“Money isn’t all that matters to Calbernans and you know it. And he didn’t say he was planning to use her gifts to fight pirates.”
“He didn’t say he was not planning to either.”
She slipped a hand inside his tunic to stroke the smooth skin of his chest. His lashes lowered, and he all but purred. He loved the feel of her hands on him. She was always so warm, her storm gifts a literal fire burning away inside her flesh.
“Wyn,” she said in an equally warm murmur. “Give him a chance.” Her lips sought and found his throat, nibbling little kisses along his slowly increasing pulse.
“A chance?” Wyn smiled. He knew he was being managed, but as long as she kept kissing and petting him, he didn’t mind.
“Mmm. We owe him more than we can ever repay. Besides, he’s a good man, and he’d be a much better husband to Gabriella than most of the suitors who’ve come calling over the years. Calbernans are fiercely loyal and loving and protective of their women.”
“Sounds like a good dog.”
She drew back to glare at him. “Oh, really? Aren’t you fiercely loyal, loving, and protective, too?”
He grinned. “Woof.”
She smacked his chest with an open palm and snorted in amusement. “Frost brain.”
When she didn’t immediately go back to kissing and petting him, he frowned. “Aren’t you trying to seduce me into doing what you want? It hasn’t worked yet. I think you need to coax me with more sexual favors.”
“Oh, really?” One black brow arched expressively. “And will that work, do you think?”
“I don’t know. Let’s try it and see.” He leaned back in his chair and offered himself up to her. “I’m all yours,min ros.Seduce away.”
She got the most adorably determined look on her face, said, “All right,” and to his delight, hiked her skirts and straddled him.
“Mmm,” he approved. “So far, so good.”
“Hush.” She laid a finger across his lips, then replaced it a moment later with her lips and kissed him senseless.
Well, not entirely senseless. He still had a handful of thoughts floating around and colliding randomly in the blissful vacuum of his brain.
“Don’t stop,” he muttered when she lifted her head. “I think that’s working.”
“Good.” She dragged his hands around to the laces at the back of her gown, and as he fumbled blindly to work them loose, she went back to kissing his neck. “As I was saying,” she murmured against his skin, “Dilys Merimydion is a good man. I want all my sisters to be as happy in their marriages as I am, and I think he can make that happen.” Her tongue darted out to lick the same skin she’d just kissed. “I’ve never heard of an unhappy Calbernan wife. Ever.”
“She doesn’t like him. She’s made it clear she doesn’t like him.”
“That’s not what Autumn and Spring think. They think she likes him so much it scares her. That that’s why she’s been running away from him so hard. I think they may be right. Back in Summerlea, when the suitors came calling, Gabriella never made herself scarce around the objectionable ones. In fact, the more awful a suitor was, the more solicitous of him she would become. It was only the charming ones who showed an interest in her that she tended to avoid. And I’ve never seen her avoid anyone the way she’s been avoiding Dilys Merimydion.” She’d found his ear and did things with her breath and her tongue that made him shudder and nearly shred her laces in his haste to get them undone.
“You know what I think?” he growled as her bodice loosened, freeing her pregnancy-plumped breasts to his plundering mouth.
“What?” She gasped and arched her back to give him better access.
“I think I don’t want you talking or even thinking about other men at a time like this.” He pushed a hand up under her skirts, finding the soft warmth of her thigh. He stroked softly, working his way higher until he found a different soft warmth, then stroked that until her head fell back and her eyes took on that glazed, silvery cast he knew and loved.
“Other men?” she moaned. “What other men?”
He smiled. “Precisely.”
Chapter 10
“He’s asking to see you again, ma’am.”
Summer, who lay basking in the warm sunlight on the royal family’s private terrace, scowled. “Tell him I’m resting. I’llberesting all afternoon, and I don’t want to be disturbed.”
“Yes, ma’am. I’ll let him know.” The palace servant who’d brought the message curtsied and hurried away.
