Page 64 of A Scottish Bride for the Duke
Something burned, low in her stomach, at the thought.
His gaze lingered on her, unreadable. “Good,” he said, eventually. “In that case, I expect you to join me for dinner in the future.” He tossed the rag aside and redressed. “But considering you may be sore, you may eat in my rooms today.”
“Yourrooms?” she demanded.
“Yes. You are my wife. You will share my bed.”
“Oh, is that what ye had planned for me when we first married, or what ye have just decided now upon having lain with me for the first time?”
He raised a cold brow. “Do you object?”
She almost saidyes. But the truth of the matter was that the prospect of sleeping in this bed alone, its sheets ruined with the loss of her virtue, made her oddly vulnerable.
As though reading the emotion on her face, Adrian reached for her, picking her up and carrying her into his bedchamber as though she weighed nothing.
“I will inform the maids to bring our meals up,” he said. “We will eat them together here.”
“Together?”
“I said we would dine together, did I not?”
He had, but she hadn’t expected him to join her in bed. In his bedchamber.
She glanced around, almost afraid of what she would find. But his bedchamber held nothing of particular interest or note—there was a bookshelf in one corner, surprisingly, holding several tomes.
A writing desk before the window, though the curtains were now closed. A fire slumbered in the hearth, heating the room to a comfortable, cozy temperature—as though he often spent time here without his clothes. An elegant screen stood against one wall, and another door led into his dressing room.
It was a masculine room, but not unpleasantly so. And if she was to share his space with him, then it was almost a relief to find she didn’t hate it.
He laid her down on the bed, then climbed under the covers beside her. She froze for a second, her body rigid, but soon warmed against the heat of his skin and the strength of his arms.
“After a bedding such as this,” he explained, holding her close, “it is common for a lady to require this.”
“An embrace?” Despite herself, she snuggled closer.
“Precisely.”
Shewasvery sleepy. And having Adrian hold her in this way, so solid and secure beside her, his breath flowering across her hair and his heart thudding under her cheek, was particularly nice.
No one had ever held her like this before. And after the roughness of the way he had taken her, it soothed something vital inside her.
“I didn’t think ye liked me that much,” she said, even as she lost her hold on consciousness.
“You seem to have peculiar ideas about what I like and don’t like,” he said.
His words followed her into sleep.
Chapter Eighteen
Isobel didn’t wake for dinner. In fact, she didn’t wake until dawn light spilled through the heavy curtains, and then she only woke because an obnoxiously heavy body was pushing her into the bed.
An arm fell over her waist, and his chest pressed against her back, almost flattening her.
Yet for all that, the sensation wasn’t altogether unpleasant.
She shifted, her bottom encountering something else that wasn’t strictly unpleasant. He muttered something into her hair, and his arm tightened around her.
She was his wife. He was her husband.
