Page 69 of Atone, Adonis

She arched up toward him so he could undo the fastenings and stays of her gown. It was not the smoothest of endeavors—his fingers were large and the clasps maddeningly small—but she delighted in his awkwardness. Because this moment between them now was new and special for them both. It was theirs and no one else’s.

And how she treasured it. How she treasured him. She felt it keenly when he had stripped her down to her chemise and stood there staring at her like a man who had been starved for precisely this—precisely her—every day of his life. Like a man for whom she was not merely wanted, but necessary. Like a man who had done nothing less than yearn for her.

Her attempts to help him undress were just as clumsy and he seemed to mind as little as she did. “What do you want now?” she asked and he tugged her to the bedchamber.

“Lie with me, Jules. Just lie with me.”

Fred lay down on the bed and pulled his wife into his arms. He kissed her and kissed her and kissed her some more for what felt like hours. When it became too frenzied, tongues thrusting against each other, moans coming long and loud, one or the other of them slowed it down. As if they were in agreement that this, for now, was enough.

That this was bliss. One he would have been certain was unavailable to him only two months before. Eventually, they fell asleep and Fred felt lighter than he had in years with his wife wrapped in his arms. Not cleansed exactly, not untainted, but as if he could be one day if he stayed on this route. If he kept trusting his wife and himself, kept putting himself forward as bravely as she did.

Because he was beginning to think that his years of celibacy following that awful night of the carriage had been about more than penance or grief. They had been an instinctive attempt to reclaim what the Baroness had never had the right to take. But perhaps he’d been going about it in the wrong way. And it was time to do better than that for himself and for his wife.

Fred woke first to the soft glow of evening settling across the room. It had been too warm for a fire earlier but he felt the chill of the evening beginning to settle over them now. And the noises of London outside the window had muted into the distant rattle of carriage wheels and the muffle of voices. For one disoriented moment he simply lay there, warm and heavy with sleep, his wife still curled against his chest.

His wife.

The thought moved through him with the same dangerous tenderness it always did. Julianna made a soft sound against his shoulder and shifted closer in her sleep, one leg sliding over his. He held her closer, thinking that she must be cold. And soon, hungry. His own stomach was already beginning to rumble.

He brushed a curl back from her cheek carefully, unwilling to wake her too soon. Her dark lashes rested against her skin. And her mouth—still slightly swollen from his kisses—parted softly on an exhale. He smiled to himself at the sight of those plum-colored lips and the thought of how he’d kissed them and kissed them until they’d both fallen asleep like a pair of lovestruck fools.

He felt his erection grow heavier beneath the linens and he forced himself to carefully ease his way out from beneath her sleeping form. He would feed her before he would do anything else.

But Jules still stirred, no matter how quietly he tried to move. “Where are you going?” she asked. The huffy, irritated quality to her voice made him smile.

“I’m calling down for supper, Jules.”

“Hmph,” she murmured sleepily. “Come back to bed.”

He leaned down to kiss her cheek and in just another moment he could hear a light snore coming from her lips.

“I’ll always come back,” he whispered, even though he knew she was sleeping.

They were in her bedchamber, not his, so he exited quickly to find a dressing gown and order their supper to be prepared. When the footman arrived with it, he met the man outside and took the tray himself, setting it on the small table in the antechamber before he stoked the fire. And then, when all was ready, he woke Jules.

“Your dinner is here,” he said, letting his fingers trail up and down her shoulder. He only managed to coax a sleepy smile from her, so he leaned down and whispered, “Jules. Wake up, dearheart.”

She finally opened her eyes and turned to him, the last of the evening’s golden light washing over her. For a moment neither of them spoke but Fred could feel the quiet hum of awareness between them again—it had been there for weeks now.

“Come,” he said. “Eat.”

She settled on the floor by the fire and he sat beside her, marveling at the pink flush of her cheeks, the long dark curtain of her hair. A tidal wave of satisfaction washed over him to see her here, in Chester House, by his side.

She lifted her hand and touched his face lightly. “Hello, husband,” she murmured.

And he felt that burden inside him ease just a bit more. Or, no, that wasn’t quite right. He felt himself excavate another chunk of that burden from the dark buried place inside him where he kept it. And then he very deliberately set it down outside of himself. That was, he realized, how he’d have to do it: piece by ugly piece.

Fred held her gaze for a long moment before pressing a kiss into the center of her palm. Then he uncovered the dishes that rested beneath silver domes, beside a bottle of wine and a basket of still-warm bread carefully wrapped in linen to keep it so.

There was a thick onion soup fragrant with thyme. Roast chicken glazed in butter. Late peas, bright as emeralds, and little potatoes drenched in cream.

“Finally,” Fred said with satisfaction as he uncorked the wine and poured them both a glass. “That damned woman has made enough food.”

“I imagine it’s harder to keep you sated than you think it is.” Julianna tucked her feet beneath herself and reached for a piece of bread to dip into the soup.

“Hardly,” he said before his voice dropped low. “It’s only you I can’t get my fill of.”

And this time it was Julianna who held out the morsel of bread to him. “Is that so? Well eat this for a start and then let’s see where the evening takes us.”