She pursed her lips. “Please do not jest. You could have been killed.”
Her sanctimonious concern angered him.
“You wouldn’t have minded becoming a widow,” he snapped, no longer able to censor his words.
Her expression changed, acquiring a guardedness that could not quite mask her shock and apprehension. “I beg your pardon?”
“It’s Freddie you fancy, not me. I’m not that stupid.”
She clamped her hands together. “I don’t fancy Lord Frederick.”
“Fancy. Prefer. What’s the difference? And since we are on the topic, I do not appreciate what you did to force me into this marriage.”
She bit her lower lip. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I really am. I will try to make it up to you.”
Pretty words. And as insubstantial as butterflies. He hadn’t needed to swig all that vile rum this night. He’d done it for her, so that Holbrook would get off his indolent arse and decipher the coded dossier, so that her uncle could be arrested sooner, so that she and her aunt could live free of his menace.
And this was how she thanked him. I will try to make it up to you.
“Do it then. Make it up to me.”
She recoiled.
He should have been too drunk to care. But the more she shuddered away from him, the more the memories of her sweet willingness seared.
“Take off your clothes,” he said.
He was a dangerous drunk.
His body, by itself, was enough to force her to pay attention. She’d once seen, in a book on classical art, an etching of a statue of Poseidon. She had stared at it in fascination, at what the Greeks had considered the pinnacle of male form, and thought it nothing but a fantasy, a conjuration of the sculptor’s mind that reality could never match.
Until him. He had that body, that impossibly ridged musculature. And just above the top of his trousers, the beginning of the deep, exaggerated indentations at the hips that—on Poseidon, at least—had left a long-lasting impression on her.
And the way he held himself: his head tilted back slightly, his body in one long, mouthwatering line.
Yes, mouthwatering. Physically he was strikingly fit and strikingly handsome. Something to salivate after.
She almost didn’t hear what he said. “Pardon?”
“I would like you to take off your clothes,” he repeated quite casually.
She was at a loss for words.
“It’s not as if I haven’t seen you before. We are married, if you will recall.”
She cleared her throat. “Would it really make up for my taking advantage of you?”
“I’m afraid not. But it might make this marriage more bearable in the meanwhile—if I can remember to practice withdrawal.”
“What—what is withdrawal?”
“Let’s see, since you know your scripture so well, was that Onan? Yes, that bugger. What he did.”
“Spilling his seed on the floor?”
“What a prodigious memory you possess. The whole of Song of Songs, and this too.”
The Bible had been one of the few English-language books that her uncle had let remain in the house.
“And yes,” continued her husband, “it would be lovely if I could take you and spill my seed somewhere else. Not on the floor, mind you. But perhaps on your very soft belly. Perhaps even on your splendid breasts. And perhaps, if I’m in a really terrible mood, I’ll make you swallow it.”
She blinked and did not ask if he was jesting. He probably wasn’t.
He’d been quite decent to her and very nice to her aunt, after everything she’d done. He’d been most satisfactorily forceful with her uncle. And she had trusted implicitly in his solidity and strength as she slept next to him on the train.
But as he’d disrobed in the evening and beckoned her into the depth of his dressing room, she’d been afraid—the memory of the pain he’d inflicted on her was still fresh in her mind. Here again that fear rattled. And it seemed somehow wrong for him to demand that she remove her clothes when it was clear that he was not amorous, but angry.
“Surely,” she mumbled, “surely you prefer to rest?”
He raised a brow. “Did I not just say I’d like to see you undress?”
“But you are hurt and it’s five o’clock in the morning.”
“You’ve much to learn about men if you think that a scratch on the arm will deter us. Go on, take off everything and lie down on the bed.”
Her voice was growing smaller and smaller. “Perhaps this is not the best time. You’ve more rum in you than a pirate ship and you—”
“And I’d like to sleep with my wife.”
She did not know he could speak this way, with force and weight behind his words. He did not threaten her, but she had been firmly reminded that she was in no position to deny him.
She exhaled very slowly, walked to his bed, and slid under the cover. Once there, she removed her nightshirt as discreetly as she could, and then, to signal that she’d complied, dropped the nightshirt to the side of the bed.
The first thing he did was to flick away the bedcover and expose her. She bit her lower lip and willed herself not to squirm.
His breaths were uneven. The way he looked at her—he devoured her already.
“Spread your legs,” he murmured.
“No!”
He smiled and moved his left hand to the fastening of his trousers. “You will, someday.”
She closed her eyes as his trousers fell. The mattress dipped as he joined her in bed. Then the shock—their naked bodies aligned, touching everywhere.
Everywhere.
“Yes, keep your eyes closed very tightly and imagine that I’m Freddie,” he whispered, the tickle of his breath sending hot, spiked signals along her nerves.
She shook her head, and then gasped as his lips brushed her ear. He kissed her where her shoulder and her neck joined. Then he set his teeth to the exact same spot. A sharp bite—possessive, angry.
But it didn’t quite hurt. Instead, an inexplicable surge of pleasure curled her toes.
“Now imagine it’s Freddie putting his mouth to your very superior bosom,” he said, as he half licked, half bit his way past her collarbone.
She shook her head again. His caustic assertiveness did something to her. Some primordial part of her was all stirred up, responding to the power and command he radiated—sloshed, rude, and very much a man.
“Do you think Freddie lies awake at night thinking about your gorgeous titties?” he asked.
Her eyes opened in shock. Now this went too far. She stared into his eyes—good gracious, were they the reason she remembered talking excitedly about the Hope Diamond on their wedding night?
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Maybe he doesn’t,” said her husband very softly. “But I do.”
And with that, he lowered his head and took her nipple into his mouth.
The pleasure was so sharp it was almost cruel.
He grazed her nipples with his teeth. She was reduced to arching her back and panting audibly. Finally he lifted his head and kissed the undercurve of her breasts instead. From there he went south, his mouth caressing her torso, her belly. He dipped his tongue into her navel, causing her to gasp.
She thought that was as far as he’d go, but he proved her wrong. He went lower. She clamped her thighs together in alarm. Surely he didn’t mean to. Didn’t God smite Sodom and Gomorrah for such wickedness?
But he did mean to. He pulled apart her thighs to nibble at the insides of them.
“No. Please don’t.”
“Shhh,” he said, just before he put his mouth to her.
She’d never been more effectively shushed. He supped on her. He dined on her. He feasted on her. She was mortified, then aroused, then unbearably aroused. He agitated her on and on, sparing no consideration for her delicate sensibilities, no regard for her wish to maintain a decorous quiet.