This time, Lottie was not naïve and eighteen, inexperienced and woefully unprepared for the future looming before her. Instead, she was thirty, experienced, and more than that, she was prepared for the life awaiting her with a husband she loved and who loved her in return, along with their sweet, silly daughter and her furniture-nibbling spaniel.
“Will you be needing anything else this evening, Your Grace?” Jenkinson asked politely.
Your Grace.
A reminder that she was married now. A duchess. Brandon’s wife.
She smiled at her lady’s maid. “That will be all, thank you.”
Jenkinson quietly exited the chamber, leaving Lottie alone to anticipate her new husband. She wore a wrapper over a gold silk nightgown that had been designed by the famed Mrs. Loveton specifically for the occasion. It was wispy and transparent, and she had no doubt that Brandon was going to love her in it. Her hair was unbound, trailing over her shoulders and all the waydown her back. And she couldn’t lie—she felt just a bit like the goddess her husband insisted she was.
A tap sounded at the door separating their chambers, and she called for him to enter. They had spent the day in a flurry of activity. First, the wedding with hundreds of guests, the church festooned in flowers of her choosing. Next, the wedding breakfast with all their friends and family, including a beaming Mrs. Carrington-Smythe. Cat had managed to find her way into the celebration, stealing nearly a plateful of Bayonne ham until a footman had caught her and sent her off to the nursery. Pandy had been on her best behavior, and there hadn’t even been a hint of a rotten pig trotter.
The day had been wondrous and exhausting, but now it was time for Lottie and Brandon to be blissfully alone at last.
The door opened to reveal him, handsome in bare feet and a black silk dressing gown, a swath of his chest visible beneath, his wavy, dark hair tousled rakishly over his brow. She took one look at him, and her heart thudded, a rush of heat flooding her.
“Alone at last,” he said, a sensual smile curving his lips.
“And not a moment too soon.” Returning his smile, she reached for the belt on her wrapper, shrugging it to the floor.
His smoldering stare devoured her as his long strides ate up the distance separating them. “I thought you were beautiful in your wedding gown earlier, but my God, Lottie. You’re perfection.”
He pulled her into his tall, hard form, and she felt the rigid thickness of his cock prodding her belly as she looped her arms around his waist. “Do you like my nightgown? I had it made just for you and this evening.”
“Like it? I love it. I want to tear it off you with my teeth.”
She chuckled at his vehemence. “No tearing it, if you please. It was far too dear for that.”
He pressed a kiss to her throat. “Mmm, you smell so bloody good.”
She had applied some of her scent there and to her inner wrists, knowing too well the effect it had on him.
Lottie inhaled deeply, rubbing her breasts against his chest subtly as she did so. “You smell good too.”
“No thanks to Cat,” he grumbled. “The imp leapt on me and licked my face and neck while I was taking off my boots.”
She laughed, envisioning the spaniel attacking him with her lolling tongue, and brushed her lips over his temple. “I hope you rinsed off her slobber.”
He kissed his way to her ear. “Of course I did. Which reminds me, I discovered a frog in my wash basin. I suspect Pandy found him in the gardens. I’ll need to have a word with her about bringing creatures into the house again.” He caught her earlobe in his teeth and tugged. “I did warn you that you were joining a menagerie.”
“And I told you there was nowhere else I would rather be,” she reminded him, finding the buttons on his dressing gown and plucking them free, one by one.
He cupped her breast through the fine fabric of her nightgown, swirling his thumb over her hard nipple. “I love that you’re here.” He caught her nipple between his thumb and forefinger, pinching it lightly and sending a rush of molten desire through her. “I love that you’re my wife.” His mouth trailed a path of hot kisses along her collarbone. “I loveyou.”
“And I love you.” She opened the last button of his dressing gown, leaving it parted, and stepped back to admire him.
His cock protruded thickly from between the parted ends of fabric, calling for her attention. She wanted to lavish pleasure upon him. To show him with deeds rather than words how much he had come to mean to her. Against her will, she had fallen beneath this beautiful rake’s spell, and she wouldn’t change amoment of it. Not one single second. Because he was hers, she was his, and their love had proven stronger than the obstacles between them.
She lowered herself to her knees.
“Lottie,” he protested.
“My love,” she countered and grasped the base of his shaft, his skin hot and smooth and soft, stretched taut.
She brought the tip of him past her lips. Her tongue lashed over the crown, teasing him, taunting him, tasting the salty essence of him. He made a low sound of suppressed need, one of his hands landing on the back of her head, lightly cradling. And she was already wet between her legs, her own sex heavy and pulsing with uncontrollable need.
Because she wanted to watch, she tilted her head back slightly, looking up the muscular angles and planes of his body to meet his burning emerald gaze.
