Page 53 of The Duke and the Unwanted Bride

“And to think…” She kissed his chest, and it sent tingles through his body. “You almost missed out.”

“Is that how you remember it?”

She pulled back and sat up, raising a derisive eyebrow at him.

God, she was beautiful in the morning. The way the sun lit her face. Her breasts, rising and falling with her soft breaths. Her messy hair, falling around her face in clumps. And those lips…

“It is not how I remember it. It is as it happened.”

“You should know, I was playing with you the whole time,” he said with a shrug, forcing himself not to grin. “I always knew it would come to this and was just waiting for the right time.”

“Liar!”

“Are you calling me a liar?” He pretended to clench his jaw and scowl at her. “You better watch what you say.”

“Or what?”

His eyes flashed, and he wrapped his arms around her waist. She yelped as he pulled her to him, and then she moaned as he took her lips in a searing kiss.

Naked, she rolled on top of him, her thighs straddling his waist. Her body was soft, perfect. His hands massaged and squeezed her buttocks. His mouth found her breasts. Her hand wrapped around his throbbing member. It was all he could do not to lift her immediately and sink her onto his length.

For a moment there, the guilt threatened to overtake him.

There was a good reason that Frederick had denied himself this pleasure for so long. And there was a good reason that even when he decided it was time to marry, he knew he would continue to deny himself it.

But he pushed that thought away as Hannah kissed down his neck, licking his nipples and giggling all the while., He could already feel her wetness as she rubbed herself against his thigh, and he wanted to sink himself inside her more than he had wanted anything.

As to that guilt, there was a way to curb it for now. The same method he had used last night. While he might sleep with her, while he might enter her and give himself to her as any husband should, he would not finish inside her. Again, for that same reason, a burden he had carried with him for six years now.

He just hoped that Hannah did not realize it and did not question him, for if she asked, he wasn’t sure what he would say. Such was the weight of his burden.

“Frederick,” Hannah whispered in his ear, “I want you inside of me.”

“Do not tell me what to do…”

Still, without delay, he lifted his wife as if she weighed nothing and sank her onto his member. She gasped, he groaned, and together they welcomed what was surely the first of many glorious mornings to come.

“Tell me, please!” Amelia begged, completely ignoring the plate of food before her—so very unlike her.

“Amelia,” Frederick sighed. “It is not a story for little girls. Nor is it appropriate for the breakfast table.”

“But—”

“I said no.” He looked at her, his expression one that she knew well enough by now.

Amelia half-opened her mouth to argue but thought better of it. A scowl was her response, then she pressed her lips together and began to pick at the cakes on her plate as if they were poison.

Across from her sat Hannah, who was watching the interaction with a coy smile that Frederick was beginning to recognize a little too well. Her eyes flicked from him to Amelia, and even before she spoke, he was forced to stop her.

“Do not even think about it.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You were going to.”

“Lies!”

“Hannah,” he groaned and ran a hand through his hair. “It is not an appropriate conversation. You know it is not!”

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