Page 28 of Til Death Duke Us Part
“I’m not a spectacle.”
“I thought you possessed no more pride.”
He snorted. “That’s shame I’m all out of. They’re different.”
They finished their stew in silence.
She yawned as the wine coursed through her, and somehow, at the same time, they were standing and unwrapping themselves from their clothing and from the day’s travel dust. They moved about the room like the couple waltzing on his palm—coordinated, intimate—until he wore only his trousers, slung low on his hips and she wore only her chemise, thin and gauzy and not enough to protect her from herself.
Hugging her body, pressing her back against a wall, and doing her best not to look at the bed, she said, “You should sleep on the floor tonight.”
“And why’s that?” He pulled back the cover, ducking his head, but not before she saw him grin.
“Fine then, I’ll sleep on the floor.”
He jolted upright. “No, you will not.” Grin gone. Fierce scowl firmly in place.
“Yes, I— aah!”
He’d stormed across the room and swung her into his arms in less time than it took her to blink. He bounced her onto the bed then crawled in after her. Over her. His big limbs caging her until he got to the other side. Then he pulled covers up over her as if they were enough to keep her in.
They were not. She rolled for the edge.
He caught her, one steel arm wrapping around her. “Persephone.” A warning.
“We cannot both sleep in this bed.” And she could not pretend his arm wasn’t laying directly atop her breasts, blooming her nipples to life.
“We slept in the same bed last night.”
“Yes, well, I do not want to tonight.”
“I’m not sleeping on the hard floor. I’m a duke.”
“And I’m trying to sleep on the hard floor because I’m not one. I’m no one. But…” She pointedly eyed his arm.
“You’re not no one. And you’re staying in this bed.” His golden eyes blazed. “Or you can use me as a mattress.”
“What? No. That makes no sense.”
But caught her up in his arms and rolled her until she laid directly atop him.
Oh no. Now not only were her nipples pebbling against his warm, hard, naked chest, but she could feel an even harder bit of him biting into her belly. Where had the erection come from? So quickly, too!
“Is it any use lecturing you?”
“None. It’s either right here, which is my preferred choice, or it is on the bed. Take your pick.”
“I ha?—”
“Hate me, yes I know.” But he did not sound displeased. He tucked a lock of hair behind her ear.
She didn’t hate him. Unaccountably. “I choose the bed.”
He dropped his arms to the mattress. “A disappointment.”
“Get used to it.” She rolled off him and curled up on the very edge of the mattress, and he spread out like he owned the bed, the inn, and the entire county where it resided—legs wide, elbows poking out in both directions from where his hands cradled the back of his head.
She leaned over and blew out a candle on a table by the bed.
