“And he was a fine lord, a handsome one at that,” she said, studying those pained eyes.
“He shouldn’t have done it.”
Ann dropped a hand to her husband’s chest and traced the path of water over his skin and thatch of hair. Edmund wasn’t wrong. But his assumptions about her seduction had kept them apart for fourteen years. She needed to clear up his misapprehensions so they could be a family at last.
“Crispin should not have seduced me, I agree,” she said.
Edmund grunted.
“But you need to understand that marrying me and leaving me at your estate hurt me far more than Crispin tearing my maidenhead at sixteen,” she said, her hand now a fist settled against that broad chest.
“I did it to protect you,” he said, his eyes looking strangely bright. He — this towering monument to masculinity — couldn’t be crying, could he? “You suffered the consequences of the Wake family’s lust, and I wasn’t about to force you through that again.You were young, Ann.You were all of sixteen, bringing a sad little doll with you into the house where you were to serve as mistress!”
Their toes met each other in that tub as they inched closer together while solving the longtime problem of their broken marriage. Edmund realized what was happening and used his big toe to stroke his wife’s; he’d reach her heart any way he could, even if it meant traveling all the way up an artery.
“I was young, but that only magnified the confusion I felt at a choice you never consulted me before making,” she said.
“Leaving you ruined in judgmental Shropshire after what Crispin did would have been unthinkable. Especially when there was the risk of a child.”
Ann hung her head, recalling that time. Edmund wasn’t wrong.
“And then I saw how you looked at me in the church,” he said, the full extent of his anguish finally coloring his voice. “Youfearedme, Annie. I couldn’t force you to live with me.”
Her eyes dropped to his nipples. Even those blasted things were handsome and desirable.
“In that church, I did fear you,” she said.
Edmund nodded, satisfied that he'd read her face correctly and his decision to stay away was for the best.
“But,” she said, pinching one of those nipples that taunted her. “As I reached my majority and understood more about what might happen between…loving people, I craved you.”
Ann let the words sink in, holding his gaze boldly as she dragged her tongue over her husband’s nipple to show how deep her desire for him ran. He seemed at a loss for words, so she continued.
“I imagined you returning to your estate in Shropshire, ordering me to undress, and taking me. I considered each room in the house. Considered all the positions, all while touching myself to the thought of you filling me. That’s what I’ve been doing for the last decade. How I’ve filled the time while you weren’t filling me.”
The bathing chamber was silent, save for the sound of the falling water. Perhaps she’d said too much, gone too far. But her desire demanded that she speak in hopes of at last making a marriage out of a legal agreement.
“Our estate,” he said.
“I beg your pardon?”
“You said ‘your estate.’ As my wife, it is our estate.”
“I believe any court in the land would rule that the estate, in fact, belongs to you.”
“Belongs to the marquessate, not me, not that one, if we must be technical. Or most of our estates.”
“I don’t follow,” she said.
“I don’t want to be technical,” said Edmund, drawing an arm around Ann’s back to press her wet front to his firm chest. “I don’t want a technical marriage. A marriage on paper. I want to share what is mine with you.”
“But you just said the estate is not yours to share with me.”
Edmund brought his lips close to hers, holding them there as he looked down upon the slip of a girl who had grown into being his wife. He was now ready to make her his wife, in truth. But was she ready for him? Could she possibly handle what he had to give her?
“Then let me give you all the things that are mine to give instead,” he said, bringing her hand to his cock.
Ann’s lips parted, and she searched Edmund’s face for signs they wanted the same thing. Looking down, she saw his ruddy cockhead emerge from her grasp. Then she covered it again, causing her husband to moan while he gripped the hood of the bath that prevented water from spraying onto the floor.
