Chapter Twenty #2
“Nor am I tired of hearing it.” She slipped her hand into his. “Though I confess I may be growing tired of company.”
His eyes darkened. “Are you?”
“Our families are happy. Our guests are fed. And I should like a little time with my husband.”
Worthington, who had plainly heard enough, smiled into his glass.
William’s hand tightened over hers.
“Then I believe we may be excused.”
“By all means,” Worthington said. “I shall invent a suitably respectable reason for your disappearance.”
William shot him a grateful look, then turned back to Eliza.
“Come, Duchess.”
And he led her from the room without a backward glance.
***
The master suite had been prepared for them.
Fresh flowers on every surface. Candles casting warm golden light across the room. The massive four-poster bed draped in silk and piled with pillows.
Someone, the housekeeper, presumably, had thought of everything.
Including, Eliza noticed with a flutter of nervousness, the sheer nightgown laid out on the dressing table.
“I’ve imagined this,” William said quietly, closing the door behind them. “Having you here. In my home. In my bed. As my wife.”
“Our home now.” She turned to face him. “Our bed.”
“Our bed.” His smile was slow, devastating. “I like the sound of that.”
He crossed to her, moving with the predatory grace she had come to know so well. But there was something different in his approach tonight. Something reverent beneath the hunger.
“I have had you before,” he said, his hands coming to rest on her waist. “But tonight is different.”
“How so?”
“Tonight, you are my wife.” He began working at the buttons of her gown, his fingers careful despite their obvious eagerness. “Tonight, when I take you, it will not be stolen pleasure. It will be my right. My privilege. The beginning of a lifetime of having you exactly where you belong.”
“And where is that?”
“In my arms.” He pushed the gown from her shoulders, letting it pool at her feet. “In my bed. In my heart.” He pressed a kiss to her bare shoulder. “You have been in the last one for longer than I wanted to admit.”
She stood before him in her chemise, feeling exposed and cherished all at once.
“I was so angry at you,” she whispered. “When you pushed me away. I thought I might never stop being angry.”
“You had every right.”
“I know.” She reached for him, her fingers working at his cravat. “But the anger burned out eventually. And what was left underneath…” She pulled the cloth free and started on his waistcoat. “What was left was love. Stubborn, inconvenient, impossible to ignore.”
“I felt the same.” He shrugged out of his waistcoat and pulled his shirt over his head, baring his chest to her gaze.
“The whole time I was trying to convince myself I had done the right thing; there was this voice in my head telling me I was a fool. That I had thrown away the only thing that mattered.”
“You did throw it away.” She pressed her palm flat against his chest, feeling his heart pound beneath her hand. “But I picked it up again. Because apparently, I’m not very good at giving up on things I want.”
“Thank goodness for that.” He kissed her, deep and hungry and full of promise. “Thank goodness you didn’t give up on me.”
“I tried.” She smiled against his mouth. “You made it very difficult.”
“I will spend the rest of my life making up for it.”
“See that you do.”
He lifted her easily, carrying her to the bed and laying her down among the silk and pillows. She watched him remove the rest of his clothing, her breath catching at the familiar sight of him, all lean muscle and tanned skin and undeniable desire.
“My husband,” she breathed, the word a trembling hush against the charged air. “My duke.”
His eyes darkened at the sound of it. “My wife,” he echoed, voice low and rough with want. “My duchess. My heart.”
He bent to kiss her, and this time there was nothing gentle about it. His mouth claimed hers, hungry, commanding, until she was gasping, clinging to the firmness of his shoulders.
His hands moved with a deliberate slowness, undoing the fastenings of her gown one by one, as though unwrapping something too precious to rush. “Look at you,” he murmured as the fabric slipped from her shoulders. “Do you have any notion how long I have waited to see you like this?”
Each inch of bare skin he uncovered was met with his mouth: her shoulder, the curve of her breast, the dip of her waist. His lips dragged hot trails along her skin, his breath stirring shivers in their wake.
“I dreamed of this,” he said hoarsely against her throat. “Every damn night we were apart, I imagined stripping you bare, slowly, thoroughly, until there was nothing between us. No silk. No secrets. Just you, trembling beneath me. Mine.”
He slid her chemise higher with teasing fingers, his knuckles grazing the inside of her thighs. “You are blushing everywhere,” he whispered, reverent and wicked. “Even here.”
Her breath hitched as his hand cupped her boldly, possessively.
She arched into his touch.
He groaned like a man unmade.
“I am here now.” His hand skimmed down her side. “I am not going anywhere.”
“Promise me.”
“I promise.”
He removed her chemise with careful hands, leaving her bare beneath his gaze. For a moment, he simply looked at her, drinking in the sight of her body, the body he knew so well and yet seemed to be seeing for the first time.
“Beautiful,” he breathed. “You are so incredibly beautiful.”
“William…”
“Let me worship you.” He lowered his head to her breast, taking her nipple into his mouth. “Let me show you what this means to me. What you mean to me.”
She lost herself in sensation.
His mouth moved over her body with devastating patience, learning her anew despite knowing her already.
He kissed the hollow of her throat, the curve of her ribs, the soft skin of her inner thigh.
He touched her like she was precious, like she was sacred, like every response he drew from her was a gift he didn’t deserve.
And when his mouth finally found her centre, she cried out his name as though it were the only word she knew.
“That’s it,” he murmured against her flesh. “Let me hear you. There’s no one to hide from now. No stolen moments. No fear of discovery. You can be as loud as you want.”
She was loud.
She couldn’t help it, not with his tongue working against her, not with his fingers inside her, not with the devastating rhythm he had learned during those weeks of their arrangement.
He knew exactly how to touch her, exactly how to build the pleasure until it crested and broke and left her shaking in its wake.
“William…” She tugged at his hair, pulling him up to face her. “I need you. Please.”
“Not yet.” He kissed her, letting her taste herself on his lips. “I want you desperate. I want you so ready for me that you can’t think of anything else.”
“I’m already there.”
“Not quite.” He slid down her body again, and she groaned in frustration and pleasure. “But you will be.”
He brought her to the edge twice more before he finally relented.
By the time he positioned himself between her thighs, she was trembling with need, her body aching, her mind blank, every nerve ending screaming for completion.
“Look at me,” he commanded softly. “I want to see your eyes when I take you.”
She opened her eyes, meeting his grey gaze.
“I love you,” he said. “I’ve loved you since the moment you told me about your ferns. I’ve loved you through every mistake I made, every lie I told, every moment of cowardice that kept us apart. And I will love you until the day I die. Probably longer.”
“I love you too.” Tears pricked at her eyes. “Now please…”
He pushed inside her.
The sensation was familiar and new all at once. They had done this before, during those stolen afternoons. But that had been an arrangement, passionate but provisional, always shadowed by uncertainty.
This was different. This was permanent. This was the beginning of the rest of their lives.
He moved slowly at first, giving her time to adjust, watching her face for any sign of discomfort. But there was no discomfort, only pleasure, building with each thrust, coiling tighter and tighter in her core.
“More,” she gasped. “William, please.”
He gave her more.
His pace increased, his control fraying, his body moving with hers in a rhythm as old as time. She wrapped her legs around his waist, pulling him deeper, and felt the pleasure begin to crest.
“Together,” he groaned. “Eliza, let go.”
She let go.
The climax crashed over her like a wave, wiping out thought, obliterating everything except the sensation of him inside her, around her, everywhere. She heard herself cry out, felt her body convulse, and then felt him follow, his own release pulsing inside her as he groaned her name.
For a long moment, they simply lay there, tangled together, breathing hard.
Then William rolled to the side, pulling her with him, tucking her against his chest with her head resting over his heart.
“My wife,” he said again, his voice rough with satisfaction. “I don’t think I’ll ever tire of saying that.”
“Good.” She pressed a kiss to his chest. “Because you’ll be saying it for a very long time.”
“Forever, if I have anything to say about it.”
She smiled against his skin. “Forever sounds exactly right.”
Outside, the wedding celebrations were beginning to fade. Voices drifted through the open window, followed by the distant rumble of departing carriages as guests made their farewells.
Inside, there was only the steady beat of William’s heart beneath her cheek and the warmth of his arms around her.
At last, neither of them had anything left to fear.
They were home.