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There is no greater way to start his day than between his wife's thighs.
Colin has travelled the world. He has watched the sun rise over the Aegean, has tasted wines in Tuscan vineyards, has wandered the ancient streets of cities most men only dream of. He has seen beauty in all its forms, has chased pleasure across continents and oceans, always searching, always restless, never quite finding whatever nameless thing he sought.
Only to find it here. With Penelope. In this life they have built and continue to build, in these moments that stretch on and on, endless and perfect. In her fingers in his hair and her sighs filling the morning air. In the salt-sweet taste of her, in the way her body opens for him, in the soft sounds she makes when his tongue traces the paths he has learned by heart.
She is still warm from sleep, pliant and unhurried, and Colin takes his time settling between her legs. He presses a kiss to the inside of each knee, to the tender flesh of her inner thigh, to the crease where leg meets hip. She shivers beneath him, her breath catching, as she murmurs his name.
"Patience, my love."
He breathes her in, lets the scent of her arousal flood his senses. She is already slick for him, glistening in the pale morning light, and his mouth waters with anticipation. But he does not rush. He never rushes. Never with this. Never with her. His lips brush against the folds of her perfect cunt, feather-light, barely there. Penelope whimpers, her hips lifting in search of more, but he pins her gently to the mattress with a hand splayed across her belly.
"Let me," he murmurs against her. "Let me worship you."
The first true taste of her is a revelation, as it always is. He licks a slow stripe through her, parting her with his tongue, and the sound she makes settles deep in his bones. He does it again, slower still, savouring the way her thighs tremble on either side of his head.
There is a rhythm to this, a cadence he has spent months, years now, perfecting. He knows exactly how to build her pleasure, how to stoke the fire without letting it consume. A flat tongue here, a pointed flick there, circles around the pearl of her pleasure that grows tighter and tighter until she is gasping his name.
He pulls back before she can crest. Presses kisses to her thighs while she writhes and curses him.
"Wicked," she pants. "You are so wicked."
"I am thorough," he corrects, and begins again.
This is what the world does not understand. They see a man on his knees and think him diminished. They see worship and mistake it for weakness. But Colin has never felt more powerful than he does in these moments, with Penelope's pleasure held in his hands, in his mouth, in the careful ministrations of his tongue.
To wring pleasure from her slowly, ardently, to feel her body respond to his every touch, gives him greater satisfaction than anything he has ever known. Greater than the applause of a crowded room. Greater than the admiration of his peers. Greater than any accolade or achievement the world could offer.
He slips a finger inside her, crooking it just so, and is rewarded with a cry that echoes off the walls of their bedchamber. She is velvet heat around him, clenching and fluttering, and he works her with patient devotion while his mouth returns to her clit.
"Please." She is beyond coherent speech now, her words fragmenting. "Please, Colin, I need... I cannot..."
He seals his lips around the swollen bud of her and sucks, gently at first, then harder when her thighs clamp around his ears. His finger finds that spot inside her, the one that makes her back arch off the bed, and he strokes it in time with his tongue.
She shatters, her release flooding his mouth, and he drinks her down greedily, working her through wave after wave of pleasure. Her hands grip his hair so tightly it borders on pain, and he relishes it, relishes every mark she leaves on him, every claim she stakes.
When the tremors finally subside, he gentles his touch, pressing soft kisses to her oversensitive flesh until she tugs at his shoulders, pulling him up her body.
He goes willingly. He will always go willingly.
Her mouth finds his, and she moans at the taste of herself on his lips. The kiss is deep and languid, her tongue sliding against his, and Colin feels himself throb where he presses against her thigh. He is achingly hard, has been since the moment he first buried his face between her legs, but his need is secondary. It is always secondary to hers.
Penelope, however, has other ideas.
Her hand snakes between them, fingers wrapping around his length with a confidence that still thrills him. She strokes him once, twice, and he shudders, his forehead dropping to her shoulder.
"I want you inside me." Her voice is husky, wrecked from pleasure. "Please, Colin. I need to feel you."
She guides him to her entrance, and he feels the slick heat of her against his tip. His hips jerk involuntarily, and she gasps as he nudges against her opening. She is so wet, so ready, and it would take nothing at all to push forward, to bury himself in the heaven of her.
"Please," she whispers again, her legs wrapping around his hips, drawing him closer. "I am empty without you. Fill me. Please."
Colin groans, his restraint fraying. He notches himself at her entrance, feels her body begin to yield to him, and closes his eyes against the overwhelming sensation of her.
A cry pierces the silence. Elliot. Colin freezes, every muscle in his body screaming in protest. Penelope's fingers dig into his shoulders, her legs tightening around him.
"No," she breathes. "No, no, no."
And then, as if the universe has conspired against them, Lady Featherington's voice echoes down the corridor, shrill and inescapable and absolutely deafening.
"Penelope! Mr Bridgerton! We shall be late if you do not make haste!"
Colin drops his forehead to his wife's chest, his breath coming in ragged gasps. His cock throbs painfully where it rests against her entrance. “She has the absolute worst timing,” he mutters.
"We can be quiet," Penelope whispers urgently, her hips rolling to take him just slightly deeper. The sensation wrenches a groan from his throat. "Colin, please. We can be quick. They will not know."
Christ, how he wants to. But it does not matter how much he loves his wife. How much he wants his wife. How desperately his body aches to sink into the welcoming heat of her and lose himself entirely. Their son is crying, and his mother-in-law has ruined the moment, as she so often does as of late. With a Herculean effort that costs him more than he will ever admit, Colin pulls back. Withdraws from the warm haven of her body. Rolls onto his back and stares at the ceiling, willing his heart to slow, his blood to cool, his frustration to stop mounting.
"Colin." Penelope's voice is equal parts frustration and disbelief.
He turns his head, meets her eyes. She is flushed and beautiful, her hair a wild tangle against the pillows, her body still bearing the marks of his mouth. He wants her so badly he can taste it.
"We cannot," he says, and the words are gravel in his throat, and how has this come to be, he still wonders regularly? How is he the reasonable one? How he is not the most wanton? How did he become so lucky to have a wife such as Penelope
"We can." She reaches for him, her hand finding his jaw. "We can, and I am telling you to."
He catches her hand, presses a kiss to her palm, then to her wrist where her pulse races beneath the skin. "No."
The word is soft, gentle, accompanied by a kiss to her cheek that lingers.
Penelope stares at him. Her chest heaves. Her eyes flash with something between fury and admiration. With challenge.
"Are you quite certain," she says slowly, head tilted to the side in that calculating way of hers that means trouble, "that you possess such fortitude, husband?"
"I am certain of nothing except that I love you," he replies, pressing one last kiss to her brow before forcing himself to rise. "And that our son requires attending. And your mother is likely lurking just outside our door."
He dresses with mechanical efficiency, his body still thrumming with unspent need. Behind him, Penelope rises from the bed, and he makes the mistake of turning to look at her.
She stands naked in the morning light, all ivory skin and copper hair and curves that make his hands ache to touch her. Her eyes hold his, dark with promise, and that smile plays at the corners of her mouth.
"I shall see you downstairs then, husband," she says, and her voice is silk wrapped around steel.
Colin swallows, nods, and practically flees.
"He simply lost his favourite train," Colin announces as he pushes open the door, already smiling at the absurdity of his son's dramatics. "The travesty of it all, Pen, you would think the world had ended. I found it beneath his— "
She is dressed in yellow.
Which, in hindsight, should have been his first insight into the torture that pends. He so loves her in yellow, loves the way it makes her alabaster skin glow and sets each and every last freckle alight. He loves how it reminds him of their past whilst making him thankful for their future. But Penelope hates yellow. Abhors it even. Had rid herself of everything resembling the colour before they were together and only commissioned one by his request.
But this one is not that one. This one is pale with small, delicate lace flowers, a confection of butter cream silk that hugs her curves in ways her mother's garish selections never did. The neckline dips lower than propriety strictly allows, showcasing the swell of her breasts, the soft skin he had his mouth on not ten minutes prior. The sleeves sit off her shoulders, baring the column of her throat, the delicate line of her collarbone, the freckle just above her left breast that he likes to trace with his tongue.
She has had this dress made as a weapon. He sees that now.
Rae gathers her things from the vanity with practised efficiency. She glances at Colin as she passes, takes in what must be the look of absolute devastation on his face, and smirks.
Actually smirks. At him. The master of the house.
She dips into the shallowest curtsy propriety will allow and slips through the door, pulling it closed behind her with a soft click that sounds entirely too much like the cocking of a pistol.
Colin swallows. Hard.
"That is new," he manages, his voice hoarse.
Penelope glances at herself in the mirror as though only just noticing what she wears. "This? I suppose it is. Madame Delacroix delivered it only last week."
"You did not mention it."
"Did I not?" She turns, presenting him with her back, with the long row of buttons that trail down her spine like an invitation. Several remain unfastened at the top, revealing a tantalising glimpse of skin. "I must have forgotten. Would you be so kind, husband?"
Colin crosses to her on unsteady legs, still half-hard despite the interruption, still reeling from what they have started and not finished. His fingers find the buttons, fumbling with fastenings that seem designed to thwart him. Each one he closes conceals more of her skin, and he finds himself mourning every inch that disappears beneath pale yellow silk.
"Colin." Her voice carries a warning, even as her eyes meet his in the mirror, dancing with mischief. "Our mothers await."
"They can wait a moment longer."
"You were the one who insisted we stop."
The reminder is a knife, twisting. He fastens the final button and steps back, putting distance between them before he does something foolish. Like tear the dress from her body and damn the consequences entirely.
Penelope turns to face him, and the smile on her lips is nothing short of diabolical.
"Do try to compose yourself, Mr Bridgerton." She reaches up, pats his cheek with a gentleness that borders on condescending. "We have a very long day ahead of us."
He can do nothing but watch her go.
It amuses him greatly that the ton thinks he is the charming one in this marriage. For he has been outmatched from the start. They all have, really.
During the carriage ride into town, Penelope sits beside him, her mother opposite, and maintains a conversation about the weather, about Elliot's burgeoning vocabulary, about the latest scandal to grace the pages of her own publication. She is the picture of demure propriety, all pleasant smiles and polite nods.
And yet.
Her thigh presses against his beneath the crush of her skirts, warm and insistent. When Lady Featherington turns to gaze out the window, commenting on the state of Varley's hedgerows, Penelope's hand finds his knee. Her fingers trace idle patterns through the fabric of his trousers, climbing higher with each pass, retreating just before they reach dangerous territory.
Colin's jaw aches from clenching.
"Are you quite well, Mr Bridgerton?" Lady Featherington peers at him with something approaching concern. "You look rather flushed."
"Perfectly well, madam." His voice emerges strangled. Beside him, Penelope's hand squeezes his thigh, her smallest finger brushing against the evidence of his torment. "Simply warm. The carriage is rather warm, do you not find?"
"I find it rather pleasant, actually." Lady Featherington sniffs. "Perhaps you are coming down with something."
"Perhaps," Penelope agrees, and he does not need to look at her to know she is smiling. "We shall have to keep a close eye on him, Mama. Ensure he does not overexert himself."
Her hand slides higher. Colin bites the inside of his cheek until he tastes copper.
Their first stop is the perfumery on Bond Street, a small establishment that smells of roses and bergamot and ruin. Lady Featherington busies herself at the counter, interrogating the shopkeeper about the provenance of various oils, whilst Penelope drifts between the displays with Colin trailing helplessly in her wake.
"I find myself in need of a new scent," she muses, lifting a crystal bottle to the light. "What do you think, husband? Shall I try this one?"
Before he can respond, she unstoppers the bottle and dabs a drop at her wrist. Then she extends her arm toward him, turning her hand so the delicate blue veins are visible beneath her pale skin.
"Well?" She tilts her head, all innocence. "Do you like it?"
Colin takes her wrist, brings it to his nose. The scent is floral, something light and sweet, but beneath it, he can detect her. The warmth of her skin, the particular essence that is Penelope alone. His lips hover a breath away from her pulse point. He could press a kiss there. Could trace his tongue along that fragile network of veins and feel her heartbeat against his mouth.
He does neither, for he is in public and he is a gentleman.
"It is pleasant," he manages, releasing her hand.
"Only pleasant?" She pouts, a theatrical moue of disappointment. "Then I must try another."
She selects a second bottle, this one darker, more amber in hue. This time, she does not dab it on her wrist. Instead, she tilts her head to the side, exposing the long line of her throat, and touches the stopper to the sensitive skin just below her ear.
"This one is warmer," she says. "More complex. Would you tell me what you think?"
Colin glances toward Lady Featherington, who remains occupied with the shopkeeper, engaged in what appears to be a spirited debate about the merits of French lavender versus English. No help there.
He steps closer to his wife. Closer than propriety allows. Close enough that her skirts brush against his legs, that her breath ghosts across his jaw as she tilts her chin up to grant him access.
"Pen," he whispers, a warning and a plea.
"I merely want your opinion." Her eyes are wide, guileless, utterly deceptive. "You have such refined taste, after all. I value your judgment immensely."
He leans in. What choice does he have after all? His nose brushes the curve of her neck, and he inhales deeply, letting the scent wash over him. Jasmine, he thinks. Sandalwood. Something darker beneath, something that speaks of midnight and tangled sheets and the sounds she makes when he is inside her.
And under it all, her. The scent he had buried his face in this morning, the scent that still lingers on his lips if he concentrates hard enough.
"Well?" Her voice is barely a whisper, meant for him alone. "Do you like it?"
His hands have found her waist without his permission. His mouth hovers over her pulse, so close he can feel the flutter of her heartbeat against his lips.
"You know precisely what you are doing," he murmurs against her skin.
"I am shopping for perfume." He can hear the smile in her voice. "I cannot imagine what you mean."
"Penelope." Her name is gravel and glass, rough with warning. "If you do not cease this torture, I will not be held responsible for my actions."
"What actions might those be, husband?" She pulls back just enough to meet his eyes, and the look in them is pure, unadulterated sin. "Do tell. I find myself most curious."
"I will drag you out of this shop." His fingers tighten on her waist. "I will find the nearest private alcove, and I will finish what we started this morning. I do not care who sees. I do not care what scandal ensues. I will have you, Penelope, and I will not be gentle about it."
Her breath catches. Her cheeks flush. For one glorious moment, he thinks he has won, has turned her own game against her.
Then she smiles, slow and devastating, and pats his cheek.
"I shall take this one," she calls to the shopkeeper, stepping neatly out of his grasp. "My husband finds it most appealing."
At the bookshop, she reaches for a volume on a high shelf, stretching in a way that pulls her bodice taut across her chest. When he moves to assist her, she steps back, her body pressing against his for one brief, electrifying moment.
"My apologies," she murmurs, not sounding sorry at all. "How clumsy of me."
During their promenade through the park, she takes his arm and leans into him, her breast soft against his bicep. She points out flowers and passing acquaintances, maintains cheerful conversation with her mother, and all the while her thumb traces maddening circles on his forearm through the fabric of his coat.
By the time they reach Gunter's, Colin is a man possessed. His skin feels too tight. His blood runs too hot. Every nerve in his body is attuned to her presence, to her proximity, to that damnable new perfume layered over the scent he knows so intimately, the scent he had on his tongue mere hours ago.
He has endured hours of her campaign. Hours of calculated glances and accidental touches, and that infernal smile that tells him she knows exactly what she is doing.
And she is not finished yet.
Now they sit at Gunter's, a table between them, his mother now having joined them in their travels and sits beside Lady Featherington at a neighbouring table. The establishment hums with the genteel chatter of the ton, with the clink of silver against porcelain, with all the trappings of polite society.
And Penelope is destroying him.
She lifts her spoon to her lips, her pink tongue darting out to capture a taste of the bergamot ice before the silver even reaches her mouth. Her eyes hold his, unwavering, as she takes the confection between her lips and releases the spoon with excruciating slowness.
Colin shifts in his seat.
"Is the ice not to your liking, dear?" She tilts her head, the picture of innocence. "You have barely touched yours."
"It is perfectly adequate," he manages, his voice emerging far steadier than he feels. His cravat feels too tight around his neck.
"Adequate." She repeats the word as though testing it. "What a tepid endorsement."
Beneath the table, the toe of her slipper traces a path along his calf. Colin nearly chokes on his own breath.
"I find," Penelope continues, dabbing delicately at the corner of her mouth with her napkin, "that one ought to savour one's pleasures fully. Would you not agree?"
"Penelope."
"Yes, my love?"
Her voice is honey and hemlock, sweet poison delivered with a smile. She leans forward just slightly, just a small shift in her seat, and the movement provides him with a view of her décolletage that sends heat pooling low in his belly. A small portion of ice slips from her spoon and lands upon her thumb. Penelope's eyes widen in feigned surprise before she brings the digit to her lips and draws it into her mouth, her cheeks hollowing ever so slightly as she cleans away the sweetness.
Colin's spoon clatters against his dish.
"Oh dear," she murmurs around her thumb, releasing it with a soft sound that reverberates through him. "How clumsy of me."
His jaw clenches. "You are playing a dangerous game, wife."
"Am I?" She blinks at him, all wide-eyed virtue. "I am merely enjoying my refreshment. Is that not the purpose of such an establishment?"
Under the table, and hidden by the tablecloth, her foot has found his knee. It travels higher.
Colin catches her ankle in a grip perhaps firmer than propriety allows, stilling her movement. Her breath catches, barely perceptible, but he knows her too well. He has memorised every response her body offers him, has catalogued each sound and shiver. He knows she is not unaffected by this game between them, even as she pretends otherwise. He knows that he has her exactly where she wants to be.
"You will cease this at once," he says, scarcely recognising the depth to his own voice, "or I shall be forced to take drastic measures."
"Drastic measures?" She smiles, slow and knowing. "Whatever can you mean?"
She holds his gaze, unblinking, and takes another slow lick of her spoon. Colin’s grip tightens around the delicate bones of her ankle as he watches her tongue trace the curve of silver, watches her lips close around the bowl of it, watches her throat work as she swallows. His breath hitches, catching in his throat, and he knows something must give, must break.
And he is perfectly fine knowing that it is him.
He releases her ankle and straightens in his chair, composing his features into pleasant neutrality despite the riot occurring within him. "I do believe we are late, do you not think, darling?"
Penelope's brow arches, a gesture so achingly familiar it makes his chest tight. "Late? For what, precisely, darling?"
"Our plans." He rises, extending his hand to her. "Surely you have not forgotten."
She accepts his hand and stands, her skirts rustling. That smile of hers, the one that is his and his alone, plays at the corners of her mouth. "Oh yes. Our plans." She pauses, and he watches the colour rise in her cheeks, watches the pulse flutter at her throat. "You are amenable to those plans taking place now, are you?"
Colin guides her toward their mothers' table, his palm burning where it rests at the small of her back.
"Mother, Lady Featherington," he says, executing a bow that belies the urgency thrumming through his veins. "I fear my wife, and I must depart. Pressing matters require our attention."
His mother waves a dismissive hand. "Go, go. We shall make our own way home."
"You are quite certain?"
Lady Featherington is already turning back to Violet. "We have much to discuss. Go along, then.”
Colin does not wait for further dismissal, nodding curtly and tugging his wife along towards their awaiting carriage.
She settles on the opposite seat, her skirts arranged prettily around her, and tilts her head to one side as the wheels begin to roll down the cobblestones. The afternoon light filters through the gaps in the curtains, painting her in gold, and Colin cannot breathe for how beautiful she is.
Her mouth quirks. "Do you find yourself in want of your wife, Mr Bridgerton?"
Colin's voice emerges roughly as he says, "Always, Mrs Bridgerton."
"Always." She repeats the word as though tasting it. "And yet you seemed quite capable of denying yourself this morning."
"Pen."
"Do not Pen me." There is steel beneath the silk of her tone. "You left me wanting, husband. Aching. Empty." Her hand drifts to her bodice, fingers tracing the neckline in a way that makes his mouth water. "Do you know how it felt to make it through this day in such a state? To smile and nod whilst my body wept for you?"
"I know." He swallows hard. "I have thought of little else."
"Have you?" She leans forward slightly, and his eyes drop helplessly to the swell of her breasts. "What precisely have you thought of?"
"You." The word is a confession. "The way you felt beneath me. The way you tasted on my tongue. The way you begged for me."
"I did beg, did I not?" Her smile sharpens. "Most prettily, I am told."
"Pen." Her name is a prayer now, desperate and undignified. "Please."
"Please, what, husband?"
"Tell me what you want. Tell me what I must do."
She regards him for a long moment, and he feels himself laid bare before her, stripped of all pretence and pride. He would crawl to her if she asked. He would kneel at her feet in this swaying carriage and worship her until she granted him mercy.
"What I want," she says slowly, "is for you to understand what you did to me this morning."
He nods desperately. "I understand. I do."
"No." She shakes her head. "You do not. Not yet."
Her hands move to her skirts, gathering them slowly, revealing the silk of her stockings inch by inch. Colin's breath catches. His hands fist against his thighs.
"This morning," Penelope continues, lifting her hem higher, "I was so close to having you. So close to feeling you fill me completely." Her skirts pool at her waist, and he sees that she wears nothing beneath them, her cunt bare and glistening in the dim light. "And then you stopped."
Colin makes a sound that is not quite a word.
"Do you see what you have done?" She parts her thighs, and he can see how wet she is, how swollen, how ready. "I have been thus all day. Through every shop. During every interaction. Through every interminable moment of polite conversation, whilst I burned for you."
"Let me." He is begging shamelessly, leaning forward in his seat. "Let me touch you. Please, Pen. Let me make it right."
"You wish to touch me?"
"More than I wish to breathe."
"You wish to be inside me?"
A groan tears from his chest. "Yes. More than anything, yes."
She holds his gaze, her fingers trailing down her belly, lower, until she is touching herself where he so desperately wants to be. Her head falls back slightly, a soft moan escaping her lips, and Colin thinks he might actually die from wanting her.
"Pen." His voice cracks. "Please. I cannot bear it."
Her eyes open, find his. The power in them is absolute.
"If you want me," she says, "take me."
He moves before the final word leaves her lips.
His hands find her waist, hauling her across the carriage and into his lap in one fluid motion. She gasps, then laughs, the sound swallowed by his mouth as he kisses her with all the desperation he has been barely holding back. Her fingers tear at his cravat, his waistcoat, his falls, and he helps her with shaking hands until his cock springs free, hard and leaking against her thigh.
"I need you." He pants the words against her throat. "Pen, I need you in a manner that defies all sense."
"Then have me." She rises on her knees, positioning him at her entrance. "I am yours, Colin. I have always been yours."
She sinks onto him, slow, inch by devastating inch, and he feels every moment of it—the slick give of her body yielding to his, the impossible heat of her, the way her walls grip him as though they mean never to let go. Her eyes flutter closed, her lips part on a silent gasp, and he watches her face as she takes him fully, reads every flicker of pleasure that crosses her features. When she finally seats herself completely, taking him to the hilt, the sound she makes is worth every moment of torment she has put him through
"Oh," she breathes, and the sound is punched out of her, surprised and reverent. "Oh, Colin."
He holds himself perfectly still, every muscle trembling with the effort. His fingers dig into the flesh of her hips hard enough to bruise. He can feel her cunt pulse where they are joined, can feel the flutter of her as they adjust to the fullness of him. The carriage rocks beneath them, the rhythm of the wheels against cobblestone shifting him inside her with every bump and sway.
"Look at me," she commands, and he obeys readily.
Her face is flushed, her lips parted, her eyes blazing with desire and triumph. She is the most beautiful thing he has ever seen. The most powerful. The most his.
"This morning," she says, her voice steady despite the flush on her cheeks, "you made me feel as though I might die from wanting you."
"I know." He can barely form words. "I am sorry."
"Do not apologise." She clenches around him, and he groans. "Simply understand. Understand what you do to me. What you have always done to me."
The first roll of her hips wrenches a moan from deep in his chest. She sets a rhythm that is deliberately, devastatingly slow, rising and falling on his length as though she has all the time in the world. Colin grips her hips, not to guide, but to ground himself, to keep from flying apart entirely.
"Pen." Her name is all he can manage. "Pen. Pen."
"I know." She cups his face in her hands, kisses him softly, even as her hips continue their torturous pace. "I know, my love."
He watches her, transfixed, as she takes her pleasure from him. Her head tips back, exposing the column of her throat, and he presses his mouth there, feeling her pulse race beneath his lips. She moans, her pace faltering slightly, and he takes the opportunity to thrust up into her.
Her cry is sharp. "Again," she demands, and he complies.
She kisses him then, deep and filthy, her tongue sliding against his as her hips continue their torturous pace. He can taste bergamot ice and tea, and underneath it all, the familiar sweetness that is simply her. His hands roam her body, palming her breasts through the butter-yellow silk, finding her nipples and rolling them between his fingers until she gasps into his mouth.
"Harder," she demands against his lips. "Touch me harder."
He obeys just as the carriage hits a rut in the road, and the jolt drives him deeper inside her than he thought possible. She cries out, her head falling back, and he takes the opportunity to mouth at her throat, tasting salt and jasmine and sandalwood. Her new perfume mingles with the musk of sex, with the leather of the carriage seats, with the sweat gathering at the small of her back where his hands grip her.
All the while, Colin cannot tear his eyes from her. From the way her breasts sway with each motion. From the way her brow furrows in concentration. From the way her mouth falls open on gasps and sighs that are the most beautiful sounds he has ever heard. She is incredible, his wife. And to bear witness to her evolution is a privilege Colin does not take lightly. He has watched her unfurl like a flower too long kept from the sun, has seen her shed the layers of doubt and shame that others draped upon her shoulders. She no longer asks permission to exist. She no longer apologises for taking up space.
And here, in the sacred space between them, she does not merely ask for what she wants.
She takes it.
She takes it with rolling hips and gasping breaths, with fingers that grip his shoulders hard enough to leave marks. She takes her pleasure from his body as though it is her due, and it is. It is. He would give her anything, everything, would empty himself entirely if only she would continue looking at him like this.
As if he is hers. As if she will never let him go.
"You are extraordinary," he gasps, thrusting up to meet her. "Do you know that? Do you understand what it does to me, seeing you like this?"
Her rhythm falters, just slightly. "Like what?"
"Fearless." He grips her hips, drives deeper. "Powerful." Again. "Free."
Her eyes glisten. Her lip trembles. But she does not look away, does not hide.
"You made me brave," she whispers.
"No." He shakes his head, reaches up to cup her face. "You were always brave, Pen. You simply needed someone to see it. To believe it." He thrusts into her, and she cries out. "To love you enough to show you what was already there."
A tear slips down her cheek. He catches it with his thumb, brings it to his lips, tastes the salt of her on his tongue.
"I see you," he says. "I have always seen you. And I will spend every moment I am granted making certain you see yourself the way I do."
She kisses him then, fierce and tender, and when she begins to move again, it is with a new intensity. She is not merely taking her pleasure now.
She is claiming him.
Her pace increases, her movements growing urgent. Colin matches her thrust for thrust, his hands guiding her hips, his mouth finding her neck, her jaw, the shell of her ear. He whispers adorations against her skin, filthy and reverent in equal measure, and she moans in response, her head falling back.
"Bring me to completion," she orders. "Now. I have waited all day, Colin. I will not wait another moment."
He reaches between them, finds the pearl of her pleasure, slick and swollen. She jerks at the first touch, a sob catching in her throat.
"Like this?" He circles her clit with practised fingers, matching the rhythm of her hips. "Is this what you need?"
"Yes." The word is a hiss, a prayer. "Yes, yes, do not stop, do not dare stop."
He would not dream of it. Not now. Not ever.
Her movements grow frantic, her rhythm falling apart. She is chasing her release now, using his body to get there, and Colin has never felt more wanted, more needed, more utterly consumed by another person. He watches her face contort with pleasure, watches her bite her lip hard enough to leave marks, watches her eyes squeeze shut as she climbs higher and higher.
"Look at me," he begs, echoing her earlier command. "Pen, please. I want to see you."
Her eyes fly open, find his. They are glassy with need, wet with unshed tears, burning with a love so fierce it steals his breath.
"I love you," she gasps. "Colin, I love you, I—"
She shatters.
Her body clamps around him like a vice, her cunt pulsing in waves that drag him toward his own release. She cries out his name, loud enough that the driver surely hears, and Colin does not care. Let all of London hear. Let them know that Penelope Bridgerton is loved, is cherished, is pleasured beyond reason by a husband who would burn the world for her.
"Please," she pants, still shuddering through her release. "Colin, please, I want to feel you. Spend inside me."
The words undo him.
He thrusts up into her once, twice, and then he is falling, spilling himself deep inside her with a groan that tears from the very centre of him. His vision blurs. His hands grip her hips hard enough to leave fingerprints in her flesh. He pulses inside her, again and again, until he is empty, until he is wrung out, until there is nothing left of him but the places where their bodies meet.
For a long moment, neither of them moves. They breathe together, hearts pounding in tandem, bodies still joined. The carriage sways around them, but Colin is aware of nothing beyond the woman in his arms.
His wife. The mother of his child. The love of his life.
Penelope stirs against him, lifting her head to meet his eyes. Her cheeks are flushed, her hair a disaster, her lips swollen from his kisses. She has never looked more beautiful.
"Am I forgiven?" he murmurs.
She laughs, breathless and bright. "For now."
"I shall endeavour to earn a more permanent absolution."
"See that you do." She kisses him softly. "Though I confess, your methods of penance are quite... persuasive."
He grins, tucking a loose curl behind her ear. "I learned from the best."
"Flatterer."
"Truth-teller." He holds her gaze, lets her see everything he feels. "I love you, Penelope Bridgerton. More than I have words to express. More than I knew it was possible to love."
Her smile softens, turns luminous. "I love you too, Colin. Even when you are insufferably noble."
He laughs, the sound rumbling through both of them. "Especially then, I hope."
"Especially then," she agrees, and settles against his chest with a contented sigh.