“We don’thavea marital bed.”
“A figure of speech.”
Her mouth thinned. “I do not recall discussing any ofyourillicit activities. If someone were to ask me, I couldn’t list a single person or place of ill-repute that you’ve visited over the past fortnight, let alone the last year. Although I’m sure you’ve frequented your fair share. Why, then, should I have to undergo scrutiny and agree to ludicrous conditions in order to do whatIwant?”
“Because you’re my wife,” he growled.
“When it suits you,” she shot back. “When it doesn’t, I’m a forgotten inconvenience!”
Five steps.
Five steps was all it took to cross the invisible line, grab Mara by the arms, and cover her mouth with his.
His kiss in the blue room had been slow, simmering, and designed to melt away her inhibitions.
His kiss in the solarium was fast, furious, and spurred by rage at the thought of another man touching what belonged tohim.
If his conditions were ludicrous, then it was due to the fact that he wanted them to fail. But if he came right out and said that, then he’d have to explain why.
Why it mattered.
Whyshemattered.
And sometimes... sometimes it was simply easier to taste than to talk.
After a pause that felt like an eternity, Mara returned his kiss, her fingers creeping up to clutch the lapels of his jacket as her tongue tentatively met his. He ran his fingers through her hair, sending pins scattering as fire coursed through his veins and the smell of lilacs invaded his nostrils, an intoxicating aphrodisiac that made him want to throw back his head and howl like a bloody wolf.
Lifting her effortlessly, he went to the nearest table and with a violent sweep of his arm sent the perfectly arranged crystalware crashing to the ground. Already lost in each other, in desires long denied and passions put by the wayside, neither acknowledged the sound or the mess as Ambrose laid Mara out across the table as if she were a sumptuous feast and he a man half-starved.
Eyes glazed, heart pounding, cock hard as a damned iron pike, he fell to his knees and shoved her skirts up and over her knees. “Hold these,” he ordered, his voice muffled by the stocking he was in the midst of peeling off her slender calf... with his teeth.
Sunlight dappled her bare legs and he kissed each shimmering halo of golden light on his way to the top of her thighs where downy coils of red guarded her slick core. She tensed when he brushed his lips across her there, her little toes curling on his shoulders.
“Am-Ambrose, you—you can’t do that,” she protested, and in response he licked her, a groan rumbling in the depths of his throat at the sweet, tangy taste of her nectar on the tip of his tongue.
“Why not?” he asked, turning his head to kiss the inside of one quivering thigh.
“B-because... because...” Her toes uncurled. “I’m not sure, actually.”
His vibrating chuckle landed directly on her clitoris and she cried out, thrusting her hips off the edge of the table as she grabbed his hair with both hands. Emboldened, he used his thumbs to spread her delicate folds apart and presumed to taste her in earnest... what had always been somewhat of a chore transforming into an act of pure pleasure for them both.
Listening to the sounds of her breaths, he took her to the brink again... and again... and again. Drawing away each time he heard her gasp, felt her body bow... before resuming what was surely God’s work, for if this wasn’t what an angel tasted like, then he’d happily damn himself to the devil.
When her velvety quim tightened around his tongue, he reached for the source of his own pulsing arousal and drew his cock from his trousers, the rounded tip already damp with seed. Using his mouth and hand in tandem, he brought them both to the edge. That wild, teetering, windswept edge where the sky blurred with the sea. Then with a ruthless plunge, he sent them careening over, his muffled groan captured by the drenched center of her ecstasy.
In the lull of panting breaths that immediately followed the swell of release, Ambrose maintained his hold on Mara’s thighs, his fingers loathe to give up their grip of silken flesh. On the table, her arms flailed drowsily, knocking another glass to the floor as she struggled to sit up. Mindful of the broken shards of crystal and porcelain, he rose to his feet and proceeded to scoop her right up into his arms as if she were a pile of fluffy down, albeit one with bright red cheeks and dazed brown eyes instead of white and gray feathers.
“That... that...” She stopped. Licked her lips. “I quite enjoyed that.”
“Should we make a new hobby of it?” he asked, vaguely recalling a conversation they’d had in the park when they were courting and he taught her how to skip a rock across the water. When he’d wanted a wife who would be easy to control. A wife who wouldn’t provoke any emotional response. A wife he would never love, because if there was one lesson his father had instilled in him above all others, it was that to love something was to risk the devastation that came from losing it.
“Maybe?” Mara’s head fell onto his shoulder as she peeked at him from beneath her lashes. “Although a location without so much breakable dishware would probably be preferable,” she said with enough seriousness that the corners of his mouth twitched. “That was a very fine set of crystal. A wedding present from the Duke of Ashcroft, I think.”
Ambrose snorted. “Ashcroft is a stingy old miser. I’d be willing to bet a hundred pounds that’s glass, not crystal, and I...” His mouth hung open, no sound emerging as he watched a beam of light from a nearby window dance across the dusting of freckles on her nose. “I...”
I am falling in love with you.
I am in love with you.
