Page 108 of Ghost of the Ton

“I can smell it on ye.”

“Dear God!” she wailed. Then she snatched the cloth and backed away, colliding with the wall.

Why couldn’t he think of the right thing to say? She looked like an injured deer in a trap, almost mad with terror. But the way to calm a deer—grasp it by the back legs and pull it free—wouldn’t work on the terrified woman standing before him.

“Did I hurt ye, lass?”

She narrowed her eyes, and he recalled her sharp cry as he entered her before her body had pulsed with life around his cock and she’d screamed her pleasure.

“Hurt me?”

He gestured toward her skirts. “A woman’s first time is painful, and I’m not a small man.”

She wrinkled her nose in distaste, and though he relished how the fear faded from her eyes, the cold contempt that replaced it stabbed at his heart.

“You think I know nothing of the act between a man and a woman?” she said, her voice tight. “I have studied anatomy and am well aware of the functions of the human body. And, I might add, the variation in size among men.”

Fuck.

He almost preferred the fear to the contempt.

She lowered her gaze to his groin, where his cock still twitched with need as if, now he’d had a taste of the finest venison, nothing else would satisfy his appetite.

“It’s a myth,” she said. “But given that you’re a man and therefore incapable of rational thought, I daresay you’ll continue to believe in it.”

“What myth?”

“That the size of a man’s”—she paused, her color heightening—“appendage is directly proportional to his virility. But it matters not. Yours was not so large compared to others.”

“I’ve not had any complaints before.”

He regretted the words almost before he uttered them, but rather than show hurt, she laughed.

“Have ye been with other men?” he said.

“You’ve stated it to be impossible, having recognized that this was my first time. But you’ve been with other women. Why, then, must I follow a higher standard than you?”

Jealousy surged and he stepped forward. “Have ye?”

She let out a snort. “What do you think I am, Hamish—your whore?”

“No!” he roared. “Ye’re my wife.”

She fisted her hands, and for a heartbeat he thought she might burst into tears. Then she spoke, coldly and calmly.

“I am not, and never will be, your wife,” she said. “You rejected me the moment I arrived, if you recall.”

“But it’s different now we have…now I have…”

“Now you’ve what?” she said. “Fucked me against the wall to mark your triumph over another man?”

“Devil’s ballocks, woman! Ye’ve an evil tongue on ye.”

“Better than a blackened soul,” she snarled. “Did you think I wanted this?”

“Ye screamed my name loud enough for Ma to hear it in the castle while I fucked ye.”

“And I shall regret that until the day I die!” she said. “Is this how you seek vengeance on me, by destroying my dreams?”