“So powerful, my Duke,” she said as he turned her in his arms, his hands sliding up to frame her face.
In the silvered moonlight, his features were carved in sharp, rugged lines only highlighted by his full beard. The Duke of Welton was stripped down to something far more pure, vulnerable. His blue eyes, usually so guarded, were hungry and sparkling.
This is it,she thought to herself as she anticipated what would befall her on her wedding night with bated breath.
“I spent a decade in this house acting as a ghost,” he said, his voice dropping to a jagged whisper. “I walked these halls and saw only a line of succession, a duty to a brother who was gone, and a name that was an albatross around my neck. I thought being a guardian was enough. I thought holding my heart in a fist was the only way to survive the cold.”
He paused, his thumb tracing the swollen curve of her lower lip. “But watching you today, standing in that chapel with the sun hitting the lace of your throat… I realized I don’t want to just be a protector of the past. I want a future that bleeds. I want a house that rings with the cries of our own children. I want a daughter who has your defiance, and a son who looks at me with your kindness. I want to build something that isn’t made of cold marble, Imogen. I want life. Full and messy and fun.”
The air between them snapped. It felt like the kind of electricity that precedes a summer storm over the moors. Imogen’s breath hitched, her fingers digging into the hard muscles of his forearms.
“Then let us build it,” she whispered. “Let the Welton line start tonight, with us.”
Ambrose groaned, a low, animal sound of release, and swept her into his arms effortlessly. He didn’t carry her with the polite grace of a nobleman. He was a caveman who carried her with the hungry urgency of a man who had been starving.
He laid her back against the vast expanse of the golden, four-poster bed, the silk sheets cool against her heated skin as he took off her fur and set it on a nearby chair. He looked down at her and growled, his eyes roving up and down her body as she sprawled out against the bed.
The white, sheer peignoir was gone in a frantic blur of movement as he slid it expertly down her body and set it on the chair. Ambrose stripped away his shirt, his broad shoulders and the powerful, corded muscles of his back silhouetted against the moonlight. He may as well have been a Greek god, carved in marble to Imogen’s every fantasy. He was strong and tall, all man and raw energy.
When he joined her in bed, lying down next to her as he traced a finger up and down her silky white skin, the contact was a shock to the senses. The cool silk beneath her, the heavy, searing weight of him next to her as he leaned in, and the scent of him, all pine and peat and storm-air.
“You are a dream, my love,” Imogen said as she curled into him and kissed his forehead. “Etched from my very mind, made for me. I never thought I could be so happy.”
He moved closer to her and put his weight onto her with a desperate but reverent hunger. He put his mouth on hers, kissing her as he claimed her, trailing fire from the sensitive hollow of her throat to the arch of her ribs.
Imogen’s hands tangled in his golden hair, her back arching into him as his tongue left her mouth and inched lower. His mouthtraced the curve of her breast, her senses narrowing down to the friction of his skin against hers and the rhythmic, heavy pull of her own pulse as he settled on the soft bud and began to suckle.
“Duchess,” he rasped against her skin, his voice thick with a possessive heat he no longer tried to hide as he gave a small bite. “My wife. My life. My home. You are everything and you are mine.”
“Always,” she gasped, her legs winding around his waist, pulling him into her as she kissed his neck, moving her lips up to his soft earlobe and nibbling.
“You undo me, wife,” he rasped as he trailed his fingers to the center of her wanting, bringing his fingers in and out in a teasing pace that had her bucking her hips to meet him. “You are so ready for me. I am unsure I can wait much longer… but I know we need to savor this.”
“It’s like you know everything I need, Ambrose,” she cried out as she wrapped her arms around his shoulders, grinding her body against his perfect touch.
“Touch me, Imogen,” he said, his voice low. “See what you do to me,” he growled as he took his other hand and placed it on hers, moving her hand down until it reached his hardness.
“Oh my god,” she cried out. “I need you. I need to feel you, to be one being, one entity.”
“Your wish is my command. We have the rest of our lives to do this. Every. Single. Night,” he said as he traced her body with his fingertips, like one would caress a gentle stream.
He entered her with a slow, powerful thrust that felt like the world finally clicking into place. She had thought it would hurt, but all she felt was full, and ready and right. It was a union of grit and grace, of blood and bone. He didn’t rush. She knew that he wanted to feel every shuddering breath she drew, every involuntary cry that escaped her lips as he moved within her. That drove her over the top even more than the feeling itself, knowing how badly he wanted her.
He pinned her hands to the pillows as he lay on top of her, his fingers interlaced with hers.
“Look in my eyes,” he cried out as he increased his pace. “Look at what you do to me, my beautiful wife.”
The friction and the sheer, overwhelming intimacy built like a tide hitting the cliffs, rising higher and higher until Imogen felt herself shattering. Her world narrowed to the silver light, the scent of woodsmoke, and the man who was claiming her with every rhythmic stroke. He removed himself then, and she let out a sigh, until he flipped her over onto her stomach.
“I’ve wanted to take you this way since the first moment I saw you, your perfect, round backside,” he cried as he slowly put himself inside of her, his hands wrapped tenderly around her stomach. “You. Are. Mine.” He growled as he punctuated eachthrust, hitting the deepest parts of her body, so hard she felt it in her belly.
“I feel like I am falling apart,” she cried.
“Are you all right, love?”
“I am more than all right, I am in the clouds. Just a little harder, Ambrose. Please. I need to feel all of you, fill me.”
Ambrose followed her command, his body tensing like a bowstring as he poured himself into her, his name a broken prayer on her lips.
