She was growing alarmed, and her voice rose accordingly. “You twist my words to suit yourself!”
“Nay, I merely interpreted them differently.”
“You do this for more revenge. Admit it!”
His voice turned soft, his expression sensual. “I do this because I want you, Erika, heart or no heart. We can at least have this between us.”
“You think making love will make things different between us? Do you forgetwhyI am here?”
He was trying to, but she wasn’t letting him. He didn’t say that, though, didn’t answer her question at all. “Turgeis claims you are not happy.”
“Ah, now I see. ’Tis your exalted opinion that making love with you will make me happy.”
He grinned despite the derision in her tone. “It will not make youunhappy, wench.”
She was afraid he was right, and that was the problem. She had been furious with himall week for flaunting his leman beneath her nose. And now he expected her to forget about that, to lie down and play wife to his husband? Not likely.
She had spent each night imagining him with that slut Lida, and waiting each morn to be told to move out of his room so he could share it with another. That she hadn’t been displaced yet meant nothing. It could still happen. Or mayhap he thought to share the room with them both now.
She was seeing red before her thoughts had finished. “I am not interested, so go back to your other women.”
“I have known no other women since we wed.”
Since they had met, would be more accurate, but that would have sounded too absurd coming from him, was absurd, especially as he had had ample opportunity. He just hadn’t taken it—because of her.
“I am to believe that,” she scoffed, “when every time I turn around, that black-haired wench is practically in your lap? Hah!”
Contempt now, and it had him flushing when he was not at fault. “I never slept with Lida. Ask her—nay, do not,” he amended. “She might lie. You will just have to take my word for it.”
“Hah!”
That second “Hah!” got him angry, enough to say, “As it happens, the other wenches are unavailable this eventide. ’Tis not a good time of the month for one, and the other is already taken for the night.”
“So abstain,” she raged at him. “Can you not go without for one damned night?”
He hadn’t meant to admit it, it just came out. “As I have gone without for every night since I met you, nay, I cannot go without for even one more night. I am your husband, like it or not. Tonight you will be my wife in every way. So get you in that bed, wench, to await me. Donotmake me put you there.”
He had never taken a woman in anger and wasn’t going to start now. It was not in his nature to be aught but tender with a woman, but he wasn’t taking any chances with Erika. His temper had to cool first.
He sighed and moved to one of the two windows that flooded the room with light in the daytime. A stool was before one, and he rested his foot on it. Did she sit there often, pining for the life she had left behind?
The silence thickened behind him. She had not gotten into the bed.
After a while more, he said, “This can be a new beginning, do you let it.”
She didn’t answer him, but he did hear the bed creak under her weight. He turned around to see her sitting there watching him. And as he gazed at her, she lay back against the pillows. He sucked in a sharp breath. His heart began to pound to a new drum-roll. His body thickened and filled to the passions of the moment.
His step was hesitant as he approached the bed, fearful that he mistook her actions. Yet she waited; she didn’t move. But he was still nervous, never so nervous, not even with hisfirst woman so many eons ago. He knew not why this was so important, just knew that he didn’t want to frighten her with the feelings that were overwhelming him.
He should have extinguished the candle by the bedside, but he didn’t. He wanted to see as well as feel again the body that had consumed so many of his dreams. She was so lushly made, his wife. And as he joined her on the bed and gathered her into his arms, he could feel every curve against his own body and knew ecstasy.
For a while all he did was hold her to him. He was in a ravishing frame of mind, unique for him, but he had it under control, prayed to keep it so. He was afraid to speak; words had never been gentle between them. But without words, he knew not if she lay there resentful, in mere acquiescence, or because she did, in fact, want a new beginning. He could pretend it was the latter.
Erika didn’t know what to think when he just held her. He was allowing her too much time to reconsider. She shouldn’t have given in like this. It was crazy to hope for something better out of her marriage when there was so much bitterness behind them.
Yet his anger had reached her. If he hadn’t shouted at her, she wouldn’t have believed him. But she did believe him, and the long abstinence he had claimed made a world of difference to what she was feeling.
That “I want you” had affected her more strongly than she had realized. Her own angerhad masked it, kept it from taking over. But once her anger dissolved with his confession, she was helpless against those feelings.
