Page 83 of The Duke Says I Do
He began to move in heavy plunges that sheathed him to the hilt. The world exploded into a storm of bliss. Her rhythmic little moans spurred him on.
Her moans emerged more quickly as she approached her release. Her battle to muffle her cries stoked his arousal. He loved her ardent surrender. He lifted her higher to change the angle. With a muted cry, she succumbed to rapture.
His balls tightened, his blood turned to flame. With a mighty groan, he filled her with his seed. For a measureless interval of delight, he pumped into her, giving her everything he had, everything he was.
Struggling for air, he collapsed against her. His bones had turned to syrup. Thank God for the tree. He wasn’t sure his legswould support him, let alone her as well. She quivered with the aftereffects, and her breath emerged in sobs.
For a long time, Granville remained where he was. He struggled to breathe. He struggled to think. Hell, he struggled to stay standing after that titanic release. He basked in having her in his arms. Just where he wanted her.
Through his exhaustion, he felt her bring her legs down. He slipped free, but didn’t shift away. Now that he wasn’t carrying her, he twined his arms around her. He loved fucking her. But he also loved these luminous moments once the crisis had passed. He fumbled between them to fasten his pantaloons.
After a long while, she pressed her lips to his neck above his high collar. Yet again, they’d set the heavens alight, yet remained fully dressed. He turned his head and caught her mouth for a kiss that expressed his joy in her.
She kissed him back, embracing him so he sank into those voluptuous curves. He surrendered to a dark paradise where he and Portia stayed together like this forever.
Portia drew away first. “Alaric?”
“Mmm?” He wasn’t sure that he was capable of conversation. In such a perfect moment, reality was an unwelcome intruder.
“That was spectacular.”
“Yes,” he said on a long exhalation. “Yes, it was.”
She stroked his cheek with a tenderness that he felt to his toes. “Spectacular. But you didn’t pull out.”
All Granville’s glorious peace, the peace that was Portia’s greatest gift to him, evaporated. He jerked upright and stepped back, heart clanging like a badly-tuned bell.
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
“Hell, Portia, I’m so sorry.”
He reached for her, but she couldn’t see him in the stygian gloom. She didn’t take his hand. She didn’t speak.
For fuck’s sake, don’t let her hate him. She’d hated him once. How would he survive if she went back to despising him?
Her silence had him rushing into speech in a way that the august Duke of Granville never did. “It’s no excuse to say I want you so damned much that I can’t put two thoughts together. I promised to look after you and I failed.”
Still she didn’t speak. By God, he wished that he could see her face. She had such expressive features. They always betrayed her thoughts, right back to her disapproval of her beloved sister marrying the man who she dismissed as the driest of dry sticks.
His heart lodged in his aching throat, while his stomach dived to his boots. He went on in a frantic gabble. “I beg you to forgive me. I beg you to give me another chance.”
She wore a dark dress and it was black as the lowest pit of hell in the copse, but he sensed that she shifted. He braced for anger, but her voice was even. “I know you didn’t do it on purpose.”
He sucked in a relieved breath, his first full breath since he’d realized the vast extent of his sin against her. “You don’t hate me?”
A faint huff expressed her scorn for that question. “As if I could.”
Granville didn’t speak. He was clever enough to know that more was coming. What would he do if she said that she’d never risk tupping him again? Until he seduced Portia, he’d merely existed. Only with her had he truly lived.
Her voice remained calm but stern. “I know this isn’t what you want, Alaric. But if it turns out I’m carrying a baby, you’ll have to marry me.”
Shock had him speaking before he considered strategy. When strategy had guided him ever since he’d first kissed her. “I’ll marry you tomorrow, if you like. I’ve had a special license in the top drawer of my desk since the day after we rescued Jupiter.If you say you’ll become my wife, I’ll be the happiest man in England.”
Chapter 21
The ground shifted beneath Portia’s feet. Nothing that Alaric said made sense. Not in any world she lived in. Her hands fisted in her creased skirts. “But you don’t want to marry me.”
His sigh was audible. She wished to heaven that they weren’t having this conversation in the middle of a lightless grove of trees. She’d dearly love to see his face and his stance, to get some idea of his feelings. She had a dreadful suspicion that he was tensed up like a hunted animal. That beautiful baritone sounded cold and grim, despite him saying he wished to marry her.
