Page 109 of A Baby for the Duke

“Say that again.”

“You were right. I would not have understood a word of it that night, but I understand it now.” He looked into her eyes. “Are you certain?”

“I am going to strike you.”

“Are you certain, Leonora?”

“Yes,” she said. “Yes. Now, please.”

CHAPTER 39

He was careful with her, which she had expected, and slow, which she had not.

He entered her inch by inch, watching her face the whole time, with one forearm braced beside her head and his other hand under the small of her back, angling her up to him. She hissed at the stretch, which she was not proud of, and he stopped at once.

He stayed still with his forehead pressed against her shoulder, his whole body shaking from the effort. He did not move again until she had caught her breath and pulled him down.

“All right?”

“Do not stop.”

“Leonora.”

“I am telling you not to stop,” she pressed. “You have never once in five weeks failed to do exactly as I say, and I would be extremely disappointed if you started now.”

So he did not stop.

It was strange for a while, and then it was not strange, and somewhere in between she stopped bracing and began to move with him, and discovered that this altered everything.

“Slower,” she said at one point, and he slowed his pace. “Not that slow.”

“You are going to have to decide, wife.”

“I am one-and-twenty, I have been married for five weeks, and I have no notion of what I want,” Leonora said. “You are going to have to bear with me.”

“I have no one else in the world I would rather bear with.”

With that, Colin slid his arm further under her, and she stopped issuing instructions.

Then it changed.

It stopped being anything either of them was managing.

Leonora had read a great many books in a great many window seats, and not one of them had mentioned that it would be so close, that she would feel his breath on her face and his hand under her shoulder and the whole ruined side of his face at four inches, and that she would be able to watch him lose control.

“Look at me,” she breathed.

He looked at her.

“There.” She cupped the scarred side of his face in her palm, and he turned his head and pressed his lips to it.

The pleasure built the way weather built, and this time there was nothing patient in it at all.

Her heels dug into the back of his thighs. Her hands trailed down his shoulders and pressed flat against his back, and she felt everything he did travel up through her palms. He slid his hand under her knee at some point and changed the angle, and the world went briefly white at the edges.

“Colin!”

“There,” he panted against her ear. “There. Again.”