Page 102 of A Virgin for the Duke of Thorns

In fact, Colin giving her his translated copy of La Philosophie dans Le Boudoir and insisting on reading it together had resulted in several more heated encounters between them. Why now was she acting like a blushing, virginal bride?

The door slid open, and she let out a soft sigh of admiration when she saw her husband enter, dressed in only a robe.

Colin, she decided, would never cease to be the most attractive man she had ever laid eyes on, and she did not care if Scarlett called her out on her bias. She was married to the man, after all—of course, he should be the handsomest in all the world!

“Is it time to read our book?” she asked him coquettishly, watching his pupils dilate.

They had been slowly making progress through La Nouvelle Justine in the past few days, and she said slowly because they never could get past a chapter or two without them somehow ending in each other’s arms in a passioned frenzy.

She watched as Colin nodded slowly before he sat at her feet. She smiled and took the book out, opening it on a page she had marked with aribbon.

She read to him softly, a deep heat coiling in her lower belly as the heated passages leaped at her from the pages. After letting out a soft gasp at one rather lewd part, she could not help but set the book aside and lean in to kiss Colin herself.

Her hands delved into his hair as she pressed herself to him, eager to be rid of the flimsy barrier between their bodies. His tongue twined with hers, and she sighed, opening up to him completely.

Moments later, they parted breathlessly. Alice made a move to push the robe off his shoulders, but Colin let out a soft, hoarse laugh.

He pulled her to her feet and pressed a soft kiss to her lips. “My dear wife,” he murmured. “If you continue kissing me like that, I will never get to the business of giving you my gift.”

She pulled back slightly and looked up at him. “What gift?”

“Come,” he said, tugging gently on her hand. “Let me show you.”

He led her to a small room adjoined to their bedchamber, and Alice recognized it as the one she had inadvertently stumbled into on her first adventure into Blackthorn Estate.

Who would have thought that I would marry its master?

It was a working area, she realized. Numerous canvases of various sizes sat on the floor and on several easels. There were also racks of paint and jars holding a great many brushes. On one table was a pile of rags stained with so many colors that it looked as if a rainbow had vomited on them.

He pulled her before a covered canvas that occupied nearly half the height of the entire room and was twice as wide. His smile was like that of a young boy on Christmas morning, so she felt this was as much a gift to himself as it was to her.

“Should I close my eyes?” she teased.

He laughed. “It is too late for that now!”

With a flourish, he pulled the cloth and revealed the painting to her.

Alice could only stand there in shock and awe, marveling at the exquisiteness of his work. It was so lifelike that she almost believed she could feel the soft texture of the bed linens depicted.

“Do you like it?” he asked her, showing an uncharacteristic hesitance.

Alice nodded. “I love it! However, there is but one problem?—”

“There is?” He frowned, peering into what seemed to be his grandest work to date. “What is it?”

She looked at him somberly. “Colin, I cannot be this impossibly stunning!”

Indeed, the painting was a truly lifelike scene of her on the bed with her hair spread across the pillows like silk. Her hand delicately held a deep red rose to her breast, fingers barely grazing the thorns that lined its stem, the petals brushing against her bosom erotically as if she was teasing herself with it.

Her slumberous eyes seemed to gaze at the viewer, her sensual lips gently curled into a smile. The covers were painted in such a way as to tastefully cover her, ah, more private bits, but there was no doubt she was nude under all that.

Colin only laughed and pressed a kiss to her lips. “My love, of course that is you! Can you not see? This is how I see you.”

Alice peered at it again and sighed. “Perhaps it is a good thing that I am not so blind, or else this would be a fine case of the blind marrying the blind.”

Colin let out a loud guffaw and swung her in his arms.

“My wife is the best in the world,” he declared softly. “And now, it is my turn to unwrap my gift.”

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