Page 30 of A Scottish Bride for the Duke (Scottish Duchesses #1)

“You’d better not.” Feverish now, he kneeled on the floor and opened his flies, pulling out his erection and slotting it against her entrance. He rubbed himself back and forth across her folds, coating himself in her slickness.

“The sole reason for your pleasure, wife, is me.” he told her as her eyes fluttered shut. “You. Are. Mine.”

“And ye?” she said, voice thick like honey. “Will ye save yer pleasure for me?”

“I do.” He thrust inside her, holding her hips so she’d take all of him. She gasped, her eyes rolling back in her head. “You have all of it.”

“Mm. I like the sound of that.”

“Good. There are a lot of things I want you to like.”

“More,” she gasped.

“That’s one of them.” He pulled out and pushed back inside, increasing his tempo as her head fell back and her nails dug into his arm as he held her against himself.

Yes, this was good. Exactly what he had needed after seeing Moreton and hearing him speaking about her, even if he hadn’t said anything that Adrian could directly refute.

She was his. She would continue to be his no matter what scum of the earth also walked through London.

He didn’t want to tell her about Moreton, but he did want her to feel safe and secure with him.

If she wanted to attend another ball, then by God he would make that happen, and he would hardly have to play the part of a man consumed with need for his wife when that was precisely what he was.

“Adrian,” she whined.

“What do you want?”

She took his hand and placed it between her legs. At her request, he rubbed her there, finding the point of her pleasure and stroking her until her eyes lolled back in her head.

He watched as pleasure consumed her, until she shuddered and cried out—there was no longer any requirement to be quiet, and he relished in it.

Then, and only then, did he allow himself to find his own completion inside her.

When they had finished, he brought her back into his arms as they stared at the fire.

Her voice was heavy with sleep when she said, “I never knew married life could be like this.”

“No?” He pressed a kiss to her hair. “What did you think it would be like?”

“Far less pleasant.” She chuckled.

“Why? Are your parents unhappily married?”

“Oh no.” She gave a distant little smile and nuzzled a little closer, not seeming to notice she was doing it.

“They are exceedingly happy. But Papa fell in love with Mama before she ever did, ye ken, and he pursued her until she finally gave in and allowed him to court her. And in that time, she fell head over heels in love with him.” She sighed. “I thought that…”

“You wanted your own marriage to follow similar lines?”

Isobel traced the lines of his thumb as she considered the question.

“Aye,” she said eventually. “I did at first, anyway. Call me a hopeless romantic, but I wanted there to be something more than mutual benefit to my marriage. I gave up on any idea of that when I fled to London, of course. But I still wanted it, I suppose, even when I thought I would endure a life with my husband.”

“I can be crueler to you if you’d like,” he joked.

“Nay, thank ye. I prefer this. Perhaps it’s not a love match, but it’s comfortable all the same.”

Not a love match , he repeated to himself.

Of course, he knew it wasn’t—and he wasn’t so much of a fool as to fall in love with his wife.

That would be a weakness, and he couldn’t allow himself a weakness of that degree—especially when he already wanted her so badly.

But still, he found himself wondering how she felt.

And whether she would fall in love with him.

An uncomfortable thought. He didn’t deserve a wife who loved him if he didn’t love her. And Isobel was too precious to be pining after him. She deserved decidedly better.

“Adrian?” she asked sleepily.

“Hmm?”

“What were your parents like?”

“You’ve already met my mother.”

“Yes, but I never met your father. And I wondered what they were like together . Ye said a little about him, and I wondered…” She reached up to trace the lines of his face, which he could feel settling into the hard lines it always adopted when he thought of his father.

“Don’t shut me out,” she whispered. “I want to know all of ye.”

He released a long breath. Thinking about his father made his skin crawl, but he could do this much for her.

“My father was not a particularly nice man,” he said. “I have my feelings about that, and no doubt my mother has her feelings. We have not discussed the subject.”

Nor would he wish to. If he could, he would put those memories behind him.

“If you want to know the realities of their marriage, then you will have to ask her yourself.” He ran a hand down her back, reassuring her as far as he could. “But be warned, Isobel; theirs was not a happy marriage, and her story will not be a happy one.”

“He died,” Isobel said. “How did he die?”

Adrian shook his head, shutting out the memory with as much intensity as he could.

“That’s not a discussion for today.”

She seemed to know better than to push him, because she merely settled against him again.

“I hope we prove to be happier than your parents were together,” she said. “Even if we don’t fall in love, we should always try to be good to one another.”

Considering he would never be like his father—he would never —he thought that would be an easy promise to fulfill, but he made it, anyway.

“Very well,” he told her. “Regardless of the circumstances, I think we will always have a happier life together than my parents shared, and I will do my best to always be a good husband to you.”

“And I a good wife.” She released a long breath, relaxing in his arms, and he felt the moment she went to sleep.