Chapter Twenty-Four
He sprawled naked on his bed, pillows piled between him and the headboard, knees bent, one wrist dangling off his knees as he watched Emily return to him. Naked and smiling, she moved toward him on her knees. He spread his legs wider and enjoyed the rousing response of his body at the sight of her.
She stopped just past the gateway created by his knees, hands on his thighs, focused on his torso. “You have another bruise.”
“It’s nothing.” He glanced at the spot she meant. The bruise wasn’t large, but it was just now a very dark blue. She’d already kissed a healing scrape across his knuckles that had resulted from him sparring without first wrapping his hands or donning gloves. “I visited Gentleman Jack’s this morning.”
“Does it hurt?”
“Not when I look at you.” He reached for her, keeping his back against the pillows. He slid his fingers from her collarbone, down and over her breast. He was convinced he would always find Emily arousing to the point of his own stupidity. Her groan when his fingers slid over her nipples brought a smile to his heart. She was his match in this. Perfect for him. Perfect with him.
He continued downward until his fingers were on her belly. He adored the texture of her skin, the shape of her, the way she responded to physical contact. They’d learned each other better, and now they were incendiary together. She did like him just as he was. Rough, crude, tender, or something in between.
“Mm.” She let her head fall back, and for several seconds, the pain of her beauty filled him. He did like a woman who showed what she felt during bed play, and Emily felt a great deal. It was immensely satisfying that she so thoroughly appreciated his physicality. He certainly appreciated hers.
He stroked her stomach. Ever since he’d so bluntly told Lady Aldreth that it was possible Emily was with child, he couldn’t stop wondering if she was. “Em.”
“Yes?”
“Shouldn’t you have had your courses by now?”
She straightened and for a beat or two looked confused. Then her expression turned cautious. She pressed the side of her fist to her lips and shook her head in a slow, thoughtful manner. “I don’t think it means that.”
He hadn’t realized how intensely he wanted children until his confrontation with Mrs. Elliot and then Lady Aldreth had brought the possibility to the front. The idea that he might soon be a father had refused to let go of him. Several times, he’d counted the number of days they’d been married and the number of days they’d been together. He continued stroking her. “Why not?”
“Because,” she said, “I don’t feel different. Anne and Mary say they always know because they’re so miserably ill.” She met his gaze and touched a finger to the side of his face. “I’m disappointed, too,” she said. “I know you’re anxious to have your heir. I as well.”
“I’m not disappointed.” An heir, yes, but he would not mind a daughter. He moved his legs so his calves were behind her. He was disappointed, though. He’d got it into his head that they’d managed to start on their progeny right away. The very first time he took her to bed. “We’ve not been married long.”
“Not long at all.” She put her hand around the base of his cock. “Except here. Here, you are quite long.”
“Yes. Love. Yes, please, just so.” He forced his eyes open, and his stomach tightened with anticipation when he saw her arch smile. As he lifted into her grip of him, he said, “Two months, Em. This almost every night. No interruptions other than those few days at the beginning of this adventure. God, Em.”
She tightened her hand around him. She had long ago proved a quick student; she was enthusiastic about his big body, his strength, and his predilection for crude fucking, to the point where he wondered, not without some irony, whether her appreciation of him was physical alone.
A few moments later, she put her mouth where her hand had been, and there wasn’t another woman who compared to what she did to him. He concentrated on holding out, on drawing out his pleasure. He swept her hair to one side and fisted a handful. He’d taught her how to take him like this, and she now mastered him utterly. What she did with her tongue destroyed him.
It happened that he did not want to finish in her mouth, and when he was uncomfortably close, he drew away. She braced her hands on his shoulders and gave him a look that burned. He still had his hand tangled in her hair. He let out a coarse grunt as he cupped her bottom with his free hand and brought her to him.
“Now,” he said. “Now, but slow. Take me in slowly.” He let go of her hair and threw his hands back to grip the top of the carved bedstead that had been in the Margaret Street house for two hundred years.
She smiled in a way that sent him hurtling toward climax, but she knew his body well and held back. He hadn’t precisely taught her that, but she’d learned the benefit of a moment’s denial. They froze, teetering on separate peaks of bliss. He drew a slow breath and concentrated on not losing control. Yes. Yes. Done.
He hitched himself up enough to flex the muscles of his arms and upper body, and she seated herself on him. Controlled, except for her sigh of contentment. He was near out of his mind with lust by now. She rocked her hips on him, and every so often, he angled himself so the head of his cock went deeper in her. So close. Killingly close. Fucking her was like nothing else. Nothing.
He, Devon, Lord Bracebridge, had what every other man in London wanted: the most beautiful woman in England in his bed. The Divine Sinclair was his, unreservedly and wholeheartedly.
The coal in the fireplace shifted, and there were several long moments when the light changed and flickered through the room and there was silence between them; his heart expanded in his chest in a peculiar manner that had begun with his walking out of Aldreth’s house with her hand still in his. But by God, she was his wife, and no matter the difficulties of their past, she was his. His and only his.
“Emily.”
She leaned forward and put her hands over his. Her hair fell past her shoulders, unfastened because he’d grown to like her hair free when they were like this. He watched her face; her eyes were closed, and she was breathing harder, harder. Secret Emily, unknowable. His.
He pushed up, and she cried out.
“Tell me,” he said. “Tell me.”
Her eyes opened. There simply wasn’t a name for that pure, intense, lust-laced blue. He released one hand from his grip on the headboard, wrapped it around the back of her neck and brought her closer.
“Say it,” he said. There weren’t going to be more words for him. He was so close to the peak he might not last another five seconds. “Say what’s in your head.”
His body broke, and he whirled away to her whispered confession.
“I wish I didn’t love you.”