Page 130 of Claiming His Forgotten Duchess

“I think I have a very good idea,” she countered, a small, triumphant smile curving her lips. She leaned in, nipping at his lower lip before soothing it with her tongue.

“You are magnificent,” he rasped, his eyes locking onto hers with a look of raw, unfiltered adoration. “So bold.”

One of his hands remained firmly at the small of her back, anchoring her against the hard, slick planes of his chest. His other hand moved with a torturous slowness, his fingers grazing the sensitive, aching peaks of her nipples. The friction of his thumb sent a shiver of pure sensation spiraling down her spine to pool in her lower belly.

It was staggering—the cool, damp air of the greenhouse and the splash of tepid water created a sharp, electric contrast to the pulsing, scorching warmth of his touch.

“Tell me what you want, Diana,” he whispered, his voice vibrating through her very marrow. “I am yours.”

“I want you to stop being so patient,” she whispered back, her fingers digging into his shoulders. “Now. I need you now.”

He smiled against her skin and lifted her. Using the edge of the pool to support her, he drove inside her in one smooth,devastating thrust. The sensation was overwhelming; the slick, hot weight of him entering her filled every hollow place she had ever known.

He made love to her with an agonizingly beautiful intensity.

“You feel incredible,” he groaned into the hollow of her neck, his breath scorching her skin. “So tight… so perfect for me. Look at me, Diana. I want to see you when you break.”

He pinned her against the cool stone, his powerful thighs bracketing around hers as they moved in a rhythmic harmony that turned the water into a storm around them.

Each thrust was a slow burn, a claim that pushed Diana further from the shore of her own sanity. She clung to his shoulders, her skin slick and salt-tasting, her shoulders against the cool stone.

“That’s it, sweetheart,” he praised, his voice a jagged thread of sound. “Take it all.”

She felt him shaking, his muscles corded and straining with the effort of his restraint, his green eyes locked onto hers with a look of such profound, naked love that it made her heart ache. Every surge of his hips pushed her closer to a shimmering ledge of gold and fire. The tension coiled in her belly until it was a living thing.

The world shattered into a thousand brilliant fragments of light.

Diana felt the world dissolve into a hazy, golden blur, her entire being narrowed to the sensation of him filling her and the frantic, matching rhythm of their hearts hammering against the water-slicked skin of their chests.

In that moment of total surrender, the last of the ghosts vanished, leaving only the two of them, and Diana felt finally and irrevocably whole.

Afterward, the world felt quiet, settled, and right. They dried each other with a lingering tenderness, the touch of the towels a soft contrast to the fire that had just burned through them.

Hand in hand, they climbed the grand staircase to their master suite. Alexander lit the fire, the orange flames dancing in his emerald eyes as he turned to her.

There were no more ghosts in the hallways, no more secrets in the silence. As they settled into the warmth of the hearth, the weight of the past year finally fell away, replaced by the exhilarating, terrifying, and beautiful promise of a life finally begun.

At last, they were home.

The End?