Page 113 of An Unwanted Widow for the Duke
He reached out, letting his fingers run through her silky hair. He looked at her as if she were the most beautiful woman in the world, and it made her breath catch.
“You—everything about you still undoes me.”
“Let it,” she whispered. “Don’t fight it.”
He bent to kiss her. It was a graze at first, almost imperceptible. Then, he nipped her lower lip and asked, “Shall we end our evening just as gloriously as it began?”
God, yes.
“Of course,” she breathed.“Everything will be glorious from now on.”
She moved her hand to her belly. Her bump was barely visible, but she could feel the life growing inside her.
“We’ve made a miracle. I-I never thought it would be possible. I’d given up on having children.”
Gerard closed his eyes, as if in pain. Wilhelmina knew that he was thinking of the moment he told her that he didn’t want another child after Hector.
For her, Hector had been enough, but there were moments during her first marriage when she did wonder if she could be content with not being a mother.
“I am so sorry, Mina, for the things I did. For the things I said.”
“Shhh. I am sorry, too. We can let go of the past now. We are looking at this. Only this. Only us. We have each other, Hector, and the baby. That’s what’s important.”
The words seemed to make something snap inside Gerard. He bent to her, lips grazing hers, teasing, testing. Then he claimed her fully, teeth and tongue chasing in a slow, searing kiss.
Her arms wrapped around his neck, pressing closer, pulling him as near as possible. She arched, heart racing, body humming with the closeness she had craved all day. She traced him with greedy hands, feeling the solid warmth of him, the living, breathing man who loved her fiercely, completely.
Gerard could not believe that he had deprived himself of happiness for so long. He continued kissing Wilhelmina. His wife. Hector’s mother. His baby’s mother.
The soft press of her breasts against his chest made him groan. He would always want her. He knew it.
It had never been like this with Pamela. The passion he felt for Wilhelmina was driven by duty. Her belly brushed against his torso, and the knowledge that their child was growing there ignited his arousal.
He broke the kiss to look at her flushed face. They were both panting, trying to catch their breath.
Each time he kissed her, it was as if the world narrowed to the two of them. Her lips yielded beneath his, soft but demanding, teasing yet insistent. He could feel the pull of her hands against his chest, the way she pressed closer, seeking him as much as he sought her.
Her scent, the faint perfume, the warmth of her skin, drove a hunger he had no intention of denying. Every brush of her mouth, every sigh caught between them, set a pulse racing through him. He noticed the tilt of her head, the way her dark lashes fluttered when she lingered too long in the kiss, and it made him ache to know her more, to draw her even nearer.
It wasn’t just passion, though the fire was undeniable. It was the quiet confidence she now had, the unspoken trust that allowed him to lose himself in her. He felt her heart beating under his hand, a steady rhythm that matched his own, and it rooted him in the moment, demanding he be present entirely, for her and for himself.
Every kiss became a conversation without words; it became a promise, a confession, a tether between them. He savored the way her lips parted, the subtle surrender in her movements, how she leaned into him rather than away.
Gerard realized, with a pang of astonishment, that he had never desired anyone like this. Not just for her body—though that was undeniable—but for all the quiet, fierce, real pieces of her she revealed only to him.
And the more he kissed her, the deeper he fell into want, into the sheer certainty that he could not bear a moment apart from her.
“I want to see all of you, Mina,” he pleaded against her lips.
Soon, they were taking off their nightclothes, all while holding each other’s eyes. When Wilhelmina finally stood naked before him, he laid her on the bed.
Tenderness warred with feverish hunger.
“You’re so beautiful, Mina,” he said, his voice thick with desire.
Her hands moved over him with a certainty that stole his breath. Fingers traced the line of his collarbone, slid across the ridges of his chest, and lingered along the hard planes of his abdomen. Every touch was deliberate, intimate, as if she could speak the words he could not.
He felt it in the press of her palm, the gentle curl of her fingers over muscle and skin; they were all messages of forgiveness, of acceptance, of hope, carried silently.
