Keeping him at a distance would be ever so much easier if they were at odds.
“Fortunately, I have a lifetime to learn it,” he quipped, unperturbed.
Why did he have to be so calm, so polite, so charming?
So handsome?
And why did she have to want him so desperately, even after he had betrayed her?
Because you have a marked predilection for choosing the wrong men. Men who will betray you and break your heart.
Yes, that was why, and it would behoove her to remember that.
“If you would like to ride, you may do so,” she suggested.
“Not without you. The point of a honeymoon is to spend time with one’s wife,cariad.” His voice was quiet. Intimate. “Amongst other things.”
Oh, the wicked rake.
She knew what he meant byother things.
And her body did, too. Two simple words, and she was already melting for him. Yearning for his touch, his kiss.
“Of course,” she managed, irritated with herself for the breathlessness in her voice and the familiar ache that had already started between her thighs.
“Greymoor tells me there are a number of Roman ruins here at Haines Court,” he said next. “Perhaps you would care to explore them.”
That piqued her interest, for her old love of history and antiquities, once discouraged by Arthur as unseemly, had never truly left her. “Ruins? Here? Of course I would love to see them.”
He paused in the act of cutting a bite of sausage and looked to her, grinning. “Ah, at last I have found something that pleases my wife aside from my cock.”
She wasin medias resof sipping her chocolate, as he uttered the last, and her shock made her choke. The result was a decidedly inelegant spew of liquid from her mouth, directly across the table. A fine mist of chocolate sprayed over the table linens, and a line of chocolate dribbled down her chin.
She struggled to keep from choking as she reached for aservietteand frantically dabbed at her face.
“Did I shock you, darling?” he drawled mildly. “Do forgive me.”
Of course he had shocked her. He had just said the wordcockin the midst of breakfast. She glanced around frantically, making certain no footmen had unobtrusively joined them. Thankfully, the door to the breakfast room remained closed, and they were still alone.
“You…” she sputtered, attempting to sop up the spray of chocolate marring the table linen. “You are incorrigible.”
“I pride myself on it.” He took another sip of his coffee, unrepentant. “But at least I’m not boring. Imagine if you had married a husband who was a dull chap who neither knew how to please you with his cock nor was bold enough to say the word aloud at the breakfast table.”
His sangfroid was vexing. Meanwhile, her pulse was going faster. And much to her shame, she was having sinful thoughts of her own. Thoughts about how thick and hard he had been in her hand yesterday. About how she wished she had not been wearing gloves so she might have known the soft heat of his flesh in her palm.
“Do cease saying that word if you please,” she managed weakly as she frantically dabbed at the table cloth.
“Which word?” he asked pleasantly. “Cock?”
“Yes,” she hissed. “That word.”
“Do you know that when you are embarrassed, your cheeks turn the loveliest shade of pink? And you nibble on your delectable lower lip.”
He thought her lower lip delectable?
Blast, shewaschewing on it, wasn’t she? She stopped immediately, straightening her spine.
“Would you prefer I use a different word?” He flashed her a cheeky smile. “Prick, perhaps? Or pego?”
