“Goodnight, Agnes.”
The servant bobbed her head. “Goodnight, Your Grace. And good dreams.”
Mara wasn’t sure how good dreams could come of such a wretched day, but she accepted Agnes’s wishes with a smile before releasing a quiet sigh of relief when the door closed. While she did want companionship, having time with her own thoughts was also a comfort. And wasn’t that part of being human? To desire one thing and seek another.
Ruefully meeting her own gaze in the mirror attached to her dressing table, she gave up on taming her rebellious mane into some semblance of order and instead let the copper curls ping and spring wherever they wanted as she donned the nightdress that Agnes had put out for her.
She was in the middle of pulling it over her head, her back to the door, when she heard the quietclickof the latch as it swung inward on silent hinges.
“Agnes,” she sighed. “I told you to go home.”
But when she turned around, it wasn’t Agnes standing in the doorway.
It was Ambrose.
Ambrose, tall, lean, and rakishly handsome in a shirt partially unbuttoned and a black curl dangling across his temple. Ambrose, cold, arrogant, and domineering. Ambrose, the husband she wanted to loathe... and was terrified to love.
Bracing an arm against the frame, he arched his brow at her. “Are you ill?”
“Ill?” she repeated, caught off guard. “No. Why would you ask that?”
“Because you were not at dinner as I told you to be. I presumed your absence must have been due to some kind of sickness and took it upon myself to check on your welfare.”
She scowled at him. “I am not apet, to be ordered around at your command. And since when did you start caring about my welfare? I am not sick, or ill, or otherwise indisposed. You may leave.”
“I’m glad that you’re not sick.” Lowering his arm, he stepped fully into her bedchamber, closing the door—then locking it—behind him. “But I’m not leaving.”
“Why...” Her tongue was stuck to the roof of her mouth. Forcibly prying it loose, she swallowed and tried again. “Why not?”
“I thought we might have another lesson.” As his gaze wandered leisurely across her frame, Mara realized too late that she was standing in front of a candle... and the orange glow, coupled with the billowy fabric of her nightdress, enabled him to view her entire silhouette as if she were wearing nothing at all. When his eyes grew hooded and he licked his lips, she blushed and crossed her arms over her breasts.
“Ambrose—”
“Mara,” he groaned, letting his head fall against the door with a dullthud. “For once, don’t fight me. For once, let me in.”
“Letyouin?” she said, incredulity raising her voice an entire octave. “The doors to Southwick Castle have never been locked. You’ve chosen not to come here. Not to come to me. Let you in?” She put her hands on her hips. “I haven’t kept you away, Ambrose. That’s been entirely your own doing. And now, only when I want to go, have you finally decided to stay!”
He stared at her, a silent battle warring in the depths of his gaze. “It’s more complicated than that.”
“There’s nothing complicated about it.” Auburn tendrils snaked across her shoulders when she shook her head in frustration. “I wanted you, and you weren’t here. Now I don’t want you, and here you are. It’s simple timing, Ambrose. You’re just awful at it.”
“Awful?” His brows soared as he removed his jacket. “Maybe. But if there’s one thing I’m not awful at, it’sthis.”
Mara wanted to say that the kiss caught her unawares, but wasn’t there a part of her that had goaded him into it? That had taunted, and teased, and hoped he would storm across the room, thread his fingers through her hair, and plunder her mouth until she saw stars behind her eyelids. The swell of passion roared up and over them both; a tidal wave of lust and longing that they’d both suppressed in any manner of ways.
On their wedding night, he’d been drunk and she’d been fearful.
But tonight he was demanding... and she was filled with dark desire.
A slight tearing sound, a whoosh of cool air, and then Mara was naked, her inhibitions pooling at her feet along with her nightdress and what remained of her anger. She fervently returned Ambrose’s kiss, her hands slipping inside his shirt to slide along his firm chest. Their tongues danced, beckoning and then retreating.
Emboldened, she nipped his top lip.
Growling, he sank his teeth into her bottom one.
Momentum carried them to the bed. She fell first, landing on her side, the blankets cold against her skin but then Ambrose was there, stretching out beside her, and he was hot, sohot, and his hands and mouth were everywhere. Her hair. Her neck. Her shoulders. Her breasts.
She gasped, her spine arching off the mattress, when he suckled her nipple, teasing the aroused peak with his tongue in such a way that she thought of a whirlpool swirling round and round, drawing mermaids into the depths of blissful oblivion.
