Page 105 of A Duchess Bound
As they left the chapel, his spirits lifted. The world had never looked so beautiful to him as it did then, walking beside his wife. And later, there would be questions and conversations and important matters to attend to, but just then?—
Everything was perfect.
EPILOGUE
“Ithought we would never be free,” Dorothy said, as Gerard carried her into his bedchamber.
The wedding ceremony had been lovely and intimate, and Dorothy had enjoyed the festivities afterwards—the wedding cake, the dancing, and the dinner—but at some point, she had begun to feel as if the whole wedding and all its trappings were taking far too long. Her thoughts had become decidedly indecent, and she had squeezed her thighs tightly together during the carriage ride home—home!
Gerard’s home was now hers, too! She could scarcely believe it.
“I know,” Gerard said as he carried her to the bed. “I was beginning to fear that your brother might never let me leave. I do not understand that man. First, he threatened me. Then, he seemed to believe that we were the best of friends?”
“Of course he was like that. You fulfilled your promise and became a part of our family,” Dorothy said. “Once you were related, he felt the need to be civil.”
He deposited her gently on her feet before the bed. Dorothy had stood scarcely a heartbeat before he wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her flush against him. A delighted gasp tore from her throat, silenced as his mouth hungrily found hers. She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him in return, pressing her mouth hard against his.
They kissed like they had been deprived of one another for an eternity, and when Dorothy thought about just how close they had come to being apart forever, she kissed him with double the passion. Every inhale brought the familiar scent of his cologne and of her own growing arousal.
It was the wedding night, and now, she knew why young women looked forward to this with their husbands. Gerard tilted his head and kissed her jaw. “I must ask you something,” he breathed. “It is important that you are honest with me.”
Dorothy tilted her head back, enjoying the warmth of his lips against her neck. She wondered if he could feel how quickly her pulse beat beneath her skin. “Yes?”
“Did you marry me simply to spare your sister?”
She frowned. “What?”
Gerard leaned back, his hands still at her waist. “It occurred to me that you might have noticed how distraught Lady Bridget was that I was to marry her, and I wondered if you might have only agreed to marry me to spare her from a life with a man whom she did not love.”
“Oh,” she whispered. “Oh, is that what you thought? Gerard, no. It is true that I did not wish for Bridget to marry someone that she did not love, but more importantly,Iwanted to marry you! That night in the gardens, I kept thinking about how we were all so miserable doing what we thought was the right thing. If letting Bridget marry you was therightcourse of action, I did not want to do it. I wanted you.”
He pulled her in for another kiss, and she pushed her body against his. They fit together as though their bodies had been destined for one another, and a low moan escaped her. Did Gerard also sense how perfect they were for one another? Did he understand what even his slightest touch did to her?
“I only wanted to make you happy,” he whispered against her lips. “I thought if I spared Lady Bridget?—”
“Do not talk about my sister while you are doing this.”
Gerard dipped his head and placed a lingering kiss on her throat. Dorothy curled her fingers in his hair and moaned.
“I wanted to marry you,” he said. “I just worried that I was unworthy?—”
Another kiss. This time, his lips pressed against her collarbone.
“—but you said that it ought to be your choice. How could I deny you?”
His hands cupped her breasts, deftly freeing them from her bodice. Gerard pinched her nipples, and Dorothy’s breath hitched. Excitement shot through her, for she had been thinking of this night for most of the day. “I love you,” she said. “I have loved you for such a long time, and I forgive you for pushing me away. I chose you. Thank you for letting me.”
When he rolled her nipples between his fingers, a sharp ache formed in Dorothy’s core. Her back arched. Gerard’s manhood pressed against her stomach.
“We shall have to make an heir,” she said.
“Yes,” he said. “Yes, that is what happens when you become a man’s wife.”
“I would not relinquish that duty to anyone,” Dorothy said. “You have made me the happiest woman in the world. It would have been torture, watching you with Bridget.”
“It would have been torture watching you with no one at all.”
He rolled her nipples between his fingers, and Dorothy shamelessly bucked her hips against his thighs. She brought her hand down and heaved up great handfuls of her skirts.
