“Because you are my wife.”
“And you are my husband, yet that knowledge hardly leads you to being forthcoming with me.” She challenged him withher honey-brown eyes. “Why should one rule apply to me and another not apply to you?”
Because my secrets are for the sake of my sanity.
The underground pugilism was his one relief; an escape from the world. A chance for him to unleash his emotions in a controlled environment so that he could keep himself reined in everywhere else, as he was proving spectacularly he could not do around Isadora.
“Things are more… complicated than that,” he said finally.
“Then perhaps they are for me, too.”
Frustration had him taking her shoulders, careful not to hurt her, yet unable to risk the thought of letting her go. “Do you still care for him? Is that it?”
Her gaze searched his face as though she was seeing him for the first time. “No,” she said slowly. “No, that is not it. I didn’t love him when I thought I would marry him, and any prospective affection I felt for him died when I was waiting at that altar, alone and humiliated. He wants nothing more than to hold something over me, and to increase his influence.
“He is upset I married above him—especially when he deemed me too unimportant for his notice. And he’s hoping that if he belittles me, I may come running back to him, or even that ourmarriage may suffer as a result.” She pressed her lips together, but he still heard the next words she didn’t say.Which it is.
A strange emotion clamped his chest. He felt as though he was teetering on the edge of something—only he didn’t know what he needed to do. Reach out to touch her and express his relief at her words?
It shouldn’t have mattered to him that she didn’t care for Mr. Windham. The man was unworthy of her notice, but he had never intended to care one way or the other about his wife’s preferences.
Privately, Nicholas suspected that Isadora’s new gowns and ducal composure had revealed to Windham what Nicholas had seen from the beginning. Now the fool wanted her notice, perhaps even her affection. Fortunately, he seemed determined to court both by insulting her.
Nicholas, conducting a jealous interrogation in her dressing room, could hardly claim greater sophistication.
His chest expanded, and the blinding rage he felt at the idea of Windham desiring Isadora made him draw closer, callused fingers tightening on her shoulders. She tipped back her face, startled, and her lips parted on a question, and—
He kissed her hard enough to press the pearls into her throat.
It was no way for a husband to kiss his wife, but there was no gentleness left in him. Driving her back against the dressing table, his hand slid into her hair as he drank the startled little breath from her lips. She could draw softness from him when she chose. She could also wake an appetite so ravenous it frightened him, a need to take possession of her body and give her no reason to doubt whom she belonged with.
She moaned.
He tore his mouth away, but Isadora caught both fists in his coat and dragged him back until their teeth nearly struck.
“Last time,” she gasped against him, “you left me wanting. I shan’t permit it again.”
Whatever good sense was left in him until that point dissolved. His hands dropped to her hips. He hauled her against him, spreading his fingers over the curve of her buttocks through her skirts, and ground the thick ridge of his arousal into the softness of her belly.
“That,” he breathed, catching her lower lip between his, “is what you do to me.”
A needy little sound escaped her. “Show me what to do.”
He swept her into his arms and carried her to the nearby chaise, mouth never leaving hers. Lust had reduced him to carnal instinct. He sat with her astride his thighs, pushing asidethe billows of her skirts, and her mouth returned to his with a desperation that surpassed his own.
Grace had always been submissive, electing to be guided. Isadora sought no such invitation. How refreshing to see his desire reflected in her kiss and the bold friction of her hips against his.
He gripped her waist, drawing her close, positioning her over his arousal, and pulling her down until the pressure pressed between her thighs. For a moment, she stiffened, and he wondered if he had gone too far, but then her fingers knotted in his hair and held fast.
Closer,her body urged.
By the devil, he had never needed anyone as he needed her in this moment. The cloth between them was the only barrier between hot desire and pure, unadulterated lust, and without it he would not have been able to hold himself from sinking deep inside her.
She rolled her hips, and the friction tore an unearthly groan from his throat, stifled only by her kisses. He stroked his hand up and down her arched spine, attempting to calm himself. Just a little, just so she could accustom herself to the feel of him.
Only, she seemed as though she had no intention ofaccustomingherself to anything. No, if anything, she was eagerly encouraging him to take things further, grinding againsthim, rubbing herself on his cock with the fervor of a woman determined to chase her pleasure.
For a moment, he wondered if she had done this before, but when she broke from the kiss to pant against his shoulder, he knew the thought was both unfair and uncharitable.
