He took her mouth again, reveling in her hot, lush response. The adage about still waters applied to his Evie utterly. He wanted to plumb her hidden depths…figuratively and literally.
“And because,” he murmured against her plush lips. “I want to say them back.”
“You…you do?”
Her surprise roused a mix of frustration and tenderness. Whatever had happened in her past had made it difficult for her to trust him. He thought it was the height of irony. As a fellow for whom most things had come easily in life, he’d failed at that which mattered most to him: protecting his family and winning his wife’s trust.
Pulling back, he gave her a somber look. “Why does this surprise you?”
“I…I don’t know.” She bit her lip.
“Am I failing to demonstrate my regard for you?” he pressed.
“No.” Her vehemence was, at least, reassuring. “You cannot possibly believe that, James. After everything you have given me?—”
“I am not referring to things,” he said impatiently, “but how I treat you. Have I done anything to make you doubt my feelings? Is there anything I could improve upon to gain your trust?”
“No.” She sounded desperate now. “I have never doubted you, James. Never. You have given me…you’ve been everything I could hope for in a husband. From the start, I didn’t deserve you. Didn’t deserve your noble offer?—”
“Noble?” He drew his brows together. “Are you implying that I offered for you out of honor?”
“You are a gentleman, James,” his wife said earnestly. “The finest gentleman I know. It is your nature to protect and to see justice done. Although it was not your battle to fight, you could not stand by and allow Thaddeus Thurston to ruin me. So you married me.”
“I married you because I wanted you in my bed.”
She blinked.
“By Jove, Evie.” Exasperation took hold, and he was tempted to shake some sense into her. “After a year of marriage, surely you cannot doubt my desire for you.”
“I don’t doubt it.” Her cheeks pink, she mumbled, “But you are, um, a man in your prime and it is your duty to?—”
“Devil take duty.”
Words he’d never uttered before. Yet his wife had a way of bringing out his primitive side—the part of him that acted on feeling and impulse rather than logic. And right now his instinct was telling him that Evelyn Ashewood Harrington needed to have her knotty logic untangled, and talking was not the most expedient way to accomplish that goal.
“You don’t mean that. You are a gentleman of honor?—”
“Devil take that too.”
He yanked her toward him, and she gasped.
“What…what are you doing?”
He continued undoing the buttons on the back of her dress. Luckily for him, she preferred practical styles, and there was a minimum of frills and fuss to get in his way. He had her frock pooled around her ankles in no time.
She swatted at him…rather unconvincingly, he thought. Her surging bosom gave her away. Framed by the neckline of her corset, her décolletage had a delicate flush that heated his loins. Before Evie, he’d considered himself a general admirer of the female anatomy. His wife, however, had made him a devout man when it came to worshipping one specific part: bloody hell, Evie’s breasts were magnificent.
The firm, plump mounds strained against their confinement. With each breath, the rounded tops jiggled enticingly. He would wager his fortune that beneath her corset, her nipples were ripe and fully budded, ready for his tongue.
By Jove, the woman has me panting like a dog for a taste of her…and she thinks I bed her out of duty? Because I’m honorable?
The notion was so ludicrous that he might have laughed. Instead, he finished freeing her from her corset. It hit the floor with a clatter, and her rustling petticoats soon followed.
“It is fairly obvious what I am doing,” he said calmly. “I am going to make such thorough, convincing love to my wife that she will no longer be able to spout nonsense about marital obligations.”
Clad in a thin shift and a pair of drawers, Evie crossed her arms over her chest.
“We cannot do that here,” she sputtered, her eyes huge. “What if a servant comes in? It is the middle of the day, and we’re in a public room…one made of glass, for blossom’s sake!”
