Page 51 of The Reckless Love of an Heir (The Marlow Family Secrets #4)

Her legs lifted higher, gripping above his hips as he moved more firmly but kept the weight of his upper body away from her.

Her fingers slid into his hair. She was coming to her end, her gaze had clouded and she was warmer.

She shut her eyes as he pushed into her, striking her hard with each thrust.

‘Henry! Oh.’

Heat flooded about his intrusion as her inner muscles clasped in a spasm about his invasion.

A sound of utter relief and contentment clawed to escape his throat as his end came and his arms trembled as he fought to hold his weight while the sensation of his climax raced through his blood. The feeling was more intense with her. Perhaps that was because of love.

When it passed, he smiled.

She smiled too, her fingers brushing his hair off his brow.

‘I love you,’ he said it to be the one to say it first, because he had seen the words in her eyes, and he wanted her to know he would not say it to her only in reply.

He withdrew and rolled onto his back, holding up his arm so she would come to him. Her head settled on his chest and he wrapped his arm about her. He lay still, listening to the birdsong outside the window, announcing to the world that the sun was about to fall beyond the horizon.

It was dark in the bedchamber.

When Susan had fallen asleep the shutters had been open and the moon had just become visible, but now the shutters were closed, and she could neither feel nor hear Henry in the bed. She sat up, the sheet sliding across her skin.

There was a line of light about the edge of the door to Henry’s sitting room. Her nightdress still lay on the chair.

She got up, picked it up and slipped it on, then opened the door.

Henry was sitting in a high-backed armchair, clothed in the silk dressing gown he had worn the day she’d come up here in the spring.

One bare foot rested on a low table before him.

The table held a decanter, half full of an amber liquid, and he had a half-full glass of the same liquid in his hand, balanced on the arm of the chair he was slumped back in.

His free hand dangled down and stroked Samson’s ear.

He looked at her, but did not speak.

‘Are you drunk?’

‘Fairly.’ He smiled.

‘Why are you not in bed?’

‘Because there is little point. Why do you have your nightdress on? You are breaking our first rule.’

It was gaping open, though. She had not done up the long row of tiny buttons he had opened all the way down to her stomach. ‘You are covered too, and you cannot expect me to walk into a room naked when I do not know who else might be within it.’

‘I suppose.’ He looked at his glass, then took a sip from it. The pace of his movement declared him either extremely tired or very foxed.

‘What is wrong?’ She walked towards him. Samson rose and came to her, his tail waving back and forth.

‘Nothing for you to worry over.’

She petted Samson’s head. ‘Except you are my husband now and so whatever worries you is my concern too.’

He lifted a hand out to her. ‘That is very sweet of you, Susan.’

She held his hand and he pulled her close, encouraging her to sit on his knee as he straightened up and set both feet on the floor.

She sat sideways on Henry’s lap. ‘Tell me.’

He shook his head and looked at the dog. ‘Samson, lie down over there.’ He pointed at the hearth rug.

Samson did his bidding, as charmed into submission as Susan was.

Henry drank the rest of the liquid in the glass leaned around her and put the glass down on the table.

Then he pulled her mouth to his. There was a taste of brandy on his tongue.

His hand slipped inside her open nightdress and squeezed her breast as they kissed.

The sensations only he could engender twisted in her stomach.

She kissed him more ardently, her hands in his hair.

‘Sit astride me,’ he said.

Like that? She had never imagined it like that.

She stood up.

‘Dispose of this.’ His fingers pulled the fabric of her nightdress.

She smiled as she slipped it from her shoulders and let it drop to the floor.

‘Come on.’ He tapped the arms of the chair as he made room for her, moving his legs together .

She knelt astride his thighs entirely naked, her hair falling over her shoulders and brushing across her breasts and her back.

His hand stroked her hair away from her face.

‘You are beautiful, Susan.’ He would have pulled her mouth to his but she held back, looking down and pulling the knot tying his dressing gown loose.

Her fingers brushing his stomach. She moved the silk aside and let her hands roam across his midriff then his chest. Then they trailed down again and she touched the tip of his erection. His body jolted slightly.

She looked up and smiled, as her fingers wrapped around him and squeezed, in the way he had squeezed her breast.

A sound of amusement rumbled in his chest as the strength of his hold on her head insisted she bend down to kiss him. ‘I love you,’ he said against her lips, before he did kiss her. ‘You are a blessing, Susan.’

She positioned herself so she hovered over him, and held him so he would enter her when she lowered down.

‘Mm,’ he hummed against her mouth when she lowered, the vibration trembling against her lips.

His hands braced her waist when she pressed down, then slid down over her skin to her hips when she rose up.

She descended and rose up again, her tongue catching at the tip of his as she pulled her mouth away from him.

She kissed him as she lowered and ended it as she rose.

His hands caught hold of her head, trying to keep her mouth against his as she moved.

‘Susan,’ he said huskily when she pulled away, rising right up.

She descended again.

His hands fell onto her thighs, and slid up and down them in the pattern of her movement, and he looked down, staring at the juncture between her legs.

The way he looked at her made her feel as beautiful as he said she was .

Her hands lay on his chest, on his skin, as his hands returned to her hips, feeling her movement.

‘I love you,’ she said.

He smiled rather than said it back, but she could read it in his eyes.

She moved a little quicker, rising and falling, and his hands encouraged her to rock forward and back too.

The sensations their joining spun up inside her made her muscles weaken and tremble, so she could no longer move.

His hands clasped her hips, his fingertips sinking into her flesh as he lifted her and brought her down. This last movement caused her to entirely melt around him, sighing out her emotions, her limbs quivering.

‘Yes,’ Henry said.

Yes, her mind echoed. Yes. She loved him, and it might be selfish but it was wonderful.

He held her above him and pushed up into her for a few more strokes, as her fingers clung to his shoulders and her head pressed close to his.

When he growled in low sound of excitement, his release throbbed inside her and his hands released their grip.

She embraced his head, holding him to her shoulder as her fingers tangled up in his hair.

They stayed still, pressed against each other, her breasts brushing against his chest which was damp with sweat. He felt like hers now. As though she owned him. She smiled against his neck and then pressed a kiss onto his cheek.

He tapped her bottom. ‘Come along, get up. Let us return to bed.’

She climbed off him. He leaned across and blew out the candle.

She couldn’t see him when she heard him stand, and she couldn’t see him when he bent and picked her up, catching her beneath the knees and about her shoulders.

She squealed.

‘Hush. You will wake the boys; they sleep in the room above mine.’

He carried her across the room.

‘You can see better than me.’

‘Obviously. You wear spectacles.’

She poked her tongue out at him, a gesture he would not see in the dark.