She felt the promising tightness in her low belly grow and grow, and she pushed up into his touch, seeking more sensation. He obliged her without hesitation, dipping two of his fingers inside her in a way that made her body stretch deliciously.
“Oh, my,” she said, and it was miles away from being enough.
Aaron moved, his fingers brushing against some place deep inside that lit her up like a Roman candle; she bucked furiously against his hand—once, twice—and then she was crashing over the precipice. Waves of pleasure carried her away; Aaron kept moving his hand within her, and it was only when the feeling began to ebb that she felt his attention shift to the way he was rubbing emphatically against her hand.
She gathered her reserves just enough to caress him with more intention, and he fell off his own cliff with a shout, his forehead pressing into her shoulder, her neck muffling his shout of pleasure. The rapid pace of his breaths rivaled the frantic racing of her heart.
Phoebe thought that perhaps she could have lain there forever, his weight pleasant atop her, her fingers carding through his hair—when had she started doing that? Except it only took a few minutes after they had both enjoyed their crises that the howling winter wind outside began to make itself known again, and the temperature in the carriage dropped with staggering rapidity.
“Aaron,” she said gently, using her grip on his hair to guide him to look up at her. “We can’t stay here. We’ll freeze.”
He blinked at her, and it occurred to her that this was the softest she had ever seen him look. He looked younger. Less burdened.
Then he sighed heavily, and it made him look like his regular self again. He seemed as reluctant to pull himself off as Phoebe was to let him go, but her body was beginning to prickle again, this time with an unpleasant chill. The whole gown-ripping businesshad been remarkably arousing—she considered the garment to have died the noblest of deaths—but it did not make for a warm covering after the fact.
“Yes, I suppose you’re right,” he said, reaching to cover her with her cloak again, which did provide some warmth at least. “Perhaps one of these times we might want to consider trying a bed.”
She smiled, encouraged by the fact that he was joking with her. It emboldened her to reach out and grasp his hand in hers.
“I like this side of you,” she confessed. It felt like a dangerous thing to say; physical attraction was one thing, but admitting that she liked her husband, even in some small way, revealed an entirely different part of herself.
“The part that makes you climax so hard you practically launched off this bench?” he asked playfully. It was a distraction, Phoebe realized. He, too, understood that matters of the flesh were far less personal than matters of the heart.
Not that herheartwas involved. She said that shelikedhim. That was entirely a matter of the mind.
“The side that relaxes,” she corrected him with a hint of censure in her tone, but not enough to put up his hackles. “The side that shows it when you’re feeling relaxed.”
He didn’t respond quickly, and she wondered if she had overstepped despite her best efforts.
But then he sighed, and it was a sigh that sounded more defeated than anything else.
“I know that would be… easier,” he said, and she could tell, from the way his voice sounded, that he was gazing out toward the window, turning his face as far from her as he could within this confined space. “But if I let my defenses down… it’s dangerous.”
Phoebe closed her eyes against the sudden prickle of tears that fought toward the surface. She clutched her cloak more tightly around her for emotional comfort rather than warmth.
“I don’t understand,” she admitted, and it was the most honest thing she could say. “I mean, who is going to attack you in polite society? I cannot imagine that you are worried about facing the cut direct.”
There was no humor to his single, short bark of laughter.
“No,” he agreed. “But a duke can have many enemies. And that is doubly true for a duke who is connected to the Lightholder family.”
There was a hardness to his words, as though he was repeating something that he held so dear that it had become not only truth but a sort of personal gospel. She did not think herself qualified to even attempt to shake his faith in it.
But she was stubborn, and she felt quite ravenous for more moments like this one, moments that wouldstay, not vanish as quickly as the warmth in the carriage could be snatched away by the season. Even now, she was starting to shiver. Their time here was running short.
“Maybe,” she said, a pleading note in her words, “a duke who makes alliances in Society, who opens himself up to others—maybe that duke has more friends than enemies. And that’s a form of safety, isn’t it?”
He made a frustrated noise, and his words held a clear note of anger when he spoke.
“You don’t understand, Phoebe. I’m finished discussing it.”
“Really?” she demanded, sitting bolt upright, any languor from their encounter entirely vanished. “That’s it? You just decide I can’t understand, and that’s the end of it?”
“I’m yourhusband.”
“You’re a brute,” she snapped. The words hung between them, and she couldn’t be certain if she should regret them or not.
“Maybe,” Aaron agreed. “But that brutishness will keep me safe—will keepussafe.”
