A salve for him. A reminder for herself.
“I would not have equality, a voice in marriage.” A mantra. A lifeline against her own heartache. “A husband…anyhusband will expect submission in all things.”
“Not in all things.” His eyes darkened a shade, his lips quirking at the corner in a manner that sent all sorts of dark, lusty thoughts through her mind. His finger traced a sensual pattern on the back of her hand.
The sensation of his calloused thumb stroking her hand was lovely, giving her visions of all the other bits of her he might give the same treatment. Tugging her hand back, Prim frowned into her drink. It must be much stronger than it tasted to be giving her thoughts like that.
“But there might be one or two areas where you might discover submission to be to your advantage.”
Those dark thoughts flared into brilliant color. Jamie poised over her, bronzed and brawny. Taking his pleasure of her. Giving it. The near ecstasy his kiss had brought her in the carriage only hinted at what rapture he might lavish upon her.
Prim took a bigger swallow of her drink, the alcohol radiating heat out from its path, but not so much as the fire he aroused in her. “You enjoy shocking me.”
“I enjoy making you see the truth,” he countered. “I told you before, a true man doesn’t have to dominate a woman to prove his virility. He can enjoy her. Appreciate. Respect her as an equal…in marriage. And in bed.”
More images that had little in common with her experience in darkened rooms, with tentatively raised nightgowns, and laying on her back flooded her mind. Jamie in all his glory, bathed in light. Above her. Beneath her.
He might not be trying to shock her, but he was. Just as she was shocking herself.
Taking another sip of her drink, Prim’s mind buzzed, whether it was due to the libation or her own scandalous thoughts, she wasn’t sure.
In either case, a nightclub was hardly the place to be having such thoughts. Or such a discussion where anyone might overhear them. So, when the piano player came back on stage, she gave him her full attention hoping to banish the lascivious imaginings.
CHAPTER 22
I don’t know if I should care for a man who made life easy; I should want someone who made it interesting.
~ Edith Wharton
Knowing that he’d pushed her again as hard as he might, James let the subject drop as the pianist began a jaunty tune that brought a round of applause from the audience. He was joined by a fiddler and a trumpet player.
James listened to the band with half an ear, but his eyes were all for Prim as she watched the energetic band with wonder on her face. Delight tugged at his lips as he watched Prim absorb the experience. The elation on her face was a far cry from the prudish expressions he’d long associated with her.
Soon her toe was tapping along, her hands clapping to the beat. He wondered how often she’d read of new things but never experienced them.
More than that, he had to wonder how long it’d been since she was truly happy.
He’d done that.
Or perhaps it was the alcohol, he reconsidered, as she sipped on her second sour.
Another lively tune started and several couples moved on to the dance floor.
“Would you like to dance?” he asked.
Prim shook her head. “I wouldn’t even begin to know how.”
He toyed with the idea of offering to teach her, or simply towing her onto the floor. He opted for neither, letting her enjoy it and perhaps leave learning for another time.
Lifting a finger, he ordered another round of cocktails for them. He swallowed his down when it arrived, but Prim just set hers aside. She perched on the edge of her seat, observing the spirited dance with interest.
The upbeat song ended and after the applause subsided, the violinist stepped to the front of the stage and began playing more mournfully. A vocalist came on stage as well, adding the words to the song James recognized as Charles K. Harris’sAfter the Ball.
The song was the story of a man who’d witnessed a kiss between a woman he loved and his brother. He’d assumed she had taken his brother as her lover and rejected her without ever seeing her again or asking her about the incident.
He’d lived out his days in misery rather than with the woman he loved.
Again, James was bothered by the kiss he’d witnessed. He didn’t want to hear that she had another lover, but was he going to let the unknown eat at him?
