Page 43 of A Scottish Bride for the Duke (Scottish Duchesses #1)

Chapter Thirty-Two

“ C ome,” he said, taking her hand and leading her through to the dressing room, where maids were still filling the large bath with hot water.

Adrian wanted nothing more than to make love to his life, but there were other things more pressing than that to take care of. For starters, they were both covered in the grime of the day and the remnant of everything that had happened at the docks.

Before anything could happen, he would wash it all away.

A fire blazed. Ignoring the comings and goings, Adrian turned Isobel around and began unlacing her dress.

Slowly, gently, he eased it down her shoulders. As it pooled around her feet, she stepped free, and Adrian tossed it at a nearby maid.

“Have it burned.”

She bobbed a curtsy. “Yes, Your Grace.”

“Ye didn’t need to do that,” Isobel said. “If they laundered it, they could probably get the bloodstains out, and it would be perfectly serviceable.”

“I could buy you a hundred such dresses and not even notice the dent in my finances,” he said, leaning down to kiss her softly even as he undid the laces of her stays.

Finally, the flurry of activity in the room died, and there was nothing but the glow of candlelight and the gentle steam from the bath.

“Do not insult me. That dress is a symbol of everything terrible that happened tonight, and I want it gone.”

She touched his face, so tenderly though he could almost see the pain in her face.

“Adrian,” she murmured. “I am all right.”

“No, you’re not. But you will be. Come.”

Stripping off his clothes, he led her to the bath.

First, he stepped in, then he guided her to follow him.

They sank into the water together, and he positioned her so she lay between his legs, her back against his chest, his arms around her.

Wordlessly, he took the soap and worked it into a lather between his hands.

Then he set himself to the task of washing her.

Almost for the duration, she remained silent.

His body reacted to having her here with him, between his legs, but he ignored it. Focused on washing her, including her hair.

When she was clean, she turned, taking the soap from his hands and doing the same to him. Her hands glided up and down his chest, stomach, arms, shoulders, back, legs. She washed him as diligently as he had washed her, her gaze fixed on her hands and the work she was doing.

The quiet intimacy of the moment caught him off-guard. He had apologized, told her how he felt, and she had forgiven.

This, now, felt like a culmination of that. Their words in actions.

When she had finished, she placed the sliver of soap to one side and looked at him.

“The water’s getting cool,” she said.

In answer, he rose, water streaming from him, and pulled a towel hanging over the screen. She rose, too, letting him wrap her up and dry her. The silence only, somehow, seemed to add to the intimacy. They each knew what the other wanted and needed before it was said.

Finally, clean from the terrible events of the day, they walked naked back into the bedchamber. He guided her to the bed and lay down beside her. And finally, he kissed her.

He kissed her with every word he had said, and all those he hadn’t—kissed her as though he had drowned in that tub and she was his last sip of air. He didn’t know quite how he could love her this much, but he knew for certain that he did, and he would never, ever take it for granted.

She loved him, too. Even after everything, he hadn’t ruined it.

He ran his hands along her stomach, the curve of her hips, the softness of her inner thighs. She lay there still but for her ragged breathing, letting him touch her in all the ways he had been dreaming of for days.

Had it only been days since he’d sent her away? It felt as though it had been months, years. As though he had been dreaming of her—pining over her—for half his life. And only now, with her in his bed, her legs falling open for him, did he feel as though he was whole again. Home again.

He pressed a kiss to her cheek, then her jaw. Her neck and collarbones, then finally the swell of her breast. She shifted impatiently under him, but he had never been less inclined to rush.

He would savor this moment. No longer would he take anything for granted. If all he had was this moment before something came to split them apart again, he would make the most of every second.

“Adrian,” she whined as he caressed her inner thighs and pressed a kiss to the center of her sternum. “Please.”

“Please what, wife?”

“Touch me.”

“Ah, but I am already touching you.”

“Ye know what I mean.”

“Mm. I think you should tell me.” He dragged his teeth lightly against the stiff bud of her nipple, and her breath caught. “In detail.”

“Adrian—”

“I have been without you for over a week, and I won’t stand for it any longer.”

She threaded her fingers in his hair and widened her legs still further, letting him see the slick flesh that waited under her soft curls. He had intended to tease her further, but he was just a man, and this was a temptation too far.

“Use yer tongue,” she gasped.

“My tongue?” He licked across her other nipple. “I am doing so already.”

“Ye know what I mean.”

“You keep saying that.” He let his finger brush through the damp hair at the apex of her legs, and she shuddered.

“If you don’t tell me what you want in explicit detail, Isobel, I am going to do precisely what I want. Which involves you begging. Which involves denying you until you are a soaked mess underneath me, desperate for the feel of me inside you.”

He hovered over her face, meeting her gaze so she knew he was utterly serious. If there was one thing he had no intention of joking about, it was the matter of their pleasure. “I’ve been denying us both long enough.”

“Not all that long,” she muttered, but the flush in her cheeks belied her words. She wanted him as much as he wanted her.

Desire. He had never concerned himself with how much his lovers wanted him—they had wanted him enough , and he had never been especially wild for them, either.

It was merely an itch to be scratched. But with Isobel, his desire felt like madness.

As though he would lose himself entirely if he couldn’t have her.

“So?” he prompted. “What do you want?”

And his Isobel, his beautiful wife, raised her chin. “I want yer head between my legs,” she told him, bold as the new day, and far more stunning. “And I want ye to lick me until I shatter.”

“Good girl.” He pressed a kiss to her lips then moved to obey her commands.

There would be other times when he would tie her to the bedposts and have his way with her, but this was not one of those times.

Today, he would sacrifice everything for her pleasure, and he would let her choose the way in which it happened—so long as she told him what she wanted.

The first taste of her was heaven. He found the nub of her pleasure and suckled, wrapping a hand around her waist to hold her down.

He loved the way she wiggled underneath him. Adored her tiny gasping moans. She was so slick that she left her nectar across his face, but he didn’t stop. He wanted to ravage her so successfully, she lost her voice, lost her mind, succumbed to the same madness that had him in its grasp.

Her breaths grew heavier and deeper, her body tensing as she approached her climax.

He inserted a finger inside her, preparing the way for himself for later. She tightened around him, her inner walls fluttering, and it would take her very little to sink over the edge.

His hips moved almost against his own will, pressing against the bed and seeking friction.

Although he’d had the pleasure of his hand in the time they’d been apart, it had felt almost like a betrayal of their vows, and he was so highly strung that he thought he might spill before he ever made his way inside her.

Her head flung back and her back arched, and he flicked his tongue one last time as she shattered.

Waves and waves of pleasure that he felt moving through her body almost as though they moved through his own.

Though his own pleasure spiked, and he was alarmingly concerned he might find his own release too quickly, he kept working her through it, until she finally went limp, wrung out.

He climbed back up her body, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand, and kissed her gently. She looked at him with luminous eyes, and if he had ever doubted the strength of her feelings for him, he could not have done then.

All her love shone from her face like the moon and stars, and it made his chest tighten in an entirely different way.

“I love you.” He kissed her cheek. “I love you.” Her nose. “I love you.” Her chin.

She giggled and looped an arm around his neck. “I’m yers,” she whispered, and those words cut through the last of his restraint.

“I must have you,” he said, oddly desperate. “Will you let me?”

In answer, she held out her arms to him, and he settled himself between her hips. Looking into her face, he held it in his hands as he thrust inside her.

Isobel didn’t know precisely what it was she had done that had made Adrian turn from a man hazy with love to a man consumed, but she couldn’t say she minded. He pounded into her with the sharp edge of desperation, as though he could not have her fast enough.

But even as his body betrayed him, belying his urgency, his lips were soft as they pressed against hers, and between ragged breaths, he assured her again and again that he loved her, that he adored her, that he was hers just as she was his, and that he would do anything to protect her and the life they shared together.

She felt another release barrel into her, and hooked her heels up against his thighs, encouraging him to make love to her faster, harder, to bring her to her peak before he inevitably reached his own.

They’d made love enough times that she knew the signs he was getting close—sweat beaded his brow, and his eyes lost focus.

“Not yet,” she urged him.