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“Yes, my lord. I try to put some time into it at least once per week,” Marianne answered.
“Well, I’ve seen your work, and it’s very good. Have you ever considered formal study?”
Marianne shook her head. “No, sir. Your Byrony is the real talent. Her portraits are so intuitive. She will know fame one day, I predict. For me, I just enjoy the sketching as a creative activity, and I only seem to want to paint the sea. It’s the one subject I come back to over and over again.”
Lord Rothvale gently patted her hand. “That’s understandable, my dear,” he said kindly. He directed his next comment to Darius. “What do you think of your wife’s artistic talent there, Rourke?”
“Well, I think she’s quite accomplished, and I love to watch her at work. The concentration, the furrowed brow, the intensity with which she studies the seascape is fascinating. She’s very hard on herself, though. Never pleased with what she’s drawn when to my eye it looks good enough for your National Gallery,” Darius said.
Lord Rothvale chuckled. “Getting that thing founded will be my life’s work, I suppose, and much harder than it ought to be, but then, worthwhile endeavors usually are. We’ll make sure to leave a nice wall for her.” He winked at Marianne. “Now if I can just get your husband to consider public service, I imagine how much good could be accomplished with men like him in Parliament. What do you say, Rourke? Make a run for the constituency at Kilve?”
“I’m thinking about it, my lord,” Darius told him, but he looked at Marianne. There was hunger in his eyes. Marianne knew he wasn’t thinking about politics right now. He was thinking about what he wanted to do to her when he got her all to himself.
* * * *
The staring only got worse on the ride home. Darius sat opposite her in the carriage, his eyes roaming over her body in a ravenous sweep that left no doubts about what was on his mind. She shivered in anticipation, feeling herself go wet between the thighs. Apparently their frantic session in the library before dinner had only whet his appetite for a more leisurely paced encounter tonight.
“Come to my room this time,” he whispered in her ear when he escorted her up to her chamber. “I’ll be waiting for you, my beauty…and don’t bother wearing much.” He bore the grin of a devil. A very handsome, but lascivious devil.
Marianne chose one of her new French nightgowns, a Madame Trulier specialty. Very scant, sleeveless silk in ice-blue, low cut and close fitting so every curve was emphasized. He’d said not to wear much, and to her eye it certainly qualified. It was a moot point though, because she wouldn’t have it on for long. Darius would have her naked in a heartbeat.
Pushing open the door to the master’s chamber, she felt the muscles in her abdomen clench and the need for air into her lungs increase. His effect on her was consistent. It wasn’t fear for he never hurt her, but he did rattle her—most thoroughly. When Darius wanted sex, she got nervous. Not because she didn’t want it, but because she did. He was a very skilled lover, taking her body to places she could never have imagined, and made her lose herself in exquisite sensations of pleasure and wantonness so intense that it was a little frightening. The anticipation of what was waiting never failed to make her skittish. And she knew something else, too. Darius liked her a little skittish in the beginning so he could woo her and enjoy her submission when he brought her to ecstasy.
The room was dim, and she didn’t see him anywhere in it. He wasn’t in the enormous bed, and he wasn’t by the hearth. She thought it odd that she could have beaten him in preparing for bed. Darius was always the one willing, ready
, and waiting on her.
Sighing, she walked to the balcony doors and went outside. The summer air was warm, and the stars shone clear. It was a beautiful night, and she could smell honeysuckle wafting up to her from the vines below. The sweet scent reminded Marianne of her mother.
Now that she was married, Marianne wondered about her own parents. Had they shared the kind of passion Marianne had in her own marriage? She smiled and shook her head. Hard to imagine. Nothing had really prepared her for the intimacy of sex. Being so close with Darius physically, had quickly broken down her emotional walls. Aloofness was impossible when another person was inside your body and making you cry from the pleasures they gave you.
Marianne went back inside to wait. As soon as she stepped through the balcony doors strong arms enfolded her from behind, trapping her securely against a hard, muscular chest. And more than just his chest was hard, too. She could feel every inch of the long, thick length of his cock pressing against her bottom. Marianne couldn’t see Darius because he was behind her, but he was definitely naked, definitely aroused, and definitely intent on having her.
“Darius,” she gasped, “you surprised me.”
He nuzzled her neck, warm lips lingering over her pulse, his teeth nipping gently. Big hands drew up and down her bare arms, slowly and possessively. “You surprised me standing out there in this gown, looking like an angel. I was speechless, so I just watched you and thought about what I’d do when you came back inside…”
“What are you going to do?” She panted against him, her body heating up from the press of his erection and the whisper of his voice.
“Do you trust me, Marianne?” He swept his hands up her sides, over her ribs, and stopped just under her breasts.
The anticipation of his hands so close, but not touching, made her arch into him in an attempt to meet the distance. “Yes, I do, Darius.”
“Good girl.” His hands engulfed both breasts and squeezed. Her nipples budded up hard and tight, and he tweaked them through the thin silk. Sparks of pure pleasure pricked her skin, and she had to swallow the cry on her lips, knowing this was her reward for entrusting her pleasure to him. “Keep trusting me, Marianne. Trust me…and just feel.”
Marianne shivered, wondering what he would do. It was always the anticipation that got to her. Darius knew how to arouse her until she could do nothing or want nothing but what he could give her. He made her needful.
“I will. I do,” she whispered. And then he draped a silk sash in front of her face and lowered it onto her eyes. He tied it in a knot. Her blindfold was secure, and she could see nothing. Just feel. That’s what I am going to do.
* * * *
Darius stepped back and admired from behind. The scanty gown she wore was lovely, but it was time for it to go. He bent, took the hem in his hands, and drew it up, over her head and off. He sighed in contentment. Naked at last. He knew what he did was scandalous but couldn’t imagine having Marianne any other way. Making love with her fumbling in nightclothes in the dark would be a travesty. That luscious body was meant to be devoured with his eyes when he took her.
He cupped the twin cheeks of her ass, lifting and forcing her to spread her legs a little. “Such a pretty ass you have, so round and smooth.” He squeezed each cheek from the bottom, the fingers of both hands meeting at her cleft and the slippery wet that drenched it.
She shuddered when he fingered her quim and moaned a little in that breathy, sexy way. God, when she made that sound it drove him wild, gave him crazy impulses, turned him into a sexual fiend. The need to penetrate her body shouted from inside his brain.
“I love that you’re wet for me. Soon, my beauty, soon, I’ll be driving inside your sleek, wet quim and making you scream. And then I’ll do it over and over again. All night long until the sun comes up.” She whimpered in protest when he took his fingers away. “Walk for me first. I want to see that beauteous ass. Go on. Take about ten steps straight forward and you’ll get to the side of the bed.”
