Page 90 of An Accidental Bride for the Duke
This was different from the last time.
It took Iris a little while to understand why that was exactly. It wasn’t more pleasurable; it was the same as before, which was to say it felt amazing. It wasn’t less awkward, because she had taken to it the last time as if it was a natural thing. Rather, it wasmore… right-feeling? Final. No more guilt surrounding her. No more worrying about what this might mean. No longer thinking about the past as now all she cared about was the future.
And it was a future that looked very bright indeed. Just as it felt damn near indescribable.
Philip was still thrusting deep inside of her. Each time he did, she felt that pleasure spike at her. And as she had expected, as she had hoped, with it came the explosion that was all consuming.
“Philip…” she panted heavily. “I’m…”
“Me too,” Philip said, his breathing just as heavy, his thrust increasing in speed. “Are you ready?” he asked.
“I am.” She forced herself to keep her eyes open, locking in on Philip. He did the same, holding her stare as his body started to tremble.
It came on her then. Starting between her thighs. Rushing up her body. Spreading quickly, intensely, tearing her apart so she wanted to scream. Which she did, but not until she felt Philip empty himself inside of her.
“Philip!” she cried out as her husband’s seed filled her and her own body erupted from the pleasure.
“Iris!” he joined in, pulling her back into him, wrapping his arms around her body, holding her close and burying his head in her neck as his knees shook.
Iris kept her legs wrapped around Philip’s waist, refusing to let go. She squirmed and she writhed and she spasmed. She wanted to cry. She wanted to shout. But in the end, most strangely, she laughed.
“What’s so funny?” Philip asked through deep breaths.
She shook her head. “I have no idea. It just felt right to do.”
Philip rolled his eyes but then started to laugh along with her. And for a few seconds, still in the wardrobe, still entwined, Iris and Philip laughed together. Not because anything funny was said. More as if it was needed to expel any final remnants of negative energy that remained.
They were man and wife. They were deeply in love. They had their entire future ahead of them, and Iris could say now without fear that it was a future that looked bright.
She had often wondered as a little girl if she would get her happily ever after. For a time there, she had feared that she would not. But as she and Philip laughed together, as she then started to kiss him, as he kissed her back with adoration and love, she knew without question that not only was she going to get it, but that she was already living it.
Her happily ever after had arrived the day she married Philip. And now that she was ready to accept it, she was just as ready for what might come next.
Epilogue
ONE MONTH LATER
“And all this time I thought you would have been champing at the bit to see me leave,” Robert chuckled.
“Who says that I am not?” Philip responded.
“Well, the fact that you refuse to let me go is indicative of the fact…” Robert dropped his arms as if to make his point.
“Excuse me for showing you how much I care.” Philip had his arms around his brother, holding him in a tight bear hug that had been going on now for several long seconds. He laughed at his brother’s protest, finally releasing him.
“Phew.” Robert wiped at his brow. “I thought that would never end.”
“And all I got was a firm handshake,” Percy pouted from beside his brother.
“And you were lucky to get that,” Philip chided him. “If I recall, you told me you would be here for just the week. That was a month ago.”
Percy shrugged. “I’m like a tick that way. Once I burrow myself in, I’m impossible to dig out.”
The three brothers laughed together and it sounded good to hear. Where they had grown up together, rarely had it been a wholly companionable thing. Percy had been young, and the circumstances around his birth had always created an unconscious divide between the three men. And Robert… well, he had always been Robert, and Philip had often been too angry with him to give way to such friendly circumstances as this.
But that was the past and as was the theme in Philip’s life now, he was done letting it dictate his life. The future was what he focused on, and it looked to be a very good future indeed.
“I’ll be sure to stop in on my way back,” Robert said next. “My thinking is a month or two from now.”
