Page 44 of Hot Duke Summer

One Month Later

C aroline lay in bed staring up at the ceiling. It wasn’t insomnia keeping her awake. It was gratitude. She had so many things in her life to be thankful for, things she had never imagined would be hers. A husband who adored her, a home of her own, a title—for heaven’s sake. Who would have ever thought such a thing was possible!

“Have I not exhausted you sufficiently, wife?” Antony murmured sleepily against her shoulder.

Caroline grinned. “I am quite wide awake. Happiness does that to me.”

His eyes opened, and he fixed his gaze on hers. “And are you happy, Caroline?”

She scooted down in the bed so that she was lying fully in the circle of his arms and they were nose to nose. “I never dreamed such happiness was possible. There is only one thing that might make it better.”

“Name it and you will have it. I still owe you a birthday present,” he said.

“I want my sketch back... so that I can complete it.”

He laughed. “The sketch is mine forever. My most treasured possession, as it was the first inkling I had that you held me in any regard at all. But I will pose for a new sketch. Naked as a newly born babe, if that’s your wish.”

“In art, it’s called nudity. Not nakedness. Nakedness implies hedonism.”

He turned them over then so that he was on his back and she was straddling the firm muscles of his thighs. “Then by all means, let us indulge our hedonistic impulses.”

Caroline leaned forward and kissed him. “You are my birthday present,” she whispered against his lips. “What more could I ever want than to be your wife?”

“To be the mother of my children?” His suggestion was accompanied by the sweep of his hand over the curve of her hip until he could reach the hem of her nightrail and tug it upward.

And for the remainder of that night, their wedding night, they indulged in the hedonistic delights that might well bring that wish to fruition.

The End