“Like what?” she asked, voice louder than anticipated.
“I believe you could be more polite than that.”
She steadied herself, or at least attempted to. She did not want to be nice or polite. She wanted to be completely disgraceful, but if it meant he would continue, she was willing to do anything.
“What do you want to do with me, Your Grace?”
“Much better,” he teased, squeezing her thigh. “For a start, I would kiss more than your lips and your neck. I would make sure that every part of you is kissed and touched, so that you know exactly who you belong to.”
And when his hand rested at the inner top of her thigh, dangerously close to her most sensitive place, she knew there was no denying who that was.
Pressing her fingernails into his back, she felt tension rising in her stomach. She needed it to continue, but she also needed relief.
Neither happened.
Spencer pulled away again, grinning wickedly as he pulled himself to his feet. He adjusted his trousers, but left his hair in the state she had put it in.
“Unless you wish to experience everything you read about,” he warned, “we ought to stop here.”
Anna did not have the words to argue. She did not want to stop, but when she tried to say as much, she felt herself dizzying even more. He chuckled at her, deliberately keeping the small distance between them.
“Had I known that a kiss was all that was necessary to make you quiet, I would have done it long before. I may do it every day I am here, just to be sure.”
So he was going to leave her again. Her dizzy pleasure vanished into cold certainty.
Even so, she only wished to take the smug smile off of his face. It was infuriating that he knew just what to do to her, and she would come undone. She had gone to his room furious, and he had shown her such passion that she had let it go, but she could not allow that.
“This– this will never happen again,” she asserted. “I will not allow you to do that again.”
“Oh, but you will,” he chuckled, lowering himself again so that his lips were by her ear. “You will want this again, and you will beg me for it. I know you, Anna. You can fight it all you want, but there is no use.”
“You are insufferable,” she huffed, pushing herself into a sitting position and hastily tying her gown again.
“And yet, you so badly wish to suffer me.”
She left the room without agreeing aloud, but of course it was true. She wanted him so badly that it was only when she returned to her room that she remembered that she had gone there to argue with him.
She was merely glad that her maid had left, and she was alone in her torment.
CHAPTER 14
“Icannot stand him!”
A bold declaration for a wife. An easy one for a woman alone and tormented.
“I rather like him,” Maria shrugged. “I thought he was very kind to bring books for us last week.”
“And why did he do that?” Anna asked. “To mock me.”
Her friends all looked at her in surprise. It was their club meeting, and they were holding it at Evelina’s home that week. Anna had been grateful for it, for it meant an excuse to avoid her husband again. She had scarcely spoken to him since their encounter, and she had to admit that part of that was because she had something to prove.
“Is it not possible that he was simply doing it to be kind?” Evelina asked. “I did not notice any malice in him, and if it was there I would have seen it.”
“I want to believe that, but it does not make any sense. He has now asked that we keep our opinions to within the confines of this club, rather than voicing them at events.”
“Given your circumstances, I can see why he might want that.”
“Why are you agreeing with him? He is trying to silence us. That is likely why he got us those gifts. He must have thought it would be easier to ask us to be quieter if he had given us a present first.”
