Chapter Eleven #3
“Yet it will be worth it in the end.” He grunted as emotion lodged in his throat.
“We will find ways to spend time together.” Though he wanted nothing more than to spend the next few days closeted away with this woman, showing her all the ways a man could join with a woman, the fact he was nearly gone wasn’t lost on him.
After all, he had long dreamed of this very moment, when she would finally be free to choose him, and he’d been well primed for it.
As he stroked into Angelica’s beautiful, tight body all of that wondering, the years of enduring the duke and knowing what he’d done to her faded away, for in her arms a new future was being knitted together.
“I don’t think I can last…”
“I know.” It wasn’t long before he was completely lost in her.
Over and over, he pumped until he found a rhythm and she matched it.
They moved together in that dance as old as time like they’d been doing it for years.
One of her hands curled around his upper arm while she raked the fingers of the other up and down his back.
Each consecutive thrust was more powerful than the last, for he couldn’t have enough.
Her honeyed heat welcomed him back as joyously as if he’d been away at war instead of gone two days.
With a grunt, he continued to claim her, oblivious to everything around him.
She had become his world in every sense of the word.
Always would be.
“Caleb?”
“Yes?” His eyes were half-shuttered, but hers were open and watching him, the irises darkened to cool green. The sting of her nails at his back stimulated his actions.
“Give me more. Let me feel you everywhere inside me.” A waver of uncertainty had entered her voice. She squeezed his arm. “Show me what we have together wasn’t merely an affair.”
Well, damn.
“It’s not. Of that I am quite certain.” Desperately, he wanted to reassure. While her challenge motivated him to give her all of him, the whole of his heart went into his keeping. “I love you so damned much, Angelica.”
Harder and faster, he claimed her as his. Deeper and deeper his strokes came while stars burst behind his closed eyes. He worshipped her with his body, giving her everything she’d asked for, tried to show her that he was nothing like the duke, that he would forever take care of her.
She’d sent his life tip over tail in a handful of days even though he’d loved her for years.
And now they would be together in every way that mattered.
It was all too much too fast, and his body had been primed for too long.
Hot sensation rushed through his shaft, tingled in his stones as they drew tight to his body.
“I’m done for.” Sweat trickled down his spine and dampened his forehead.
Still, he worked her over, thrust again and again and again, for he didn’t want this joining to end.
The coupling came to a rapid, shattering, spectacular ending.
Angelica’s body stiffened. Her moans intensified, and as she slipped a hand between them to play with the button he’d tormented earlier with his mouth, he lost the remainder of his control.
Never had he seen anything as erotic as a woman who knew exactly what she wanted, even during intercourse, and the thought of her finding pleasure by her own hand over the years nearly separated him from reality.
Caleb’s release crashed over him before he was ready, and he didn’t merely fall over the edge into bliss.
More to the point, he was hurtled, thrown, violently pitched into a whirling vortex of need and want and pleasure as sparkling colors swirled around him, everything fighting to steal his breath and sap his strength and bind him further to this woman.
My angel.
A scream of repletion came from her, ringing in his ears, telling him in no uncertain terms that he’d done his job well. She clutched at him in a bid to hold him close; her body shaking and her feminine walls convulsing around his pulsing shaft. “Caleb!”
But he was too far gone to say anything in response.
In a misguided effort to prolong the session, he ground his pelvis into hers, but there was nothing left for him to give.
She’d taken it all, and he would gladly give it over to her again should she crook just one of her fingers in suggestion.
Eventually, his strength gave out, and he collapsed on top of her, his breathing as ragged as hers.
“That was incredible,” he whispered as he tucked his arms around her.
“It was.” Those two words were breathless and propelled by exhaustion. She kissed his shoulder, his temple, his cheek, his lips before pressing her own into the curve of his neck. “But then, it always is with you.”
“Ha.”
“I don’t think I can move just now.”
“Then don’t. Your life is your own, Angelica,” he said against the shell of her ear.
There was something far too intimate remaining pressed into her with tangled limbs, and he was loath to break the spell, for he’d won her, but at what cost?
Would he forever be haunted that he hadn’t saved the duke when he could have?
There were no answers.
For a long time, they remained like that, lost, sated, adrift on a sea of heated contentment and lethargy. Barely did he remember that he needed to ask her that all-important question.
“Angelica?”
“Hmm?” She raised her head, looked at him through an exhausted expression with mussed golden hair. Never had she been more beautiful.
“I thought I’d loved you for years. But it wasn’t until I was able to spend this precious time with you that I knew that was only infatuation.
What I feel for you now is love, truly, madly, deeply, completely love.
” He nearly drowned in the green pools of her eyes.
“You are an angel—my angel—and I would be honored if you would consent to become my wife. Let me take care of you, protect you, fight for you for the rest of my life. Let me make the remainder of your years the best ones.”
Tears welled in her eyes. “Oh, Caleb, that’s the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard.
” She laid a palm against the side of his face.
A few drops of moisture rolled down her cheeks.
“I never thought I’d escape the hell my life had become.
The only brightness I had was seeing you once a month when you met with the duke. ”
“And?” The anticipation and worry would surely kill him.
“And there had been many nights when I cried myself to sleep, because I wished I was your wife instead, knew a life together with you would feel like heaven instead of hell.” She didn’t bother to stem her tears, and he adored her for that.
“But now? You are here, we are together, and you are truly asking for my hand.”
“I am, and darling, you haven’t answered my question.” Was he a heel for asking her this mere days after her despicable husband had died under curious circumstances?
“Because you have befuddled me, and I am besotted with you, so happy that I can hardly speak let alone think.” Leaning forward, she pressed trembling, wet lips to his.
“I love you, so very much. I never knew I had such a capacity for loving someone this much until I met you. All of that to say, yes, I will marry you, whenever we can do so without upsetting society. And perhaps merely because we wish to.” A water-logged giggle escaped her.
“Though, if you wish to avoid society altogether, I wouldn’t mind. ”
He kissed her forehead. “We can talk about that and navigate those waters together, but you are a dowager duchess, and you are the mother to the new Duke of Tittleford. I expect you can’t avoid it.”
“I suppose not.” The dear woman burrowed against his body and held him close. “It matters not. With you, I can see anything through. With you, I feel safe and wanted.” Her lips brushed his neck. “With you, my life can finally start, and I can’t wait for that moment.”
Neither could he. Only time would tell where they would go from here, but that bright light beckoned, and nothing could be as bad as what they’d had before.