Page 39 of A Bride for the Devilish Duke (Marriage by Midnight #2)

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

E mma looked down at her wounded husband. He lay on a bed in his Curzon Street house, eyes closed and face pale. His broken leg had been splinted by Elsie and his ribs were bound tightly to prevent them from moving. An untouched bottle of poppy juice rested on the bedside table. Emma wore a dressing gown and was naked beneath, having spent the last hour soaking the soot and ash from her body. She had seen Elsie to her bed, sitting with her until the other woman fell asleep.

Now, she stood before her husband.

Our mutual foolishness almost cost us both our lives: your foolish pursuit of revenge and my foolish pursuit of you. Is this love I still feel for you also foolish? Perhaps, but I cannot give it up. God help me.

Damien's eyes fluttered open, and she smiled, lifting a leg to kneel on the bed beside him.

“You should drink the poppy juice. It will help the pain. Elsie said it will be considerable for a while until your fracture heals. You are lucky your leg did not snap clean in two. Imagine leaping from that height!”

Damien grimaced from pain. “If I had not, you would have burned. And Elsie. And it would be my fault. I should have taken you into my confidence, but I was afraid you would talk me out of it...”

“Had I thought you intended murder and arson, I would have bound you hand and foot!” Emma snapped.

“I never intended arson. I am sorry though, I still broke my word. At first, I thought I could not take away my brother's hope. I have watched him fade away over the years, but since he met Elsie, he has come alive again. I could not deny him this. Then, I realized that letting our vengeance consume him would turn him into that shell once more, so I planned to lie to him until his mind healed.

“But Silas … there was nothing left to do. If you had not come when you did, I don’t know what would have become of that man. What would have become of me…”

Emma frowned sorrowfully at the man who had almost destroyed himself in pursuit of a misguided justice in her name, as he looked away in guilt.

I had thought he had broken his promise, returned to his vengeful ways of destroying his father’s legacy. But all this time, it was for me?

It was a strange feeling, albeit not a novel one where Damien was concerned. Still, the very notion there was somebody out there now to protect her sent a frisson of something through Emma she dared not name.

“Please, don’t ever, ever do such a thing again. Not at my expense.”

She put a hand to his chest, forgetting about the ribs. Damien groaned, and she snatched her hand back. He took it and gently replaced it where it had been.

“Your touch is worth a little pain,” he muttered lowly.

“ Foolish man ,” Emma whispered, choked with fear at how close she had come to losing him.

She settled beside him with slow, deliberate care, her dressing gown slipping from her shoulders as she leaned in. She undid the cord with a lazy flick of her fingers. The silk parted like water. Beneath it, she wore nothing at all.

She pressed her bare skin to his, careful not to jostle the broken ribs, though the heat of him beneath her stirred a want she had not expected tonight. Not so soon. Not with his pain still lingering and the scent of smoke not yet faded from her hair.

But he turned his head toward her, his gaze desperate, aching.

Suddenly, all she wanted was to lie with him, skin to naked skin.

Lovemaking was not required. Merely closeness .

Damien’s hand drifted across her abdomen, and then found the scar along her hips. His fingers traced its path as though it were a map leading him home. At its end, he laid his palm flat against her side.

“Can you forgive me?” he asked quietly.

“I already have,” Emma whispered, resting her forehead to his.

His lips brushed her collarbone, then lower, scattering feather-light kisses along the swell of her breasts. Her skin tingled with every soft press of his mouth, the sensation delicate but devastating.

“There are no more secrets,” Damien murmured. “I swear it.”

He paused.

“Except… there is one more. Just one .”

Her lips pressed into a thin line. “One more secret?”

Damien nodded slowly. “This one I have kept closest to my heart all this time. I have not allowed myself to know it, let alone you.”

Emma’s breath caught, her heart hiccupping beneath his hand. “And what is it?”

“That I love you.”

For a moment, she could not see. A hot film of tears veiled her eyes. Not from fear or pain—but from the quiet, life-altering certainty of hearing those words spoken at last.

She kissed him—firmly, wholly, and without restraint.

“And I love you,” she murmured into his mouth. “No more secrets?”

“None,” he promised. “It is over. All of it. Redmane will be sold, the legacy split with Harold. After that… we will have no choice but to begin again. A new adventure.”

Her arms slid around his neck, drawing him to her. His lips drew on her throat, making her gasp.

“Swear it,” she breathed, “on the life of our unborn child.”

Damien froze. He blinked, drawing back slightly as if he hadn’t heard her right.

“Our...?”

He moved too fast, bracing himself on the arm that had no strength to give. Pain surged through him and he fell back with a groan.

Emma laughed softly, her amusement threaded with tenderness. She straddled him in one graceful motion, tossing aside the robe entirely.

“How do you know?” he asked, stunned, breathless, and half in pain.

“A woman knows her own body,” she said smugly, running her fingers through the dark curls on his chest. Her nails scraped lightly over the muscle beneath, and he shuddered.

“Now, do you swear it?”

“I swear it,” Damien exclaimed fervently. “On my life. On yours. On ours .”

His good hand found her waist, guiding her gently down over him. Despite the splint, the bruises, the battle-worn ache of him—he hardened beneath her. She felt the shift of his hips, the catch of his breath, the unmistakable hunger.

“We shouldn’t,” she whispered. “You are broken in at least four places.”

“If we are careful,” he said, his grin crooked, “you can break me in a few more.”

She laughed—until he kissed her again, and then laughter gave way to sighs. He suckled at her breasts with open reverence, his hand mapping every inch of her body as though he meant to memorize.

There was no hesitation when his fingers passed over her scar. Only a whispered vow: “I love all of you. Every inch.”

Emma’s throat tightened, her heart stumbling in her chest—not from shame, but from the beautiful certainty in his voice. He meant it. Not merely as comfort, but as devotion.

She leaned in and kissed him deeply, then slowly, deliberately, shifted back. Her hands slid down his chest, tracing the ridges of muscle across his torso—hard-earned strength wrapped in silken skin. Even bruised and bandaged, he was a masterpiece of male form: all sculpted lines, dark hair, and heat. She skimmed lower, watching his breath catch as her fingers flirted with the top of his breeches.

“They are in the way,” she murmured against his mouth, and began to ease them down over his hips, mindful of his injuries, but with unmistakable purpose. He helped where he could, lifting slightly, groaning not from pain this time but need.

He was thick and hot and achingly hard, and even now—bruised and broken—he filled her with the same power that had always unmoored her. Her breath hitched as he slid deeper, inch by deliberate inch, until her hips met his and the stretch made her shudder.

Damien let out a strangled groan, his hand fisting in the bedsheets. “ Christ , Emma, you always undo me…”

She smiled against his temple. “Don’t you dare faint on me, Your Grace. I have only just started.”

His laugh was hoarse, ragged. She kissed his cheek, then his throat, and finally his lips—all while rolling her hips in a slow, testing rhythm. The fullness inside her had her gasping. She drifted lower still and kissed his chest, lavishing attention along the sculpted ridge between muscle and bone, drawing her tongue over the hollow just beneath his collarbone.

He made a sound then, a low, helpless noise that vibrated against her lips.

“I should be touching you,” he rasped. “Let me—”

His hand reached between them, seeking the place he knew would undo her, but she caught it midair and pressed it back to his chest.

“No,” she whispered with a devilish smile. “You are hurt, remember?”

She lifted her hips and slid down onto him again, slower this time, more deliberate, grinding just so. His breath stuttered.

“I think I shall handle things from here,” she whispered.

Damien’s eyes burned into hers, glazed with pleasure, a curse half-formed on his tongue. “You are an enchantress.”

“Only yours .”

Emma trailed her fingers down her own body, letting him see the hunger etched in every line of her. Her hand slipped between her thighs, finding the place he had meant to touch, and when her fingers brushed against that aching spot, she moaned aloud, her head falling back

The sight of him watching—eyes wide, jaw clenched, body taut beneath her—fueled something wild inside her.

She rode him with slow, sinuous movement, each stroke a promise, each shift of her hips a declaration. His one good hand gripped her thigh, fingers bruising, his control fraying as she tightened around him again and again.

He tried to rise, to kiss her, but she pushed him gently back against the pillows.

He obeyed. Barely. But his gaze never left her.

Emma moved harder, faster, chasing the edge with trembling thighs and clenched teeth. Every flex of her muscles, every desperate breath, drew them both closer. The room was thick with heat and scent and the sound of skin meeting skin.

Her fingers worked in frantic circles, hips grinding down to meet him in perfect rhythm, and when she came—sharp and sudden—she cried his name like a prayer.

He followed her with a gasp and a groan that ended in her name. His grip on her thigh tightened as he spilled into her. His body arched despite the pain, every broken inch of him alive beneath her.

They collapsed together. Her body sprawled across his chest as the weight of him inside her anchored her to the moment. To him.

Emma dragged her fingers lazily down the line of his ribs, then up again, feeling the uneven rise and fall beneath her palm.

Damien was the first to speak. “You, my lady, have bewitched me.”

“I have.” She nuzzled his throat, smug and sated. “And you so adore it.”

“God help me, I do.”

She smiled, pressing a kiss over his heart, then another to the scar just beneath it.

A new beginning. One marked not by revenge or ruin, but by sweat, laughter, and the quiet, perfect rhythm of two hearts finally at peace.