“No, it cannot be the same.” She shook her head. “The pain of one is so much worse than?—”
“Some find release only in pain.” He looked away, to hide his own. “Some gladly suffer pain, while others can barely tolerate a splinter or a scratch. It varies.”
“But—”
“Lizzie, what I inflicted on you that day was wrong not because I used a ruler instead of my hand, but because I forced you to bend to my will when you did not consent to it.”
“But I did not consent that first time either, nor did I consent to?—”
“Yes, and I am not proud of those moments.” He inhaled a breath, unsure how to explain his twisted logic to her. “I was training you, teaching you how to be my wife.” He paused. “It was also because I sensed in you a need.”
***
Elizabeth was awed by her husband’s sudden honesty. She wanted more, wanted to keep him talking now that he at last shared something of himself with her.
“And just why must I betrained?”
“Because of who I am, Lizzie, because of my past! Because there is great evil in this world, men like Hieronymus Finch, who now threaten the very family I wish to create with you!”
“So all you’ve just revealed, actions reprehensible in nature,allof it you claim to have done solely to protect your future family, to protect me?”
“Yes.” He traced her cheekbone with his knuckles in such a gentle, loving manner, she shivered to his touch, incredulous.
He made no sense.
“Milton, will our children also suffer at your hand? Would you?—”
He reacted so violently she nearly tumbled from his lap. “I do not strike children.” His pain was so raw, so tightly coiled, brutal understanding flooded her core.
“Finch’s message … Your scars …”
He looked away.
“Milton, let me touch you, please.” The urge to comfort overwhelmed her.
He dropped his head and she cautiously tilted his chin. She traced his Grecian nose and beautiful, full lips with her fingers, before she placed both hands to his cheeks and drew him in for a gentle kiss. She rained tender kisses across his brow and temples, along his nose to chin and neck, returning again to his lips as she whispered into his mouth, “I do not wish to hurt you, husband, I wish only to understand you.”
He groaned as if in pain.
“Will you let me? Do you trust me enough?”
He buried his face in her neck. “I am not worthy of the effort, Elizabeth.”
She fisted his hair as she pressed him to her breast. “Ishall be the judge of that,” she told him gruffly. “If you would but open yourself to me, I would fill you with worth, smother you with it. I’d sink my greedy hands into your flesh and ply you with?—”
“Greedy hands, eh?” His own elicited a softohfrom her mouth. “And what might I, in turn, sink into your flesh, wife?”
His lips caught her neck’s tender skin and suckled there until she moaned. He’d leave another mark, but she didn’t care. Elizabeth welcomed his possession.
“Mmm.” He moved on to a different, more sensitive sliver of skin.
“Milton…”
“Call me Jasper, Lizzie.”
“Jasper.” She closed her eyes in rapture. “Take me to bed, please.”
“Now, wife?” he teased. “’Tis midday, madam.”
