Why did he desire her so much? He hadn’t bedded her after what he’d witnessed on their wedding day. Just following their goddamnedwedding breakfast, held at her father’s country seat. The intervening months had done nothing to diminish his hunger. He wanted nothing more than to grind his cock into herskirts. To grasp handfuls of silk and jerk them higher, to sink inside the inviting, wet confines of her pussy.
Breeding her wouldn’t be as distasteful as he had supposed. He had his confirmation of that now. No one had made his prick this hard sinceher.
But he forced the raging need licking through him to abate for a moment, focusing on her words.
“What promise would you have me make, madam?” he asked. “I must warn you that you aren’t in any position to make demands of me.”
“Promise me that if I do what you wish, that if I give you an heir, you’ll give me a town house of my own, and you’ll allow me the freedom to do as I wish.”
There it was—what she truly wanted. Not him. But what he could give her. No doubt she wanted a town house so that she could live freely in it with her footman lover.
The thought made him long to slam his fist into the grotto wall.
Everett clenched his jaw instead. “I promise.”
He had no intention of keeping any promise that didn’t suit him, but never mind that. His faithless wife would discover that in her own time later. Why should he uphold a promise to her when she hadn’t even lasted four hours?
“And if I don’t bear a son, then after two children, you will release me from my obligations,” she pressed, sounding breathless.
He was dripping onto her silken skirts, but he didn’t give a damn. If someone were to venture down the steps and into the grotto just now, they would find him naked and pressed against his duchess. He could lift her skirts and take her, and the notion of doing so with an audience made him harder still. He shouldn’t want her. The thought of being inside her shouldn’t make him almost breathless with need.
It didn’t matter.
“Three,” he pressed, just because he could.
“Two children,” she countered. “And then I am free to live on my own and do as I please.”
Her tongue darted out, wetting her lush, pink lips. It occurred to him then that he hadn’t kissed her since she’d become his wife. That mouth was inviting. Deceitful. He would claim it as he would claim her body. He dropped his towel to the floor and clamped his other hand on her waist, his head dipping toward hers.
“Two, but only if we begin today,” he told her.
Her eyes widened.
“The sooner I breed you, the better,” he said, keeping his voice deliberately cutting and cold.
She inhaled sharply at his vulgar words, but her bravado returned in an instant. “If you wanted to do so, you had ample opportunity these last three months.”
His lips were maddeningly near to hers. “I suppose I have you to thank for showing me the error of my ways. So, do we have a bargain?”
“I…”
She faltered.
He had shaken her. He didn’t regret his actions for a moment. He wanted to punish her almost as much as he wanted to bed her. It didn’t make sense, the riot of emotions coursing through him. But he was naked and dripping wet and beginning to get cold, so he would worry about that later.
“Well?” he demanded, inhaling deeply of vanilla and tuberose.
She had no right to smell so bloody intoxicating. To make him want her so bloody much. What a perverse bastard he was, desiring her as he did.
“Very well,” she said curtly, defiance shining in her eyes. “We have a bargain.”
“Excellent,” he bit out. “We’ll begin this evening after dinner.”
He expected her to object. To grow alarmed. To invent an excuse.
But instead, Sybil merely nodded. “As you said, the sooner this distasteful business is at an end, the better. Until this evening, Your Grace.”
With a mocking curtsy, she took her leave of the grotto as Everett watched, naked, wet, and sporting a raging cockstand.
