CHAPTER 119: CHAPTER HUNDRED AND NINETEEN

"Mmmm," Delia murmured, snuggling closer to the warmth beside her as she held onto her pillow tightly. But this pillow wasn’t the same fluffy, soft one she knew from her own bed. This one was firm, and warm, and it seemed to be breathing.

She opened her eyes slowly, her vision blurry at first before the soft morning light of the room came into focus. She looked around. The dark, masculine furniture, the heavy velvet curtains, the tall, imposing bookshelves...

"This isn’t my room," she said, her voice a low, sleepy whisper.

A deep, amused voice from right above her replied, "Of course it isn’t."

She looked up and saw Eric looking down at her, a fond, gentle smile on his face. "It’s mine," he finished.

He was sitting up in the bed, his back propped against the headboard. Stacks of his work ledgers were piled beside him. Some were on the bedside table, while others were scattered on the floor. He was reviewing what she thought must be the last one, a quill in his hand.

Then, she became aware of her own position. She was lying on his lap, her head resting on his strong thighs, her arms clinging to his waist. A wave of horrified embarrassment washed over her. She quickly scrambled away from him, pulling the heavy bedspread up to her chin.

He dropped the ledger onto the bed. "You were not like this last night," he said, his smile turning into a teasing grin.

Delia was silent, her cheeks burning, her mind instantly blank.

"Have you lost your voice, my Duchess?" Eric continued, his eyes twinkling with mischief. "Well, I don’t blame you. You were moaning and screaming my name with such a passion that..."

Before he could finish the mortifying sentence, Delia rushed to cover his mouth with her hand, her own eyes wide with shock. He was staring at her with another kind of passion now, his gaze intense and hungry. She followed his gaze down and realized that, in her haste to silence him, the bedspread she was clutching had fallen down to her waist. She was naked.

She quickly let go of his mouth and pulled the covers back up to her neck, hiding herself from his view.

He chuckled, a low, warm sound. "You were not this shy last night," he said softly. "I didn’t know you had such an insane fire inside you."

She got off the bed, needing to get away from his teasing, from the intimate memories of the night before. She went to his large, baroque mirror, keeping the bedspread wrapped tightly around herself.

She saw her reflection and gasped. Her neck was covered with small, dark purple marks. She traced the love bites. She moved the covers down just a bit and saw that her shoulders and the swell of her cleavage were also covered in the possessive marks.

Just then, Eric came up behind her, wrapping his strong arms around her waist and pulling her back against his warm, bare chest. Both of them were now facing the mirror.

"What am I going to do about this?" she whined, her voice a small, panicked sound as she touched one of the marks on her neck.

Eric leaned down and pressed a soft, warm kiss to the side of her neck, right beside one of the marks. He looked at their reflection in the mirror. "Well," he said, his voice a low, teasing rumble in her ear, "we are a newly married couple, after all. It is simply a sign that we cannot live without each other."

She glared at his reflection in the mirror.

He chuckled. "Besides," he whispered into her ear, his breath warm and tickling her skin, "you gave me a matching mark on my back." He gently bit her earlobe. "You were quite wild last night, my Duchess. Scratching me like a beautiful predator tearing its prey apart." He paused. "I liked it."

Delia’s blush deepened. She rushed to change the subject. "Did you finish all of your work last night?"

He shook his head like a sulking child. "No. You didn’t let me."

"I didn’t let you?" she asked, confused.

He nodded. "Whenever I tried to let you go, to get up and go back to my desk, you would keep whimpering in your sleep. So, I just had to bring all the work to the bed."

He rested his chin on her shoulder. "You just held onto me, so tightly, like you were afraid I was going to leave you and run away. I had to keep giving you forehead kisses and stroking your hair until you relaxed and finally laid your head on my lap. Only then were you quiet."

Delia was now feeling incredibly sorry. "So, you haven’t slept a single wink all night?"

Eric nodded his head and pouted, looking for all the world like a little boy who deserved a treat.

"I’m sorry," she said, her voice full of a genuine, tender regret.

He gently took the covers from her body until they fell in a heap on the floor, her body now completely exposed to him, to their reflection in the mirror. He then removed his own robe, and hugged her from the back again, his warm, naked skin pressed against hers. He kissed her cheek, and they both looked at themselves in the mirror, a portrait of a new, intimate couple.

"I told you," he said, his voice soft and sincere, "I was following my priorities. And you are my first priority. If you keep telling me you are sorry for something that doesn’t need an apology, it will only make me feel bad." He sighed contentedly.

"Besides, I am down to the last ledger now. And Aiden knows I won’t be coming to work today because of the... review... I had to do all night. So, I will rest for the remainder of the day."

He hugged her tightly, smelling the soft skin of her neck. "With you," he said, his voice muffled as his face was buried in her neck. "Alone. All to myself."

Delia replied, her own voice a little breathless, the reality of her other life intruding on this perfect, intimate moment.

"I can’t. I have to meet with the Baroness today. I need to initiate the next phase of my plan."

Eric pulled back slightly, a look of disappointment on his face. "When will you be back?"

"I don’t know yet," she replied. "But as soon as I can."

He nodded, understanding. He turned her around to face him and gave her a long, slow, and deeply passionate kiss. "I will miss you," he said when they finally broke apart.

He picked up her robe from the chair where it was tossed last night and placed it on her shoulders, covering her. "I will be waiting for you, right here," he said.

She nodded.