Page 68 of The Duke of a Thousand Desires

“It isn’t a terrible secret,” she whispered.

“Thank you.”

“But it was terrible of you to keep it.”

“Will you forgive me?”

“I haven’t decided. Give me a year or so to mull it over. Perhaps you should do penance.”

“As long as you don’t leave me. Or ask me to leave.”

He rolled on top of her, his knee pressed between her thighs. She opened herself to him instinctively. His feverish kisses warned her there’d be no prelude to his dark play tonight. She draped her arm around his neck and pulled him down hard. Fire underlit her belly, and then she was burning with impatience to feel him melded to her. His mouth moved from hers to whisper in her ear. She wasn’t sure exactly what he said. His voice was a growl of urgency and promises.

Was there anything to forgive?

Moonlight and the man she adored -- her blood clamored in craving. His timing impeccable, not a trace of propriety to his name, he nudged her thighs further apart and drove into her sex. She dug her left heel into the mattress, locked the other around the small of his back, bracing herself. His first thrust took her breath and filled her body. The next emptied her mind.

Then bliss. She gripped, he gave, and greedy thing that she was, she took until he left her trembling and close to tears. She gloved him inside her as he splintered, shivers rippling across his stomach. She fought to breathe and stared up at him in silence, thinking back to all they’d shared.

“What is it?” he whispered, looking puzzled and sweet when moments before he had pounded her to a veritable pulp and turned their bed into a battleground.

“I don’t know. But -- ” She eased out from beneath him. His chest and shoulders felt warm to her touch. She was bathed in the scent of him, of uninhibited sex. “Why couldn’t Liam have chosen you? He handed me over to a weasel. I’d much rather have had a wolf like you from the beginning.”

“Questionable praise. Remind me to devour you after I wake up.” He turned onto his side, studying her with dark concern. “Your family trusted me. I couldn’t break that trust. When the opportunity presented itself to make you mine, I wasn’t about to lose you a second time.”

“How long would you have let me believe you’d only married me to satisfy honor?”

“Probably until Rhys forced my hand.” He leaned in for a deep kiss, his hand stroking a path down her arm to her wrist. “We were both afraid to tell you.”

“It’s the first time he’s kept a secret from me.”

“I’m your family now.”

They drifted into another silence, pulses slowing. Simon stirred.

“Did you love him?” he asked.

“David?” She frowned, resenting the intrusion of his name. “I believed so for a time. He seemed to be a gentleman -- thoughtful, true, and kind at heart. We weren’t together often enough to discover each other’s flaws, I suppose.”

He listened with a hooded expression. “And your current opinion?”

She ran her hands across his chest, respecting his need to understand. He was a solid man, strong in every meaning of the word. She knew why he had hidden his caring nature from others. He had been raised to rule. A duke could not show weakness to the many who looked up to him.

“David is a cad who pays more attention to other women than he ever did to me,” she said. “He’s patently disloyal and cruel to the core.”

He inhaled at her touch, his shoulders rolling in pleasure. “Blunt,” he said with a droll smile. “I admire that. What do you think of me?” he asked with an unflinching stare that went through her. “I know you’re incapable of dishonesty.”

She attempted to wriggle away from him until he pinned her down with his lower body to subdue her movements. Being imprisoned beneath her husband was a sweet domination she had scant desire to resist. And he loved her.

“I once thought you were a moody, complicated, and unfathomable man whose visits to the castle were the secret delight of my life. You filled me with fire and confusion.”

A reluctant laugh rumbled in his chest. “Now?”

“My opinion hasn’t changed in most regards.” She sucked in her breath as he shifted upward slightly to rub his heavy cock against her belly. “How am I to complete a sentence when I’m diverted by your prowess?” she said, her hips moving in frustration. “Do you want me to finish or not?”

“Please. I am fascinated. All ears.”

“Not below the waist,” she said dryly. “And I maintain my original opinion of you. The only difference between the past and today is that you are now my husband as well as my friend … and what I considered a threat to my well-being is what makes me the happiest I have ever been.”

He was quiet for some moments, absorbing all she had admitted. “I need you,” he said, holding her immobile now with only his voice. “I am not ashamed to confess it.”

“You aren’t a man easily brought to shame,” she agreed.

As if she demanded evidence of this, he entered her again in a deep thrust, muttering, “And you do love me.”

“I do,” she said, swallowing a gasp at the sensation of piercing sweetness she felt to her spine. “You know that.”

“Say it over and over until we fall asleep. My God, Ravenna, I have never been this hard.”

“Romantic,” she said with a breathless laugh.

The large hand he had hooked beneath her bottom lifted her higher. He filled her to overflowing, pleasured her without restraint, his secret -- his longing for her, body and soul -- revealed.

“I love you -- ” She choked back a cry, doubting she would sleep at all. If she did, she would dream about a duke who had desired her for years and she would wake up wondering why he’d hidden his love away when it was obvious she had been meant to be his.