She frowned tremendously and tried to move away from him, but he grasped her by the arms. She tried to pull free. “He is a terrible, foolish man,” she said, quite unhappy. “If you bring him here, I will not let him look at me.”
Without even realizing it, Atticus tried to gently negotiate with her. He didn’t like seeing her unhappy. “Sweetling, you must,” he said. “I will be here the entire time. I will not leave him alone with you, I swear it, but you must let him examine you and discover what is the matter. You are running quite a fever.”
Pouting and ill, Isobeau allowed Atticus to drag her back over to the bed. He gently pushed her down to sit on it, kissing herforehead as he did so. It seemed like the most natural of actions, a tender kiss to her hot forehead. He smacked his lips.
“Christ,” he muttered. “’Tis as if I kissed a branding iron.”
She was deeply unhappy with his comment and her hand went up to her hot forehead. “I am notthathot,” she said. “Stop exaggerating.”
Atticus saw an opportunity to tease her, however gently. He slapped a hand over his mouth as he moved to the door. “I am burned,” he said, hoping he could at least make her laugh a bit. The truth was that he was extremely worried. “My lips will never be the same.”
As he’d hoped, Isobeau fought off a grin and looked away. “It serves you right,” she said. “Never kiss a woman unless you have her permission.”
He opened the door to summon a servant, his hand still on his mouth. “I am your husband,” he said flatly. “I do not need your permission.”
Isobeau turned her nose up at him. “Is that so?” she said, collapsing back on the bed because she was, in truth, quite exhausted. “If someone has told you such a thing, they were sadly mistaken. You must not kiss a woman who does not want to be kissed. You could come away missing an eye.”
He burst out in laughter, summoning his father’s elderly servant from down the corridor and sending the man scampering off for the physic. As the old man fled, he shut the door and faced Isobeau, now lying on the bed with her feet hanging over the side.
“Would you really gouge my eye out if you did not want me to kiss you?” he asked, rubbing his chin and pretending to be serious. “I may have to rethink my views on a husband-wife relationship if that is the case.”
Now that she was on her back, Isobeau was feeling extremely lethargic and tired. She did, indeed, have a fever and it waspulling at her, but not enough so that she wasn’t enjoying the gentle flirtation between her and Atticus. It was the first time for such a thing and she didn’t want to miss a moment of it, no matter how badly she felt.
“You have never been married before so you would not know,” she said. “There is a proper way to do such things.”
He put his hands on his hips. “You were only married a couple of months,” he said, cocking a stern eyebrow. “Do not think yourself to be such an expert.”
She tilted her head, looking at him. “I am more of an expert than you.”
Atticus frowned, unwilling to admit she might actually have more experience at something than he had. But it was all in good fun. “My father has had more experience than either of us,” he said. “I will ask him if I need permission to kiss my wife.”
“Why not just ask your wife and be done with it?”
He cocked his head, conceding the point. Then, he made his way over to the bed, standing over her as she lay upon his mother’s faded silk coverlet. The humor of the situation faded as he envisioned her spread across the silk, her blond hair splayed about her head and shoulders like angel’s wings. His heart began to race, fluttering oddly in his chest.
“God, you’re an alluring creature,” he murmured as his gaze drifted over her. “You are quite beautiful.”
Isobeau smiled at his words, warmed and thrilled by them. Hearing him speak made her think that perhaps he was seeing her as more than a duty after all. As she gazed up into his handsome face, she fervently hoped so. She very much wanted to be more than a duty to him.
“Are you saying that so I will give you permission to kiss me?” she asked softly. “If you are, it is working.”
He broke down into a grin. “I did not say it to coerce you,” he said quietly. “I said it because it was the truth. You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.”
Isobeau was deeply flattered, feeling giddy. Something in his eyes glimmered, suggesting warmth and truth and… Sweet Jesus, could she even hope for more? Was it even possible?
“Then I give you permission to kiss me,” she said very softly, whispering the words. “You need not ask permission if you feel the need. I will allow it, for always.”
The smile faded from Atticus’ face. Before he realized it, he was bent over her, his enormous arms braced on either side of her slender body, his head hovering above hers. All he could see at the moment was the most alluring, sensuous woman he’d ever known. His wife. There were brief flashes in his mind of Titus, but flashes that were quickly pushed aside by whatever he was feeling for Isobeau. How he came to feel for the woman so quickly, so strongly, was beyond him. All he knew was that he had an attraction to her stronger than he could control.
With great tenderness, he bent down and kissed her on the forehead. When that wasn’t satisfying enough, his mouth slanted over her warm, dry lips, and suckled gently. Within the first few seconds of tasting her, however, lust as he’d never experienced bolted through him and his big arms went around her, pulling her up from the mattress and holding her against his chest as his lips devoured her.
She was soft, heated, and compliant in his arms, and he’d never tasted anything so sweet in his life. When her hands timidly moved to his face, clutching at him, that gentle motion drove him wild with excitement and he opened his mouth to her, his tongue snaking its way between her honeyed lips, now tasting her tongue as if it were the most delicious of morsels.
Isobeau whimpered, her body caving into him, and Atticus held her so tightly that he very nearly crushed her. Only whenshe pulled her mouth away from his, gasping for breath, did he realize how firmly, how powerfully, he was kissing her. He pulled back to look at her half-lidded eyes and kiss-swollen lips. Their eyes met and he felt something more than he’d ever felt, for anyone. Something within her green eyes reached out, grasped his heart, and devoured it.
At that moment, he wanted nothing more than to rip her clothes off and drive his swollen male member into her quivering, yielding flesh, joining himself with her until he spilled himself deep. And then he would take her again and again until this wild lust inside of him was satisfied.
But he knew he couldn’t do that, not now. The last shards of control that he possessed brought him back to his senses, reminding him that she was ill and, for the first time in his life, he could not do as he pleased with a woman. He smiled weakly, apologetic that he had lost control, but that didn’t stop him from kissing her one last time, gently, before letting her go.
