Page 154 of How to Love a Duke in Ten Days

Moved beyond words, Alexandra drew her fingers through his beard and up the scar on his cheekbone before reaching to sift through the layers at his scalp. He leaned his head into her touch like a great cat receiving his due.

“I love you, too,” she finally managed.

His mouth tightened at the sides, compressing into a tight line. “Promise me, dammit.”

“I promise,” she said, welling with a devastating tenderness.

“No more secrets between us,” he amended, rising to perch on the bed next to her, threading his fingers through hers. “I want all of you, Alexandra. I want your pleasure and your pain. Your sins and your secrets. Your past and your passions, your opinions and your pretenses. I want to know everything. All of it. To be the only one with whom you share them. I’m a selfish bastard, wife, and I’ll thank you to indulge me. I want you without limitations and beyond suspicions.”

To her surprise, Alexandra found a similar desire withinherself. “No more secrets,” she agreed. “Though you’ll have to share me somewhat, with them.” She tilted her chin toward the door through which the Rogues had gone…

… and were likely listening on the other side.

He frowned, pretending to consider it. “If they are essential to your happiness, then they are to mine, as well.”

“Kiss me, husband,” she said.

He bent over her, careful not to press or jostle, laying his mouth against hers with a fervent sound vibrating in his throat.

A surge of love trilled through her, not unlike the pleasures from his magical hands. But softer, spilling across her heart with an exquisite glow, bathing her in warmth and wholeness.

When he pulled back, she witnessed the same glow in his eyes.

“You’re perfect,” he whispered. “My brilliant, beautiful wife.”

She laid her hand against his scars. “So are you.”

She knew each of them to be deeply flawed, wounded, and imperfect beings, but she understood what he meant. They were perfect for each other. Two restless souls that would never be still.

And would no longer have to wander alone.

EPILOGUE

It’d taken Piers exactly two years to get to this moment.

“Are you sure?” he asked one last time, remembering her blanch as the Polynesian midwife had instructed her to make love with him like this to hasten the birth of their child.

He might have known something like this would happen, but when Alexandra had suggested that she give birth halfway around the world with a midwife she’d met while excavating an ancient aquifer, he’d readily agreed.

Neither of them had wished to suffer the boredom and isolation of an English confinement during her pregnancy. And her lively stories of paradise, of a tribe where pregnant women were respected, revered, and pampered—not to mention scantily dressed—sounded like a most capital idea.

For months now, it had been paradise. They slept in a raised open-walled hut, made luxurious by fluttering curtains and plush rugs. The ocean lulled them to sleep every night and bade them awake every morning.

They feasted on exotic fruits and coconuts, fresh fish, pork, and hearty grains harvested or butchered that day. They swam in crystalline coves and played beneath waterfalls. And, as she became weighted down by the child in her belly, he rubbed her feet while she floated in salt water.

A few days a week, Piers would hunt with the men, learning their skills and teaching them a few of his own. The tribe often had visitors from many foreign places, and they welcomed each with broad, beautiful smiles and vigorous trade.

Paradise.

Regardless of where they were, every day with her was a utopia. And every night was heaven.

Though they’d always been blessedly compatible lovers, her pregnancy granted her an insistent and, at times, rather ferocious libido.

If he had his way, he’d keep her as pregnant as she wanted to be. They’d sire an entire litter of dark-haired, amber-eyed darlings. If only he could enjoy the rapacious glint of hunger in her eyes.

Alexandra was in bed, as in all things, a curious, enthusiastic lover who’d eventually become a master, her skill unparalleled by the most celebrated of courtesans. They’d bonded as husband and wife, and Piers had been able to push the boundaries of even the most salacious acts.

Except for this. Never this.