“I do believe that I just did.” Fancy that. He had shocked his wife, who up until that moment, he would have sworn was not even shockable. He grinned, happiness rising within him like an ascension balloon. “I will not be impeded, my love. Introductions can be performed tomorrow. Or next year. I don’t give a damn. All I want is you.”
As he growled the last sentence into her ear, desire surged, joining the happiness and the love. Nothing was getting in the way of him making love to his wife, properly and thoroughly the way he should have done from the onset. He was ready. Confessing everything to her in the carriage had left him feeling lighter than he had in years.
And, for the first time, not just hopeful but confident. Confident that he had found the one woman who was meant for him, that every risk he took in opening his heart to her was more than worth it, that loving her was the best thing he would ever do.
Up the stairs he carried her, leaving the astonished servants behind them. Exhilaration pulsed through his veins. He wasn’t even winded. Love was like a sun burning in his chest, and he felt invincible and strong, as if he could carry her up and down St. James’s all day long. As if he could fight a hundred battles. As if he could overcome anything as long as she was by his side.
“I want you too,” she murmured, and then her mouth was on his neck, feasting on his skin, and he felt the hot lick of her tongue. “I have missed you so.”
Two more strides, and he had found his chamber door. If he didn’t have her alone and naked soon, he was going to explode. With a bit of juggling, he opened the door and stepped inside with her, kicking it closed behind them. The bed was turned down, the room aired in preparation of his return.
It was all so right. As right as the woman in his arms. He lowered her to her feet, and then his lips were on hers, open and seeking. Demanding and taking and giving. She licked into his mouth, her hands scrambling to remove his jacket. He found the fastening of her bodice and tore when it would not cooperate.
The sound of rending fabric filled the silence. He didn’t care if he ruined her silk. He would buy her a hundred dresses to replace this one. She tasted sweet like honeyed tea, and he was drunk on her. He never wanted to stop kissing her. His waistcoat was gone, and then his shirt. Her dress fell to the carpet. He undid the knot of her corset strings, slid the hooks from their moorings. He gripped the embroidered décolletage of her chemise in both hands and tore it from her body. Her fingers opened the placket of his trousers.
Dragging his lips from hers, he toed off his boots and shrugged his trousers and his smalls to the floor. He removed his stockings, her drawers. Bo stood before him, all creamy curves and brilliant beauty, wearing nothing but her lacy black stockings. His mouth went dry, a combination of love and need slamming him in the chest.
“My God, princess, you are the most beautiful bloody woman I have ever seen.” He hauled her to him, claiming her mouth in a slow, possessive kiss before breaking away. “Get on the bed, love.”
She reached for his hand, twining her fingers through his, and pulled him across the chamber, her forget-me-not eyes never leaving his. “I love you so much, Spencer.”
They fell upon the bed together. He worshipped her as he had dreamed of doing this last week they’d spent apart. With his tongue, with his mouth, with his hands. He sucked her pretty peach nipples until she moaned. He licked the silken skin behind her ear until she bucked. His fingers dipped inside the warm, slick folds at the heart of her, finding her clitoris and working it until he dragged his mouth down her luscious skin and replaced his fingers with his tongue.
He didn’t stop until the strength of her release raged through her body and she trembled beneath him, the sweet nectar of her spend flowing over his lips and tongue. And then he rose, settled himself between her thighs, met her gaze, his rigid cock probing her slick cove.
“I’m going to spend inside you,” he gritted. “Nothing else will do.”
“Spencer,” she whispered. “You don’t have to. I can wait. I will wait.”
“No.” He took her left hand in his, aligned their palms. “It will not wait. Not ever again. You are all I want. You are everything.”
“As are you, darling man.” With her free hand, she cupped his face, and he pressed a kiss to it. “I’m ready.”
“So am I, my love.”
He notched himself to her channel, canted his hips, and slid home in one thrust. They discovered their rhythm together, raining hungry kisses on each other, moving as one. When she found her second release and her pussy clamped on his cock, he followed right behind, burying deep to empty himself inside her.
Good. Sweet. God.
This woman. She had rescued him from himself.
Breathless, boneless, mindless, he rolled to his side, taking her with him, not about to miss the heady sensation of her bare flesh on his.
“And then?” she asked, her voice breathless.
He smiled, kissed her delectable mouth. “And then he realized he could never be happier than he was in this moment, with the woman he loved in his arms.”
o was late getting back to Bainbridge House.
She had not meant to linger for so long following her speech, but the rapidly expanding membership of the Lady’s Suffrage Society meant that the hall she and Clara had booked for today’s meeting had been filled to capacity, with ladies spilling out into the vestibules and streets. They would need to find a larger venue. Their little group had swelled to include not just ladies of theton, but working women among its ranks as well. Bo was hopeful that together, they could affect change.
But as she made her way to the nursery, the rush that filled her emerged from a different origin than her pride at the hard work she and Clara had put into their cause. Rather, it was a rush of love and awe, the twin emotions that washed over her whenever she thought of her husband and her daughter, her two most precious loves.
When she slipped into the cheerful confines of the nursery with its pale pink and ivory striped wallpaper and dainty child-sized furniture, her eyes instantly went to the most magnificent sight in the world. The tall, beautiful man seated on a rocking chair across the chamber, holding a blanketed bundle in his arms, met her gaze and smiled.
How she loved her husband and daughter. Her heart filled, a deep sense of contentment unfurling within her.
“Your mama has finally returned from her speech, little princess,” Spencer murmured. “She is determined that you will have the right to vote when you are old enough.”
