And then the boots were coming for him.
“No!” he roared. “Stop!”
But no sound emerged this time, and the boots were marching toward his bed. The fists began to fall…
“Adrian?”
He woke with a violent jolt, the sensation akin to the dreams he sometimes had where he was plummeting to earth. His heart was pounding with so much force, he feared it would leap from his chest.
Reality returned to him gradually as he gasped for breath.
A hand was on his back. Gently stroking up and down his spine. There was a presence at his side. The scent of roses in the air.
The voice he’d heard, speaking his name, had not been a part of the nightmare, he realized. Instead, it had been Tilly.
“What are you doing in here?” he managed to rasp.
They had been living beneath the same roof for a week. They devoted each day to coexisting. They shared a quiet breakfast. Adrian spent some time in the nursery with Robby. They took a turn about the gardens as a family. He left for dinner at the Black Souls club each night, unable to bear the intimacy of more than one meal with her. He returned to see Robby off to sleep for the night, and then he retired to his guest chamber.
He had not touched her since the night of their wedding, and neither had she touched him. Having her in his room, in his bed, her scent wrapped around him like ivy, was a shock.
“I heard you crying out,” she said, her hand continuing to move in a gentle, reassuring sweep.
Her skin was so bloody soft. And his was bare. After spending so much time packed in a cramped dormitory with many others, swaddled in a nightshirt, he could not sleep in any garments aside from the bedclothes. To do so felt stifling, akin to a smaller prison.
And now he cursed himself for his nudity beneath the counterpane, just as he cursed his cock for leaping to life with her here.
He searched for his voice, for his restraint, found it again. “You should not be here.”
“You are my husband. You sounded as if you were in pain. Where else should I be, if not by your side?”
He told himself to shrug away from her touch, but longing held him immobile. “I did not marry you for your pity, Duchess.”
“Will you not call me Tilly now?”
Her soft plea did things to him. He felt as if he were splitting apart at the seams like a poorly constructed garment. Part of him wanted her with a furious vengeance that frightened him. Part of him wanted to send her from this room and lock the door at her back so he could not give in to his temptations.
“It won’t change anything between us.”
“Then why do you refuse to speak it?”
She had him there. Of course there was a reason, and they both knew it.
Move away from her now. Sever the connection.
His body did not want to heed his mind.
He swallowed. “Because I do not want to forget who you are.”
“I am your wife.”
“In name only.”
“That is your choice, is it not?” Her other hand was on his chest now, gently caressing, gliding over his heart and lingering there. “You were having a nightmare.”
“Yes.” He clenched his jaw, his fingers gripping the bedclothes to keep from reaching for her.
He wanted to so badly, it was an ache in his fingertips, in his gut, in his heart.
