The Other Miss Bridgerton (Rokesbys #3)(99)

“Oh, I think that ship has sailed.”

“Bad pun, Miss Bridgerton. Very bad pun.”

“Time and tide wait for no man.”

He drew back an inch. “I’m not sure how that’s relevant.”

“It was all I could think of,” she admitted. “And you know, you never let me answer your question.”

“I didn’t?”

She shook her head.

“And which question is that?”

“You’ll have to ask it again, Captain.”

“Very well. Will—”

He kissed her nose.

“You.”

Her left cheek.

“Marry.”

Her right cheek.

“Me?”

Her mouth. Her beautiful, perfect mouth.

But just a light kiss. Swift. She still needed to answer.

She smiled, and it was glorious. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I’ll marry you.”

He wasn’t sure there were words for such a moment, even among two so glib as they. So he kissed her instead. He kissed her mouth, worshipping her in all the ways he’d dreamed of these last few weeks. He kissed her cheek, her neck, the perfect hollow above her collarbone.

“I love you, Poppy Bridgerton,” he murmured. “More than I could ever imagine. More than I can even conceive.”

But not, he thought, more than he could show her. He slid her nightgown from her body, and his own dressing robe somehow melted away. For the first time, they were skin to skin.

“So beautiful,” he whispered, gazing at her as they kneeled in front of each other. He wanted to kiss her everywhere, to taste the salt of her skin, the creamy essence between her thighs. He wanted to swirl his tongue around the tight pink buds of her breasts. She’d liked that, he remembered, but what if he nibbled? What if he tugged?

“Lie down,” he ordered.

She gave him an amused, questioning look.

His lips found her ear in hungry growl. “I have plans for you.”

He felt her pulse leap, and she started to lower herself down. When her bottom touched the bedsheets, he scooted her legs out from under her, leaving her breathlessly on her back.

“You were too slow,” he said with a wolfish smile. She didn’t say anything, just watched him with a glazed passion, her breasts rising and falling with each breath.

“I hardly know where to start,” he murmured.

She licked her lips.

“But I think . . .” He trailed his finger down her body, from her shoulder to her hip. “I’ll start . . .” He moved inward, then lower. “Here.”

Both of his hands moved to her hips, his thumbs pressing against the soft skin of her inner thighs. He slid her open, and then he lowered his head for the most intimate of kisses.

“Andrew!” she gasped.

He smiled as he licked. He loved making her gasp.

She tasted like heaven, like sweet wine and tangy nectar, and he could not resist sliding a finger inside her, glorying in the way she instinctively tightened around him.

She was close. He could take her over the edge with one single graze of his teeth, but he was selfish, and when she came, he wanted to be inside her.

She moaned with frustration when he drew back, but he quickly replaced his mouth with his cock. He nudged at her opening, his body shuddering with desire as her legs wrapped around his. “Do you want me to stop?” he whispered.

Their eyes met.

“Never,” she said.

And so he pushed forward, finding a home in her warmth, wondering how he had lived twenty-nine years on this earth without making love to this woman. He slipped into a rhythm, each stroke bringing him closer to the edge, but he held back, straining against his own release until she found hers.

“Andrew,” she gasped, arching beneath him.

He leaned down, rolled his tongue across her breast.

She whimpered. She moaned.

He turned his attention to the other one, this time giving it a little suck.

She let out a keening cry, high-pitched but quiet, and her body tightened beneath him.

Around him.

It was his undoing. He pumped forward once, then again. And then he exploded within her, losing himself in her scent, her essence.

In her . He lost himself in her , but somehow, in that moment, he found his home.

Several minutes later, when he’d finally caught his breath and was lying on his back beside her, he reached down between their bodies to hold her hand.

“I saw stars,” he said, still amazed.

He heard her smile. “On the insides of your eyelids?”

“I think I saw them on the inside of yours.”

She laughed, and the bed shook.

And then, far sooner than he would have anticipated, they shook the bed again.





Epilogue





Nine months later



Andrew had thought that he wanted a girl, but as he held his newborn son in his arms, he could only think that this amazing miraculous creature was perfect in every way.

There would be plenty of time to make more babies.

“Ten fingers,” he told Poppy, who was resting with her eyes closed in their bed. “Ten toes.”

“You counted?” she murmured.

“You didn’t?”