the loosened fabric from her shoulders, his lips leaving a trail of fire over every expanse of flesh he freed.
“So beautiful,” he breathed once her yellow silk gown puddled at her feet. “My wife.”
Bridget’s nerves began to dance as he worked on the strings of her corset next. He pulled them loose in a painstakingly slow fashion until they dropped to the ground to join her dress.
“These marks on your back,” Adrian murmured, tracing his fingertips over the expanse of flesh that tingled whenever she removed the strict constraints of the corset. “Do you get them every day?”
Bridget turned her head to glance back at him, suddenly feeling shy about them.
“Every day since I have been told to wear a corset,” she answered.
“Monstrous,” Adrian murmured.
Shame coursed through Bridget’s veins as she hugged her breasts and tried to turn.
“I am sorry you do not like it, but—”
“No, Bridget, that is not what I mean,” Adrian insisted, stopping her.
He drew her back to his chest and wrapped an arm around her shoulders, pinning her close to him.
He grazed a kiss over the shell of her ear.
“What I meant is that it is monstrous that you must feel such discomfort every day. I find it sinful to mar such perfect flesh.”
He pressed a soft kiss to her neck, to the crook of her shoulder. His kisses soothed Bridget’s tension, sending her worrying thoughts far away. Adrian lowered his arm, gently urging her shielding arms back down to her side.
“Perfect,” he whispered reverently, stepping back so his lips could reach the nape of her neck. “So utterly perfect.”
Bridget whimpered as his kisses trailed down her spine, over the marks that her corset left across the small expanse of her back.
She became faintly aware that Adrian had lowered himself to his knees with every kiss.
Then his teeth sank sweetly into the supple flesh of her left buttock, and she let out a weak cry of surprise.
“Steady,” he murmured, reached for her hips, and turned her.
Bridget’s eyes met Adrian’s as he then lifted up her left foot, slipping her slipper from her foot, then did so with the right.
He then stroked his hands up her legs, tracing delicately over her knees until he reached the hem of her left stocking.
He gathered the delicate fabric with his fingertips, then slowly pulled it down, pressing kisses to her inner thigh as she lifted her heel and let him drag it away.
The right stocking came next, and when Adrian finished, he sat back on his ankles and looked slowly up at Bridget from bare feet to head.
Bridget swallowed as her shallow breaths grew shaky.
She had been naked in front of him before, but this felt different.
Before her clothes had been removed in a flurry of need, her body had been quickly covered with caresses and kisses.
Now, though, Adrian just stared, the blacks of his dilated pupils so large that the blue she loved so much was now barely present. He looked at her as if he were starved and thirsting. As if she were the only thing that could sate him.
“Look at you, my beauty,” he whispered, his deep, rasping voice full of awe as he stared so deeply into her eyes.
Satisfaction glimmered in Adrian’s eyes, and he rose from his knees with a deliciously wicked smirk.
“Tell me more about what you want,” he commanded, his hands moving to his cravat.
Her eyes fell to the movement, hunger slaking her insides.
“I like the way you taste,” she confessed, feeling bolder with each word.
Adrian held out his cravat and dropped it to the floor, then began to unbutton his waistcoat.
“I like the way your hardness feels in my mouth. The way it jerks and bobs when I press my tongue to the vein underneath,” she breathed.
Adrian’s hands stilled on the last button of his waistcoat. His lips dropped open slightly, as if he struggled to breathe.
“Hell,” he choked out. “I swear I felt you do so when you said that.”
He closed his eyes for a moment, as if struggling with his need, then pulled his waistcoat away. Bridget’s eyes dropped to his waist, and satisfaction roiled through her veins when she found the tented evidence of his pleasure.
“I like to hear your moans as I give you pleasure,” Bridget pressed on, feeling her body grow hotter by the second. “I want to know that I—and I alone—can make you make those sounds.”
Such a moan escaped from Adrian’s chest as he pulled off his shirt, revealing those taut muscles she loved to feel against her so much.
Her eye roamed freely over his biceps and forearms, over the rigid planes of his pectorals and abdominal muscles.
Her mouth watered as she thought of gliding the tip of her tongue over every single one of them.
Adrian’s hand moved to his trousers, his fingers ready to flick the buttons free at her next confession.
A sudden bout of impatience moved through Bridget at his pause, realizing she was teasing herself just as much as he was teasing her.
Already between her thighs, she felt the warm wetness of her need, trickling in tiny droplets down to her inner knee.
“I want… I want…” Bridget panted, growing distracted by her desire. Her hand moved of its own accord to her sex, her fingers brushing softly over the throbbing, taut bud between her legs, and she whimpered.
“Don’t you dare,” Adrian warned, a predatory look suddenly gleaming in his eyes as he tilted his head and focused on her sex. “That is mine.”
Bridget moaned at his possessiveness and obediently moved her hand away.
“Say it, Bridget,” Adrian groaned. “Say what you want, and it is yours.”
Her breath came out in a rush as she felt her entire body begin to tremble with pent-up need.
“I want you,” she confessed, breaking the unspoken rule and stepping toward him. “I want you inside me. I want you to make me yours.”
A tortured sound rumbled from Adrian’s chest, and in the next few seconds, several things happened at once.
He loosened his breeches, pulled them and his briefs down, and kicked them away.
Bridget’s eyes were barely able to settle on his deliciously naked form before he was lifting her up in his arms and smashing his mouth down on hers.
A hungry moan poured from Bridget’s throat as she wrapped her arms around his neck, not noticing that Adrian was carrying her to the bed. It was only when she felt it bounce off the mattress beneath her that she realized they had even moved at all.
Adrian’s hands stroked and groped needily over her bare flesh as they kissed, and Bridget discovered that her touch as well was no longer shy.
She dragged her nails down the muscles of his back, loving the way it made him groan into her mouth.
She wrapped her legs around his waist, loving the way the tip of his throbbing manhood tapped against her slick entrance.
Bridget bucked her hips, signaling to Adrian that she was ready—but instead of sinking himself inside of her, Adrian pinned her hips with his hands, drew back from their kiss, and stopped.