Her cheeks turned even rosier. Thaddeus marked the fact that she had silently accepted their future together. “Have you looked at the two of us joined?”
She shook her head, a lock of damp golden hair falling over her forehead.
Tenderly he pushed it behind her ear, and then pulled away, sliding partly out of her. She came up on her elbows and looked down her body.
His tool was dark red and stiff, and they watched together as he pulled all the way to the broad crown, then stroked slowly forward, parting the tuft of buttery curls that protected her. A rough sound broke from her throat as he breached her, and he grunted in response, pulling back again and thrusting forward a trifle faster. “Do you like that?” he rasped.
“Bloody hell,” Joan whispered, her eyes fixed on his rod. She bent her knees and arched up. “Oh.” She blinked.
“Better?”
He pulled back again, bringing his free hand to her nipple in a rough caress, and then timed a pinch to a deep thrust. “Watch,” he growled. Her eyes flew back to where they were joined.
Her mouth opened, so he raised his free hand and rubbed a finger along her lush lips, then tucked it inside. “Lick,” he commanded.
She sucked, her eyes heavy-lidded, and he had to take a harsh breath and regain control. Then he ran his finger down her silky cleft, pausing over a swollen nub masked by curls to swirl his finger.
Her hips strained up to him involuntarily, and her eyes flew from where they were joined, to his face. “Thaddeus,” she said. “Please, Thaddeus.” She stopped biting her lip. “Could you come deeper?”
Could he?
Damned right he could.
He dipped his head again and kissed her. “Not too tender?” he asked huskily. She shook her head wordlessly. “Are you sure?”
She gave him a look. She was a born duchess, and duchesses knew what they wanted.
Thaddeus pulled back again and then thrust until their bodies joined as deeply as possible, his rod buried in her heat. He sucked in another breath.
“Yes,” Joan panted. Her eyes were blissful.
He pulled back, thrust again, starting an insistent rhythm that threatened to destroy his control. Threatened to?
Did.
Joan’s knees pressed against his sides as she arched again, urging him on. Her hands slipped above her head, and she clenched his arms. “More, Thaddeus,” she commanded. “More.”
He bit back a smile. “Joan.”
“Yes?” she whispered. “Is there something I should do?” She ran her hand down his back and onto his bottom, making him shake. “You like that,” she said in a pleased voice.
His answer was a dazed grunt accompanied by a forceful thrust that made her eyes glaze with pleasure and hands fly back to his arms. “I love how thick you are,” she gasped.
Thaddeus managed to grin, even as he clenched his teeth. “I have heard a complaint once or twice, so I’m glad to hear it.”
She somehow managed to turn even brighter rose. “I didn’t mean!” Her fingers curled into his biceps. “I meant—” But she gasped as he plunged into her. “I like that.”
Her smile went to his heart.
“Joan,” he growled.
“Hmm?” She was near, her eyes wide, her brow dewy, her fingers biting into his arms. “This is me, claiming you,” he grunted, the ungentlemanly words slipping out of him. At this moment, he wasn’t a duke. He wasn’t a nobleman at all.
He was a man, a sweaty, panting man, making love for the first time in his life.
Joan’s eyes fluttered half open. “I’ll claim you later,” she gasped. She tightened on him and threw her head back, a throaty scream breaking from her throat.
Thaddeus’s heart almost stopped from gratitude.
He swallowed hard and dropped to his elbows, bucking into her once, twice, then exploding as her body pulsed around him.
While he was trying to catch his breath, Joan’s hands slipped from his arms, fingers caressing the marks left by her grip, and wrapped around his neck. He opened his eyes, dazed, almost dizzy, sleepy, loving.
Hers were glinting at him, shining. Not sleepy. “How soon can we do that again?”
His tool twitched, signaling its willingness. “Five minutes for a second bout, ten for a third.”
Joan captured his mouth with her own, her lips lingering on his, eyes open. “I see. Thaddeus?”
He was half erect already; in some distant part of his mind he wondered if he would have to go through life hiding an erection every time his wife said his name.
“Yes?”
Her smile covered her whole face. “This is me claiming you,” she whispered.
Thaddeus looked down at her steadily. “’Til death do us part.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Do we have to be so grim?” Her brows drew together. “Because of your father?”
“It gives one a reminder of mortality,” Thaddeus said. “Damn it.”
Joan raised an eyebrow.
“How am I going to preserve my righteous anger against my sire, since he taught me what matters most in life?”
Her body went still under him. “Not . . . me?”
“You. You, Joan. With your breeches, and your joy, and your wit. The way you playact through life, making everyone laugh with you. The fact that you can’t sing. The fact that I have never felt as possessive about anything in the world, including my title. Don’t tell me that our children won’t be terribly naughty because I’m certain they will be.”
She didn’t say anything, her eyes fixed on his. “Are you . . . are you saying—”
“That I love you?” He kissed her nose. “I love you, Lady Joan, the best Wilde of all, the wildest of the Prussian offspring that might exist in the world, the perfect gentlewoman, the best Duchess of Eversley.”
“I gather we’re at a crossroads,” Joan said.
Thaddeus shook his head, certain of her. “You claimed me, remember?” He moved to lie on his side next to her, one hand curved over her hip.
“In the heat of the moment.” But she was smiling. “On that subject, who knew that ‘doing’ was so hot and sweaty? And”—she peered down her body—“messy?”
Thaddeus took a fold of sheet and gently patted between her legs. Getting up, he poured water into the basin and washed himself. Then he threw it out the window, and brought over fresh water and a linen towel. “My lady?”
“I can do it myself,” Joan said, looking embarrassed.
“Please?”
She nodded.
Thaddeus washed her with the same fierce attention he brought to almost everything in his life, washing a blur of blood from her inside thigh, making certain every fold was clean, rinsing the towel and then washing her beneath, below . . . everything.
They could have no secrets from each other. He smiled when he saw Joan turn red. “I am a perfectionist,” he told her. “I am looking at perfection.”
“I see,” Joan said, wiggling because he tucked a dry towel under her bottom and started dripping water down her cleft, drop by drop. “Why are you doing that?”
“For fun. When you are aroused, your cunny turns plump and even pinker,” he said, with all the gravity of a schoolmaster. He touched her gently. Her eyes turned smoky and she fell back against the pillows.