Free The Third Duke's the Charm by Emma Wildes Page A

feelings; he’d changed his life for her. This wasn’t casual, this wasn’t laughter and lighthearted fun, and she wasn’t just another warm, willing bedmate.
    His whole world had changed. Irrevocably.
    As had hers.
    “I love you,” he murmured against her mouth, meaning it, the words distinctive and punctuated by his first sliding withdrawal before he sank back in with the same measured control, pleasure inundating his senses. She was hot and slick around him, and he’d meant exactly what he’d said. He
loved
her.
    Amazing. It had never happened to him before. In fact, he wasn’t sure he’d have known it if Vivian hadn’t pointed it out, and
that
conversation had certainly altered his perspective on that formerly abstract emotion.
    But this moment—this was for them only.
    His wife made a very enticing sound that seemed to be something between a moan and a sigh and her lashes drifted down over her very lovely eyes. “Charles.”
    Whatever happened next, he decided as he began to move his lower body in tune to the subtle lift of her hips, it was worth it. Not because of the climb of orgasmic release—that he’d had before and it could mean nothing, he’d discovered, or mean
everything
.
    “Like this.” He slid his hands under satiny bottom and lifted her into his next thrust, deeply penetrating, sexual enjoyment running along his skin like flickering fire.
    Louisa reached up then to touch his mouth, a feather brush of her fingers, her breathy exhale arousing.
    His entire existence right now was the woman beneath him.
    “I need you so much,” he told her, his voice uneven, his control dwindling. “Too much. I’m bewitched, bedeviled . . . oh God, Lou . . . I can’t . . . can’t . . .”
    So much for the skilled lover who could dispense pleasure with aplomb, find his own satisfaction, and then walk away. The thread of control vanished altogether, and he shuddered into a climax that sent him into a blissful oblivion, and luckily, they were enough in accord that she cried out even as he poured into her, the tiny contractions of her inner muscles telling him she had found the same glimpse of paradise.
    He must have drifted back to sleep afterwards, because when he finally opened his eyes his wife was sitting in her plain dressing gown, her hair damp from bathing, and there was a tray with tea, bacon, and biscuits by the side of the bed. When he sat up, the sheet falling to his waist, he shoved the hair out of his eyes. “Is it still raining?”
    Louisa nodded, her silver eyes shadowed. “Of course. All it has done is rain.”
    “It’s Scotland,” he said pragmatically, running his hand through his hair.
    “A bad omen, do you think?”
    He shouldn’t have told her he thought they should head homeward today. He should have made love to her and packed quietly while she slept, but instead it appeared to be the other way around. Her small valise was already by the door, her traveling gown draped over the chair. “No, my love, I don’t it is a bad omen at all. I think it is just Scotland.”
    “Your father—” she started to say, her nervousness evident.
    “Will be stiff-backed and disapproving,” he interrupted, not without his own trepidations. True to character, he was the errant son, and this marriage was a perfect example. “But he will grow to love you. His opinion is not something I wish for you to worry over.”
    “I wish you had discretion over what I worry over, but you don’t.” Louisa got up to pace the room, her lovely face set, her hair shimmering in the muted light. “I know it was a very romantic ideal . . . to elope and marry because we love each other, but we still need to accept the responsibility that our families may not support our decision.”
    Charles decided it was prudent to pour his own cup of tea even though normally she would have done it for him. This conversation was inevitable and she was correct. He was fairly sure his father would relent