Go back in. Take her,urged a voice within.She is your wife. She is yours. Take her. Why deny yourself the spoils?
He couldn’t, he reflected grimly. He wouldn’t. Not like this. Not until she wanted him with a passion that matched his.
Oh, he had no doubt it was there. He’d felt it in the eager parting of her lips, every tremor in her body, the desperate way she clung to him. When he kissed her, he felt so many things! It was as if she fought the same battle as he. Little wonder it rankled that his Irish rose continued to deny her longing.
Why, in the end, was she so reluctant? Why?
His steps took him downstairs to his study. He needed distance between them to cool his blood. A mere wall between them, a single room, simply wasn’t enough. The temptation of knowing she was in the next room would be too strong. In the study, he snatched the whiskey decanter and a glass and collapsed into the chair behind his desk, his emotions still raw.
A shadow slipped over him.
His lovely Maura was a beautiful woman. From the beginning, he’d wanted her. She had invited him, lured him. And he had swallowed the bait, only to become a husband and acquire a wife in a way he’d never expected. He’d been so resentful, so angry; he’d told himself he didn’t want her. But he did. God above, he did. He gave a bitter laugh of self-reproach. And since she was now his wife, it was entirely natural to take her to bed again, yet something held him back.Sheheld him back.
Things had changed since they wed.
When they left Ireland, he was determined to stay aloof. He’d been a fool there, allowing his passion to control him.
And now he found himself at war—at war within himself.
If this marriage had not been forced upon him, he wondered, would his feelings for Maura be any different? Would he desire her any less? No, came his reluctant admission.
But to all appearances, the one woman he truly desired did not desire him. And she was his wife, by God!
He was both furious and perplexed. Was it because she had what she wanted? The title of duchess and a rich husband?
If only he knew! When he kissed her, he felt so many things. How right it felt!
Yet how strong was his pride.
And how strong was hers!
She was like a burr beneath his skin, forever in his mind. It was as if she fought the same battle as he. Need. Temptation. He longed to feel her surrender, not just to him, but to her feelings.
He’d felt her passion. Her craving. As strong, as desperate, as his. He’d felt the need that vibrated in her heart, as surely as it vibrated in his. He wasn’t wrong. Or was he? Doubt seated itself deep in his vitals.
He gave a self-mocking smile. Were his emotions so clouded by his longing that he could not trust them?
He had done this to himself, he realized. He’d told himself he could remain indifferent to her beauty. He had denied himself the spoils, because he hated that he’d been duped. His pride wouldn’t allow him to admit his desire burned as strongly as ever. Here at Gleneden, those first few times he kissed her, it was to prove that despite what happened in Ireland, he wasn’t powerless. He’d wanted to assert himself. To show her that he would not be a puppet. If only his hand hadn’t been forced.
Yet what did that matter? She was his wife. He was her husband.
Neither of them could change that.
Nor did it change his desire for her.
And Maura wanted him. Her lips did not lie. Her lips had never lied.
She had trembled in his arms tonight. Trembled with pleasure, he was certain. He felt the precise moment she surrendered—the precise moment of retreat! A half-formed suspicion cut through him—that she was not as worldly as he’d thought. Indeed, he could swear he caught a glimpse of fear—of vulnerability—and that was most frustrating of all. Had he been a brute the night they’d slept together in Ireland?
She denied it.
Truth or lie, he conceded to himself, it had inevitably led to the same conclusion.
Marriage.
Draining the glass, Alec rested his forehead against the back of the hand that held it, staring into the dark. What a fool he’d been, he told himself scathingly. He could no more stay his desire than stop breathing. He had only to look at her and fire scalded his blood.
He leaned back. His mouth twisted. It still grated that she’d married him for his wealth.Had she?pricked a needling little voice. Was she a fortune-hunter? She had asked for nothing. Indeed, she disdained what his money would give her!
