He set a rhythm then that was deeper, harder, each thrust driving him against that place inside her that made pleasure spiral tighter and tighter in her belly. The slick sounds of their bodies joining filled the room, mingling with her gasping breaths and his low, guttural groans, and Catherine had never felt anything so raw, so consuming, so utterly perfect.
His hand slid between their bodies, finding the swollen nub at the top of her sex, and he circled it with his thumb while he kept moving inside her. The dual sensation was too much. She was going to shatter. She was going to—
“Look at me,” he growled, his voice coarse and commanding.
She forced her eyes open. His face was above hers, flushed and damp with sweat, his pupils blown wide. He looked intoxicated. Undone. And the intensity in his gaze, the way he was watching her as though she were a goddess of worship, made something small and significant crack open in her chest.
Her release built like a wave, enormous and inevitable, and when it finally crested, it tore through her with a force that left her gasping and trembling. Her body clenched around him, tight and pulsing, and she heard him groan low and broken as her climax triggered his own.
He thrust once more, twice, and then he was spilling inside her, hot and thick, his hips jerking erratically as he emptied himself with a shuddering groan that she felt in her bones.
For a long moment, neither of them moved. They lay tangled together on the chaise, divine and breathing hard, slick with sweat and trembling.
Finally, he lifted his head to look at her. His hair was disheveled, his eyes worn and wondering, and there was something vulnerable in his expression that made her throat close up.
He kissed her then, slow and sweet and achingly tender, and Catherine wrapped her arms around him and held on, and thought that perhaps this, right here, was whathappinessfelt like.
CHAPTER 26
“Would you pass on my thanks to the cook for this marvelous breakfast, Sally?” Catherine chimed, sampling the home-made strawberry jam before spreading it on her toast.
She was famished. Last night had been...extensive. She felt the pleasant ache of it in muscles she hadn’t known she possessed, and when she shifted in her chair, heat flickered through her at the memory. Hours. They’d taken hours with each other.
“Of course, Your Grace! Mrs. Dodds is particularly proud of her strawberry jam, I must say. She makes enough of it for all of us as well…”
Sally abruptly blushed and busied herself with laying out the rest of the breakfast things. Catherine laughed.
“Don’t panic, Sally. I will not object to the Caerleon staff enjoying the same strawberry jam as the Duke and I.”
“The Duke can be…”
“Grumpy?”
Sally giggled. “Strict, I was going to say, though I shouldn’t. It is hardly professional of me.”
“But truthful. You never need to worry about speaking your mind in front of me.”
The morning sunlight poured through the long windows of the breakfast room, glinting off the china cups on the breakfast table. Catherine felt an affinity for the bright sunshine, as though she, too, were composed of happy, bright rays. She liked the smile that her words brought to the young maid’s face.
It is so easy to bring happiness to another simply with a kind word and a smile. I must try to influence Aaron to do the same. His household would be so much brighter.
“Will His Grace be joining you for breakfast this morning, Your Grace?” Sally asked.
“He will,” she replied.
Two words, but carrying so much meaning for her. She knew he would because before he had taken his leave of her the night before, he had promised that he would join her. It had been a sincere promise which Catherine believed wholeheartedly.
They had slept in separate rooms but had parted after many hours of lovemaking and talk. She wondered if she should have intimated otherwise to him. If she should have communicated that she wanted to share his bed.
The very idea still made her blush.
Sally left only to return moments later.
“Begging your pardon, Your Grace, but there is a visitor outside wishing to speak to you. I wouldn’t ordinarily, when you are at breakfast, but I think she is in some distress. It is Lady Isabella Merrick.”
Catherine frowned, putting down her toast and dabbing her mouth with a linen napkin.
“In distress? Then of course I will see her. Please see her in.”
