He shuddered as Emma’s climax pulsed around his rock-hard shaft. Her slick muscles clutched at him, the voluptuous massage drawing his bollocks up tight. He withdrew and drove deep, her cream easing his way. Driven by an animal need to possess, he slammed into her over and again.
“You feel so bluidy perfect,” he grated.
“Oh, Alaric,” she sighed, “so do you.”
“I could fuck you forever.”
“Good, because I don’t want you to stop…” Her lashes fluttered over her gloriously dazed eyes. “I think I’m going to…oh…”
She stiffened, and the tides of her second climax rippled over him, making his eyes roll back with bliss. In the next second, he had her on the floor, spreading her beneath him on the mattress of sand. Pushing her knees back, he drove into her, groaning at the depth of the angle, at how totally she received him.
“Take me,” he said between serrated breaths. “All of me.”
“I’m yours.” Her beautiful eyes held him as sweetly as her body. “Forever.”
Her acceptance shredded his control. His balls slapped her pussy again and again as he lost himself in the unrivaled joy of being one with his wife. The mate to his soul. Fire licked up his spine, his cock, and his seed climbed with volatile pressure. This time he didn’t hold back, surging deeply, shuddering as he brushed her womb. He heard her cry out and then his own groan exploded against the walls of the cavern.
He pumped hotly into her again and again, his release without end. She clasped him, milked him, her culmination emptying him of everything he’d been. Shattering and rebuilding him with ecstasy.
When he could move again, he rolled her atop him. Threading his fingers reverently through her tumbled tresses, he let out a contented sigh. “You were made for me, lass. Everything I’ve ever wanted.”
A smile tucked into her cheeks. “You wanted a duchess who makes love in caves?”
“I wanted a wife to love.” Tenderly, he rubbed his thumb over her kiss-swollen lips. “One who would love me in return.”
“You’ve definitely got yourself that.”
“Don’t ever leave me.”
“Never,” she said.
Her kiss was as warm and sweet as her promise, dissolving the last of the frost inside him.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
The dowager arrived from London the next morning with luggage and servants in tow. Emma received her in the castle’s main salon and placed a dutiful kiss on the lady’s powdery cheek. After ringing for tea, she took a seat on the adjacent chaise.
“Where is Strathaven?” the dowager said immediately.
“He’s caught up in a meeting with the land manager. He’ll be out shortly.”
“Well, you two have been naughty children,”—Lady Patrice wagged her finger, the rust-red stone upon it gleaming dully—“but I forgive you. Impetuosity is the privilege of the young.”
“There was no sense in waiting,” Emma said prosaically. “We both knew what we wanted.”
Lady Patrice studied her with alert blue eyes. “One can’t blame you for jumping at the chance to be a duchess.”
Annoyance flared in Emma. “That isn’t why I married him.”
“Why then?”
“I love him,” Emma said, “and he loves me.”
“Well, that is a different story. One that I hope shall not be a repeat of Strathaven’s last marriage.” Shadows flitted through the dowager’s gaze.
Emma’s irritation waned. Lady Patrice was just being protective of Alaric. Knowing Alaric’s past as she now did, however, Emma found that she couldn’t quite forgive the dowager for failing to protect a vulnerable boy from the old duke’s abuses. Yet what good would it do to hold a grudge against an elderly lady?
“I will do my utmost to make Alaric happy,” Emma said.
