Chapter 29

"We are not to be disturbed, Toynton," Aaron pronounced as soon as they were through the front door and had listened with as much patience as they could to the butler's expressions of good wishes and relief over their safe return. "The Duchess is well, but she must rest after the ordeal."

Aaron squeezed her hand meaningfully, and Dorothy smiled to herself, knowing that rest was the last thing on either of their minds at this moment.

"Of course, Your Grace." Toynton bowed his head. "I will see to it that there is no disruption."

Ignoring the state of Dorothy's dress and hair, the butler turned away discreetly to hang her cloak while the Duke and Duchess lost no time in heading upstairs.

They had been unable to keep their hands off one another all the way home, and there had been points in the park where Dorothy half expected Aaron to carry her into some thicket and have his way with her her right there and then. Nor would she have protested if he had suggested or initiated such a course of action…

After the first flight of stairs, Aaron lifted her into his arms and carried her the rest of the way to his rooms.

"Do you remember how I carried you in here on our wedding day?" he asked breathlessly. "I want you even more now than I did then."

"Oh, I remember," Dorothy answered, kissing his neck and breathing in his masculine scent, a little heavier than usual with his exertions that morning and yet more arousing to her than ever. "I was afraid that day, you know, but I wanted you so badly, without even knowing entirely what I wanted."

"My Duchess," he said, kissing her tenderly as they reached the door. "I knew what you wanted, even if you did not. But tell me what you want now. How should I make love to you today?"

Dorothy took a long breath as they entered his bedroom, her excitement and anticipation even stronger at this moment than they had been before that first experience of sexual congress on their wedding day. She wanted everything.

"I want to be in your arms like this, Aaron," she said. "I want to feel safe and protected, but also like my blood is singing. I want to be kissed, stroked, and ravished by you repeatedly. I want to lose all control in the depths of your eyes…"

Dorothy was answered only by a passionate kiss that seemed to melt her very bones. Finally setting her down on her feet, Aaron turned the key in the lock and then looked up at her with narrowed eyes and a lustful blue gaze.

"God help anyone who disturbs us now."

Dorothy had no idea how long they remained closeted together in the ducal suite that day. Time had no meaning when Aaron was removing her clothes and kissing every inch of her exposed skin, murmuring his love as he rediscovered her body and all its soft and sensitive places.

Her joyful excitement had risen as she uncovered his strongly muscled and dark hair-smattered body, feeling in some ways as though she were touching him for the first time. Maybe she was. Aaron seemed to have opened up to her now in some new way, finally breaking down all his walls and letting her approach him.

"I am yours, my Duchess," he had breathed as though reading her mind, as Dorothy ran her hands over his torso and the long, clean lines of his hips, buttocks, and thighs. "As you are mine…"

With hands, lips and tongues, they had laid claim to one another's bodies at length, Aaron showing her how they could even accomplish this at the same time, lying alongside one another in opposite directions. He had withdrawn himself from her lips before she could send him over the edge, hushing her protest and continuing his intimate kisses until she cried out with ecstasy.

Then came the long, slow dance of mutual fulfillment for which Aaron had saved himself. His thrusts into her core were slow and measured at first, containing his arousal while allowing hers to rebuild after her first peak.

In response to his wife's conscious and unconscious urgings, Aaron's movements gradually grew faster and less controlled until he was riding her with deep, animalistic grunts of pleasure, burying the full length of his engorged manhood in her tight, throbbing heat while rubbing against the center of her pleasure with each thrust.

Through the fevered physical exhilaration and pleasure of the act, Dorothy briefly thought again of the stallion who had once run away with her as a girl. Aaron was like that horse, not really wild or dangerous, only strong and willful in his excitement, his movements thrilling and impossible to resist.

When she peaked a second time, she wondered if she had fainted, seeming to come back to herself lying with her head on Aaron's chest and her hand over his now softened shaft, while he kissed her head and murmured his love in her ear.

It was his hand that Aaron had used next to stir and then stimulate her, teasing her thighs and kissing her breasts before his fingers set about exploring the stickiness of her folds. Gradually, curiosity became intention, and gentle caresses became rhythmic stroking. Before she knew it, Dorothy was crying out joyfully a third time, as Aaron penetrated her pulsating depths and filled her to the hilt.

They washed and re-dressed afterwards at a leisurely pace, still enjoying the prolonged physical contact as they sponged one another with cool water and soft soap in the washroom, brushed out one another's hair, and pressed kisses to bare flesh before it was covered once more with fabric.

The clock in Aaron's private sitting room showed that it was after three o'clock in the afternoon. They had been locked away up here for almost five hours and had certainly missed luncheon, but it was now time to rejoin the world.

"Let us go to the drawing room and order some tea," Aaron suggested, taking her arm as they left the bedroom. "I expect my mother will be taking her nap by now, and Miss Hughes will have sent those boys home so we can have a few more hours to ourselves before dinner."

Dorothy nodded gladly and descended the stairs on his arm, feeling as though she were glowing with contentment, inside and out. In the drawing room, the sunlight was spilling in through the French windows, making pools of gold on the carpets and lighting up the paintings on the walls.

"This is the place where I first laid eyes on you," she reminded him with a smile. "I was standing over there, looking at your parents' portrait, and then you came in through the door and started telling me off. I never would have believed at that moment that you would be my husband."

Aaron returned her smile, although lowering his head self-consciously as he did so. "I can't believe that was less than a month ago."

"It feels like years, doesn't it?" Dorothy commented, having walked over to his parents' portrait and pausing where she had stood at the moment of their first encounter.

"Was I really so very awful?" Aaron asked, coming over to join her before the painting.

"You were," Dorothy confirmed. "Like a bear with a sore head, but a very handsome bear whom I later came to realize had many other redeeming features…"

He laughed at this description and put his arms about her waist. "I have redeeming features? Do tell."

"Your kindness, your fairness, and your determination… Also, I have discovered that you are as handsome naked as you are in your clothing, Aaron," Dorothy said approvingly, turning in his arms to adjust his stock and smooth a slight wrinkle from the dark blue silk waistcoat she had selected for him upstairs.

"Is that so?" Aaron smiled, the happiness on his face going all the way up to his blue, blue eyes, now tinged with unusual mischief. "I think I find you most beautiful when you are naked if I am being honest. No matter how elegant your dress is, I don't think I can look at your clothing without thinking of how I might most easily disorder or remove it."

"Aaron Clark, Duke of Dawford!" Dorothy said in mock-reproof to her husband's words, while gazing at him with adoration that matched the expression on his face.

Glancing upwards, she realized that it was also the same happy, loving expression on the faces of his parents, painted so many decades ago.

"We should have our portrait taken," Aaron said, following her gaze. "If that would please you, Dorothy Clark, Duchess of Dawford?"

"It would please me very much," Dorothy agreed and drew down his lips to her own.