Page 62 of All Duke and Bothered

He frowned and narrowed his eyes at her. “Pardon? How else do you want me naked?”

“I’d like to paint a nude portrait of you.”

He couldn’t speak for a moment. He imagined himself frozen for hours in one of those Greek postures while she painted him… A bark of laughter burst from his throat. In a quick movement, he pressed her to him tighter and flipped them both over. She gave a small squeal, and he chuckled. There she was, his beautiful wife, pinned to the mattress under him, her thighs spread and his hard cock pressing right at her warm, tight entrance.

“No,” he said. “There’s a much better use of my naked body, and it’s to make you come over and over. Allow me to give you a demonstration.”

She bit her lower lip as he moved his pelvis, caressing her clitoris again and again with his cock. She arched her back, her head lolling.

“Do you like it?” he asked. “Am I pleasing you, love?”

“Oh yes…”

“See how much better this is than you and me five feet apart and me standing in one pose for hours? If I can move, I can do this…”

He plunged into her, sliding easily through her delicious wetness. He groaned in pleasure as her tight walls took him in. She gasped and wrapped her legs around his hips, her arms around his shoulders, clinging to him, urging him closer to her, deeper.

He obliged and sank into her, angling his hips in that way he knew would allow him to rub against her clitoris at the same time. Then he had an idea and stopped for a moment. “Do you trust me, love?”

She blinked and nodded. “Of course I trust you.”

That broke his heart a little because he still hid a terrible secret from her; she still didn’t know why she was married to him.

He pulled out of her and kneeled in front of her. “Lift your leg.” He grabbed her ankle and put her leg over one of his shoulders, then the other one. Her smooth thighs were spread before him, high and wide, giving him full access to her. Oh, the sight in front of him had his erection tighten and tingle and ache with need for her.

“Heavens, how much I want you. Have you any sense of how incredibly beautiful you are?”

She exhaled softly, leaning back on her pillow. Her lips were red and swollen from desire, her hair spilled on the pillow. A little seductress, what was she doing to him?

“No,” she said. “But I know how incredibly handsome you are and how much I desire you.”

He groaned and lowered himself on top of her, penetrating her sweet depths once again. How he loved it when that little gasp came out of her lips every time they connected like this, flesh to flesh, skin to skin, as deep as two humans possibly could. He started moving then, he was bollocks-deep in her, and kept plunging in and out of her. He watched color come to her face, and her hooded eyes, heavy and dark with pleasure, her white teeth biting her lower lip as she arched her back and moaned.

That was right. He looked down at her pretty round tits bouncing as he drove her higher and higher towards the peak of pleasure. He didn’t think he’d ever been so deep inside her, and he loved it, being enveloped by her so completely.

Just him and her.

Soon, he was wild with desire. He fucked her, driving her deeper and deeper into the mattress. Her head rolled, her chest reddened, and the thin sinews on her neck strained. He felt her suck his cock tighter, deeper inside her. She was about to burst with pleasure, and then she froze, and her internal muscles squeezed him like a fist, and that was his undoing. As she clenched and shook around him, fiery pleasure crashed through him like a tidal wave. He bucked and gave animallike groans, and was lost in emptying himself into her.

Then he collapsed on top of her and rolled to the side, panting. He lifted her onto his chest, and they both breathed hard.

“Tell me I’m right,” he said when he finally found his breath. “Is this not a better use of my nakedness?”

Penelope gave a low moan and looked straight into his eyes. “Preston, I love you and I want to commemorate how beautiful you are…”

They both stilled. Preston swallowed a painful knot in his throat. Her eyes went wide as she stared at him without moving a muscle.

“You what?” he asked.

She could not be serious. She couldn’t love him. He didn’t deserve her. He was not a good man; his way forward was destruction. And all she was was pure and beautiful and everything that was good and right in the world. How could she love him? There was nothing to love about him.

“I love you,” she said. “All of you. Your gorgeous body. Your kind heart. Your beautiful soul. And I want to paint you like I see you when we’re like this.”

Something within him began unravelling. He was more open to her than he’d been to anyone. Not even his siblings. Not even Sebastian, his best friend, knew him like she did. He’d always been the second best. The “spare.” Born just in case, so that someone could continue the noble name. All his life he’d tried to prove to everyone, but mostly to himself, that he was just as worthy as Spencer.

While deep down, he didn’t believe he was.

But he didn’t feel like he needed to prove anything with Penelope. She was in his sacred place, and she fit just right. She was healing something inside of him. Her light broke through his walls and shone directly into his heart. His grief for Spencer, the guilt and self-loathing he’d hidden from everyone his whole life, the way he protected his fragile nature with a gruff, prideful, uncaring exterior.