She did not know. Words would be forever inadequate. Then again, perhaps they did not need words.
She was a matron, now. Unbound by the stifling rules of propriety. And she had, in her private chambers, a man who affected her more deeply than anyone. A man capable of bringing her great pain…and great pleasure. A man who had re-created her favorite view, simply so she would feel its warmth and comfort.
Slowly, she reached up around her neck and loosened her fichu. Without the support, the bodice gaped. The hint of her breasts had been enough to leave him transfixed.
Blood rose like a flame up his neck.
“Forget tonight.” By tonight, she might lose her nerve. “Come to me now.”
She undid the tie that gathered her overdress beneath her breasts and allowed it to fall away like a coat. She stood before him clad only in a shift, stays, and stockings. Still, he did not move.
She fumbled for the ties that held her stays but could not reach them.
“I require your assistance,” she glanced through her lashes, “husband.”
His unreadable gaze burned into hers. He took her fingers from the ties and placed her hands around his neck. In one, swift movement, he lifted her from the floor.
Her legs dangled from the crook of his arm as he carried her through the next two chambers—dressing rooms, perhaps, they moved too quickly for her to tell. She didn’t care, really. The burn behind his eyes fascinated.
When he reached the bed—her very own bed—they sunk as one into the mattress. He opened his mouth to speak. She covered it with her fingers. If he spoke, he’d awaken that thing inside. That thing that snapped and snarled and wished him to the devil.
“You said you wanted me to feel,” she said. “Make me feel.”
She grasped him by his cheeks and forced his lips to her mouth. He kissed her, his unspoken words melded to her skin, branding her, making her shiver in a way that simultaneously warmed and chilled.
She’d sworn to take care of herself, and the deepest, truest part of herself screamed,I want.
I wantto be worshiped with his body.
I wanthis lips to cover mine.
I wanthis hands on my breasts.
I wanthim to fill me from the inside out.
So what if he’d hurt her? Her need grew from a place beyond justice-apportioning scales. Her need demanded fusion, not balance—heat strong enough to liquefy, to unify.
He withdrew from their kiss, his lips reluctantly parting from hers.
Struggle sweated into his scent, struggle she read in the harsh lines of his face. A gentleman wouldn’t take his wife, not while unresolved pain haunted the space between them. But she wanted to be taken. No, she demanded to be taken, and she would not be denied.
She wanted the brute, the bastard.
She reached through the specter of pain, grasping Bromton by his thigh. She searched until she found his manhood—stiff as she’d suspected, and painfully restrained beneath the cover of his falls. She grasped his length with her fingers, demonstrating just how little she thought of holding to the rules that bound lords and ladies.
She was no lady. And he was no gentleman. He was, however, a man. A man whose heat burned between her thighs. A man who left her nipples taut and pleading.
She worked the buttons that held his falls. One, two, three on the right. One, two—
He grabbed her wrist, pulling her hand above her head, and crowded her with his chest until she was pinned to the mattress. There, he paused, breathing heavily. She wet her lips, challenging him in silence.
Do you want me? Well, then, come and get me.
He dragged her other arm above her head, holding her prostrate by her wrists. Did he think she’d give up so easily? She wrapped her legs around his hips and arched.
“Dammit,” he growled.
She felt his curse in her belly, felt him crack off the edge of his foul language. She curved her back. Her arms strained as she pressed her breasts into his chest. The gentleman vanished. He moved against her in a pantomime of the act of love, until her shift crowded past her hips.
