Still, anger simmered inside her, mingling with the overwhelming ferocity of her desire. She wanted to hurt him. To wound him. To cut him in the only way she knew how. And so she kept her eyes tightly closed.
“If I open them,” she whispered against his lips tauntingly, “I cannot pretend you are Tom.”
The instant those wretched words left her, she regretted them. But it was too late. They had already been spoken. Jack stilled beneath her, his entire body going tense.
His hand slid into her hair, and he grasped a handful, moving her head back.
“Look at me.”
Defying him heightened her excitement. Perhaps she was perverse. But her pulse was pounding, and so too was the flesh between her legs. Her breasts were heavy and aching. She bit her lower lip. “No.”
He growled, and the sound rang through the bathing chamber, feral and dangerous. This, too, made her want him more. Had she not already been in the water, she was sure she would have been dripping for him.
“Damn you, Nell.” His voice was curt, strained. “I am not Sidmouth and you know it. Open your eyes.”
Still, she would not. This, her power over him, excited her. For the entirety of their union, he had held her in his thrall. He had been the wicked rake, the charmer. The gorgeous heir to a marquessate, the most sought-after viscount in London. She had been a country girl, a baron’s daughter forever in his awe. When she had married him, she had gained all his friends, had easily entered the Marlborough House circle. They had entertained, had been much-loved. Suddenly, she had been someone because of him. Until in his absence, she had become someone despite him.
But even upon Jack’s return, he had arrived with his sangfroid and his handsome face and his bloody perfect beard and his protestations of innocence. And she had never stopped wanting him. Her attraction to him went to her marrow. Regardless of her determination to resist him, in spite of the pain of three years without him, and although he had brazenly had another woman in his bed before her very own eyes, Nell still longed for him.
It was infuriating. It made no sense. Here was her chance to regain the power she had lost to him. To make him suffer, just a modicum.
Eyes still closed, she leaned into him, grazing his chest with her breasts. Her nipples were already hardened into demanding peaks, and the sensation of his damp, masculine flesh against her was enough to make her moan. She slid her right hand between then and grasped his cock.
He was still hard. Still ready.
“You could be anyone,” she told him softly. “Do not think that I did not enjoy the company of others in your absence. I may not have welcomed them to my bed, but I still found my pleasure in other ways.”
His fingers tightened in her hair. The tug at her roots was exquisite. Not painful, but masterful. She already knew he was larger and stronger than she was. He could manhandle her as he wished. But he would not, because though he was a conscienceless Lothario, he was also Jack. His anger incited her desire.
“Nell.”
Her eyes were still tightly shut. She smiled for him. Sweetly. Licked her lips, tasting him—salt and hunger and man.Jack.She swayed, brushing her nipples over him once more, and then she stroked his cock until the breath left him in one swift exhalation.
“Hmm?” she asked, too moved by the headiness of the moment to care for much of anything.
She had never before felt intoxicated without having consumed a single drop of spirits. But she did now. She was drunk on pleasure. On him.
“I can make you open your eyes.” He tugged at her hair lightly, as if to prove his point.
Yes, if he pulled her hair hard enough, it would hurt, and her eyes would instinctively fly open.
“Do your worst,” she invited.
After all, this was war between them. Sweet, seductive war.
And she intended to emerge the victor.
“Or my best, Nellie.” He tugged on her hair until her head was pulled back, leaving her throat vulnerable to him. The first touch of his velvety lips to her skin was incendiary. He raked his teeth on her, then nipped a sensitive cord. “Only my very best.”
Damnation.
Liquid desire washed over her. She could not stifle her sigh of appreciation. Jack’s mouth on her had always been heaven. Time, distance, betrayal, and a change of circumstance had not altered that.
He sucked her skin. Kissed a path of fire to her shoulder as the fingers on her pearl increased their pressure and pace. She surged against him, thrusting her cunny into his hand as she stroked his cock. Everything around her was dark, leaving her other senses painfully aware. The scent of citrus and Jack rose in the air. The water was warm, gliding over her skin. Beneath her, his body was large and muscled and strong. She ran her thumb over the head of him the way she remembered he liked.
The answering ache deep within her could not be denied.
He bit her shoulder. One more clever rotation of her pearl, and she shattered. Her climax was sudden and forceful and undeniable. She shuddered as the force of it thundered through her. The pain was delicious. Exquisite. So, too, the pleasure.
