My Last Duchess, стр. 44
Making itself known with trembling intensity and a stream of inarticulate words, some of them profane.
Hugo braced himself and thrust forward, and her body melted in a confusion of grateful pleasure that rushed through her likerivers of fire. She closed her eyes and let her hands run down his muscled back all the way to his arse, loving the way thathe trembled under her fingers.
She didn’t even realize that she was babbling until Hugo laughed and said, “I never would have imagined you were so vocal.And so obscene.”
She blinked at him, hurt burning down her spine as fiercely as desire had, and so she saw the moment that he realized what he’d just said and added, “No. Oh, shite, no. I didn’t mean it that way.”
“Um,” Ophelia said, suddenly incredibly aware of the fact that her legs were bound around him as if she—
She unwound herself and put her feet back on the bed. “I’m not usually . . .”
“Oh, God, Phee.” There was a rasp in his voice that she liked. “Please don’t take offense. I’m an idiot.”
He had stopped moving, and she had stopped moving, so now they lay together awkwardly, and Ophelia, for one, felt frozen.
She cleared her throat. “I apologize for the profanity.”
“Fuck that,” he said, breaking the obscene still life they’d created by thrusting again.
Desperate herself, Ophelia responded with a squeak and a swallowed word.
“Give me your hands.”
Bemused, she brought her arms down to the bed and bent her elbows so that their fingers could entwine. Then Hugo started kissingher so deeply that even if she had thought of words, there was no air to speak them. His body took on a rhythm that made passionquake down her legs and press tighter against him.
“Here,” he said, when she’d almost lost control of herself, but not quite. He uncurled his right hand, reached back, and pulledher knee up. Her pelvis tilted and she helplessly let out a broken sound.
“Put your legs around me,” he growled into her mouth.
She did, and it changed the angle so that she was breathless, suddenly mad, shaking all over. She managed to keep her mouthshut, though, until he suddenly stopped and put his lips on hers.
“Please, Phee.”
“Please, what?”
Their hands had fallen apart and she was clinging to him again.
“Talk to me,” he growled. “Please talk to me.”
She was sweaty and shaking. She wanted to come more than she had . . . well, forever. Instead of talking she kissed him andlet her hips talk, but then he began moving faster, and her head fell back.
Tension was building and building and she wasn’t sure when she started talking again, but she registered the joyous glintin his eyes. Then they were both gasping for air, trembling violently, and she was pushing against him with all the strengthin her body.
And then the world exploded around them with a fiery intensity that she, for one, had never experienced.
“Bloody hell,” she whispered a while later.
“There’s my duchess,” he whispered back. “My last, wonderful, beloved, profane duchess.”
“Duchesses probably don’t curse.”
“Mine does.” He licked her cheekbone. “Sweats too. I’m so lucky, so damned lucky.”
Ophelia believed him, because the look in Hugo’s eyes wasn’t one she’d seen before, but her soul instantly welcomed it. “I’venever felt . . . said anything like that before,” she said, stumbling into an explanation that she suspected he didn’t need.
“Lucky me,” he whispered. “I suspect you know this, but I’m in love with you, Phee. And I’ve never used that sentence beforeeither. Dukes don’t swear.”
“In love?” she said, wonderingly. “I didn’t . . .”
“I am.”
“Me too,” she offered. “I love you too. I’m in love with you too. I will, I do.”
“I do, I will.”
Chapter Eighteen
At five in the morning, Lady Astley’s snug little house was silent. Hugo had the idea that he woke up simply due to the lackof noise. His townhouse was rarely silent; it was too full of children for that.
The castle was too old: It groaned and talked to itself; wind scoured across Lindow Moss, the bog that lay to the east ofthe castle, and then whistled through its turrets.
A moment later he realized that it wasn’t silence that had woken him but the patter of small feet. The door silently pushedopen and a small creature dressed in a white nightie ran directly to the bedside.
He glanced over at Ophelia. Thankfully, after the third time they made love, he had donned the nightshirt provided by thebutler, and Ophelia had pulled her nightgown back on, after which they had made the short journey from the guest bedchamberto Ophelia’s bedchamber next door.
For good reason, it seemed.
Viola stopped at the side of the bed and looked up at him. Soft brown curls made a halo for a sweet face, with hazel eyesand luxurious eyelashes.
You, his soul said.
You too.
It was the same feeling he had had after each newborn child was presented to him: the moment in which the world adjusted sothat his heart could recognize one of his tribe. One of his beloveds.
He put a finger to his lips. “Mama is sleeping,” he whispered.
Her bottom lip quivered. “Mama?”
“She’s right here.”
Viola nodded. “Go, snow, cake.” She held up her arms.
Hugo wasn’t certain of the etiquette of inviting small females to one’s bed, albeit future family members. He turned and droppeda kiss on Ophelia’s cheek.
“No,” she murmured. “Later, Viola.”
“Viola is here now,” he observed. “I don’t think she wants to wait until later.” Indeed, by the time he turned back, Violahad dragged a small set of steps from under the bed, climbed up, and was crawling across the coverlet toward her mother.
“Mama!” she cried joyously.
Ophelia turned over and pushed herself up on her pillow, shoving back a curtain of tangled silken strands of hair. “Sweetie,”she said sleepily.
Viola crawled onto Ophelia’s lap and leaned back, examining Hugo. “Snow,” she said. She turned to her side and nestled againsther mother, her thumb in her mouth.
“She recognizes you,” Ophelia said, beaming at him. “Yes, sweetie, he’s the gentleman whom we met the other day in the snow.”
“I should go,” Hugo said, swinging his legs over