Page 59 of Wedded to the Beastly Duke
Yes, it was so right. She could hardly breathe, the tension in her coiling tighter and tighter. As she reached her peak, her movements grew clumsy, and he held her against him as she finally fell apart.
He groaned, pressing against her with a series of short, jerky thrusts, and when she looked at him, his eyes were dark and hazy, his jaw slack with pleasure. There was no attempt to turn away from her—he just watched her with a lazy satisfaction that she felt in all her limbs. Heaviness, as though the only thing that she could possibly do now was curl up against him and give way to slumber.
In case he was contemplating turning her away, she wrapped her arms around his neck so they were aligned, chest to chest. After a second, he released her hair and wrapped his arms firmly and tightly around her waist.
This was not like the first time they had come together; there had been nothing but tenderness. A sense that this had been about more than the purely physical.
She didn’t just crave what he could do to her, or how he could make her feel, but she wanted him to hold her just the way he was doing now, his breathing slowing as he pressed his cheek to her hair.
“It’s late,” he said in a low voice. “Will you stay with me tonight, Emmeline?”
“Of course.”
She leaned back to see his face and ascertain by his expression what he meant by that, but there was a look there she couldn’t interpret. Sadness, perhaps. A vulnerability that tugged at her soul.
Reaching forward, she touched his cheek, tracing the line of his jaw. “You don’t even have to ask.”
ChapterSeventeen
At her permission, Adam rose and in one simple movement carried her around the bed. She laughed, wrapping her arms more tightly about his neck, but he shifted her on his hip like she weighed nothing. Carefully, he lowered her onto the sheets and climbed in beside her. Then he pulled her back to his chest. Emmeline wrapped an arm around him, feeling the way his heartbeat slowed.
“When was the last time you spent the night with a lady?” she asked, tracing her fingers across the soft smattering of hair that ran down to his navel.
“A lady?” He snorted. “Never.”
“I’m the first?”
“You are. Is that a surprise?”
“I don’t know,” she said contemplatively, resting her head on his shoulder and feeling the way he rested his cheek on her hair. They were stretched out together, no parts of their bodies separate, as though they were no longer two but one. “I suppose I thought you were not… a stranger to intimacy.”
“That depends on your definition. I’m a stranger to this.”
“Tenderness?”
She felt his smile against her hair. “Is that what you would call it?”
“Well, how would you describe it?”
“Tenderness will do,” he said after a slight pause.
She twisted so she could look at him. “Tell me what happened tonight that made you frustrated?”
His sigh felt as though it came from the deepest part of his soul. She felt it ripple through him. “That’s a long story.”
“I told you before, I’m your wife. There is nothing you have to hide from me.”
“Menace,” he said wryly, tugging at her hair in a way that made warmth bloom through her. “Very well. It concerns your Rickard Hansen, so I hope you’re prepared.”
She half smiled, though there was a nervous weight in the pit of her stomach. “He is notmyRickard Hansen.”
“No, perhaps not.” He sighed again. “The fact is, I have no idea what to do with him.”
Emmeline twisted so she could get a better look at his face. Instead of that odd distance, there was nothing more than tired resignation on his face. A sense that he was attempting to come to terms with something she could not yet comprehend, but that weighed heavily on him, even after their mutual bliss.
She touched his face. This tenderness—yes, that truly was the term for it—and intimacy were still new to her. “Did you argue with him?”
“Perhaps that is the word.” His smile was rueful, and she traced it with her fingertips. His skin was so different in texture from her own, and she could not help but marvel at it. “Initially, I confronted him because I knew there was something he was not telling me, but once I finally compelled him to tell me the truth, it was not what I had feared.” He glanced at her, his eyebrows knitting together. “I thought he was here because he wanted you, but he was here for an entirely different reason. If he is to be believed—and regretfully I think he is—then we are brothers. Half-brothers to be exact.”
