Page 115 of Caught By the Ruthless Duke
The word unlocked something in him, and she saw the moment his control fractured, replaced by raw need.
He released her hands to strip away any remaining clothing, returning with nothing between them but heat and want. His weight settled over her, his thigh nudging hers apart.
Cressida wrapped her legs around his hips. She felt him against her entrance, hard and ready, and then he slid home in one smooth thrust that punched the air from her lungs.
“God.” Theodore pressed his forehead against hers, his breathing ragged.
“Don’t stop.” Her nails dug into his shoulders as she squirmed beneath him. “Please don’t stop.”
He moved with purpose, each stroke hitting depths that made her cry out. His hand slipped between them, finding the sensitive bundle of nerves that made thought impossible.
Cressida gasped, her body tightening as pleasure built with devastating speed.
“Look at me.” Theodore’s command was rough. “I want to see you.”
She forced her eyes open, meeting his gaze as he drove into her. The intensity there—possession and love and desperate need—pushed her over the edge. Pleasure crashed through her in waves as she climaxed.
Theodore followed moments later, his control finally breaking as he buried himself deep with a groan that sounded like prayer and profanity combined. She felt him pulse inside her, felt the heat of his release.
He collapsed against her, careful even in exhaustion, his face pressed into the curve of her neck while they both struggled to catch their breath. Cressida’s hands stroked his back, feeling the perspiration there, feeling the rapid hammering of his heart gradually slow.
“I love you,” he said against her skin.
“I love you too.” She kissed his temple. “So much it terrifies me sometimes.”
He pushed up on his elbows to look at her. “Good terrified or bad terrified?”
“Good terrified. The kind that makes me grateful I get to feel this at all.”
Theodore rolled onto his side, taking her with him, his hand splaying possessively across her lower back. “Stay. Just like this.”
“Always,” she promised.
Later, they lay tangled in the moonlight, her head on his chest, his hand resting on her stomach.
“Do you think about it? The future?”
“Constantly.” His fingers traced patterns on her skin. “A little girl with your eyes. A boy with your stubbornness.”
“My stubbornness?”
“You’re the most stubborn woman I’ve ever met. It’s one of the things I love most about you.”
She smiled against his chest. “Good. Because I’m not planning to change.”
“I wouldn’t want you to.”
They drifted into comfortable silence, the kind that came from knowing each other completely. No walls between them now. No secrets. Just warmth and trust and the extraordinary life they were building together.
“Cressida?”
“Hmm?”
“Thank you. For not giving up on me. For seeing past all my defenses.”
“You were always worth it.” She kissed him softly. “Even when you were impossibly stubborn.”
“Stubborn?”
“Yes. Terribly. But I can tolerate it.”
His laugh rumbled beneath her ear. “How generous.”
A summer breeze drifted through the open windows. Inside, wrapped in each other and in certainty, they simply breathed together.
The future stretched ahead, unknown but not frightening. Whatever came, they would face it together.
And that, Cressida thought as sleep pulled her under, was everything.
The End?
