Page 137 of Aurelia

She pursed her lips and set down her brush, but he could tell she was pleased. She turned away from the mirror as he crutched his way over to her.

“How is your leg?”

“Fit as a fiddle,” he lied. It ached like the bloody dickens, but he had no intention of sharing that fact or he knew she would hustle him back to his bedchamber and pack him in cotton wool for the foreseeable future.

She gave a skeptical humm, but he ignored it.

“You will have to undress me as I’m still a cripple,” he told her as he set his crutch against the nightstand.

Her warm gaze dropped to the V of his banyan. “I thought you were fit as a fiddle.”

“All the important parts of me are extremely fit,” he assured her.

She laughed and stopped less than a foot in front of him, her lips twitching as she studied his red silk robe.

“Why are you smirking like that?” he asked.

“That is quite a, er, flamboyant banyan.”

Roland grabbed her around the waist and tossed her onto the bed, only hurting his leg a little in the process. But it was worth it to hear his stern, serious wife giggle.

He shrugged off his robe and climbed up onto the bed.

“I thought undressing you was my job,” Aurelia protested, propping herself up on her elbows to stare at him. Her lips parted and her eyes widened. “Oh,” she said, an adorable flush rising in her cheeks as her gaze settled on his arousal.

“That is for you,” he said, rolling onto his back and shamelessly exhibiting his body to her.

She gave a breathless laugh, staring in a way that made him throb with need.

Roland laced his hands behind his head and smirked as her hot eyes caressed up and down his body. “As you neglected your job, you will now have to undress yourself instead.” He clucked his tongue when she merely stared. “Focus on the task at hand, Lady Crewe. Time is wasting.”

“We have all night. And a good part of this afternoon,” she added wryly. But even as she spoke her hands went to the devilishly tiny buttons on her night rail.

“Trust me, it won’t be nearly long enough.”

She pushed her lower lip. “Poor Roland.”

“You little witch! Are you mocking your poor crippled husband?”

“You like it,” she said, her gaze sliding to his cock, which was bobbing and drooling. “Or at least part of you does.”

“When I am fully mended, you will pay dearly for this,” he promised her.

She laughed.

And then, thank God, she lifted the night rail over her head.

Roland groaned at the sight of her perfect berry-tipped breasts and tiny waist. Her hair was a shiny tawny river that fell all the way to the triangle of darker hair at the apex of her long, slender thighs.

“You are… perfection,” he said in a voice rough with need. “I have been dreaming about this for weeks.” He held out his arms. “Come here.”

Rather than obey him, she cocked her head to the side, as if she were considering the matter. Teasing him.

It was adorable.

Roland lunged for her, catching her around the waist as she squeaked with surprise. “Roland! You will hurt your leg if you do that. Lie down,” she ordered, straddling his legs and then lowering her lush bottom onto his thighs.

He smiled. “Much better.”