“Even though there wasn’t any snow?” he prodded.
She let her forehead fall against his shoulder. “Why did you remind me?” she lamented.
His chuckle made his whole body shake with mirth.
“I’m sorry, my love,” he said, and this time she was the one shaking with a shiver of happiness. She didn’t think she would ever tire of hearing him refer to her that way.
“I suppose I have no choice but to be fine with it,” she said. “Since you’re not in charge of the weather and all that.”
“I’m good at other things,” he said in that low, seductive voice that made Phoebe’s body awaken automatically at this point.
She lifted her head and peered into his intense gaze.
“Oh?”
His smile was crooked. “Indeed. So good, in fact, that I bet you’ll forgive me for the mess with the weather.”
She feigned doubt, twisting her mouth to the side. “I don’t know,” she said. “That sounds like a significant hurdle.”
Aaron rose, as always, to the challenge. In a swift movement, he reached his arms down so that one looped down around her waist, and then, with a sweep, his other arm came around her knees, so he was carrying her.
“Aaron!” she exclaimed in a shriek that she only just managed to contain. “We have guests.”
“They’re in bed,” he countered, striding across the empty ballroom. “Which is exactly where we are going to be just as soon as I can get us there.”
Phoebe found that she had no arguments with that. And besides, what if someone did witness them? She’d never much cared for her reputation anyway.
So, let them talk, she thought as she let her husband carry her out of the room, stealing kisses as he went. Let them all say that the Duke and Duchess of Redcliff were absurdly in love with one another.
It was true, after all. And it was precisely the kind of reputation both she and Aaron would be pleased to have.
The risk-seeking part of Phoebe, the devilish part that had snuck out to countless events that she truly ought not have attended alone, was the teeniest, tiniest bit sorry that nobody saw them as they traveled up to their bedchamber.
That was fine. She and Aaron would merely have to flaunt their love in public in another way. She would nobly bear that sacrifice.
Besides, it was hard to be bothered by much when her husband was tossing her onto their bed hard enough to make her bounce.
She scowled up at him, though the gesture was more playful than anything else. They’d been through this before.
“Must you?” she demanded.
He grinned, as he always did.
“You can’t even pretend that you don’t like it when I do that,” he taunted, and damn her, she couldn’t.
“It’s just that you’re a very impressive war hero, and anyone would be thrilled by it,” she groused. “It’s not a personal weakness.Anyonewould be affected.”
He pushed her back onto the bed, and she let herself be toppled.
“And here I was thinking it was a personal strength,” he teased, kissing her mouth, then her jaw, then her throat.
“Mine or yours?” she managed before letting out a low, thrilled moan.
“Hm, we can share it,” he said. “What’s yours is mine, and all that.”
“Oh, have it your way, then,” she returned, though it no longer sounded anything like complaint. It sounded like an invitation…and she was absolutely fine with that.
They had become wonderfully adept at taking off one another’s clothing, and they put those skills to good use in moments like these, moments where they couldn’t wait a single moment to have each other, where it didn’t matter that they had all their lives together.
