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miscalculated the effect he had on her and she been denied

sexual release for far too long to give up even a small dose of it

now.

Minshom worked another finger in and admired the delicacy

of Jane’s buttocks in the candlelight; her skin was so pale he

wanted to sink his teeth into it, knew she’d probably climax again

if he did. He tore his hand away from her breast and brought it

under her knee, bringing her right leg higher until her foot rested

on the bed frame. Her cunt was exposed in all its swollen wet

glory. He wanted to shove his tongue into the creamy wet heat

and swirl it around until she screamed, to set his teeth on her clit

and make her come a thousand times before he deigned to enter

her. His cock throbbed and pushed at his breeches as he slowly

unbuttoned himself.

He wasn’t going to stop. Even knowing what she was and

what had happened between them to bring them to this place

wasn’t going to stop him fucking her arse. Perhaps this was the

best way to remind her of why she needed to leave. The best way

to bring her to her knees.

That thought brought a graphic image of her servicing his

cock, made him want to crawl onto the bed and enact it in real

life. He smoothed a shaking hand over his wet shaft and eyed his

embedded fingers. No, he’d take her arse, show her how he took

a man, remind her and perhaps himself that she meant nothing

more to him than somewhere to shove his prick.

«Are you ready, Jane? Ready to take my cock?»

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She didn’t reply so he slid his hand up inside her shirt, shoved

under her bandaged chest and pinched her nipple between his

finger and thumb. She shuddered underneath him, her back

arching, her buttocks pressing against his cock.

«Tell me you don’t want it, Jane, and I’ll stop.» He removed

his fingers and inserted the first inch of his cock, felt her tighten

around his crown. He wrapped her long braid around his hand

until her head angled off the bed.

«I want you.» She whispered, «God help me, I always have.»

He stared down at the vulnerable curve of her neck. Damn

her for being so soft. Didn’t she know him well enough to

understand that her submission only made him worse, that he

gloried in mastering her? He shoved his cock deep into her arse,

heard her gasp as he took her, fucked her, filled her.

He held still, his shaft fully embedded, his tight cum-filled

balls pressed up against the satin of her skin. She wasn’t fighting

him at all. He drew back his hips and plunged into her again,

gave it to her like he gave it to a man, hard, fast and selfishly. But

she’d come for him, he knew that, even if he didn’t touch her clit

at all.

She was panting now with every hard stroke and even after all

this time, he knew she was close to coming again. Damn, he was

too close himself. He thrust one more time and groaned as he

climaxed, his hot seed pulsing deep inside her. With a final

shudder he let go and sprawled over her, let his weight push her

into the softness of the bed, kept his cock still inside her.

«I know what you really want, Jane. I’ve known it all along,

but this is all you’ll ever get from me. My cock in your arse or in

your mouth, never in your wet, needy little cunt. You’ll never get

my seed in there even if you beg on your knees. Do you

understand?»

He pulled out, used the tails of her shirt to wipe himself clean

and went over to open the door between their suites. He

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Kate Pearce

returned to the bed, picked her up and took her through to her

own room. He dropped her right in the middle of the bed.

«Good night, Jane.»

She lay where he had placed her and looked up at him. Her

cheeks were flushed and tears glinted in her eyes. He wanted to

look away from her but found he couldn’t. Some part of him

wanted to take her into his arms and comfort her; his baser side

wanted to fuck her again. She licked her lips as if trying to speak

but then rolled away from him onto her front, shutting him out,

dismissing him.

He bowed even though she wasn’t looking at him and headed

back to his own room. In the dim light, he stripped naked and

grimaced as his cock continued to throb, and grow, and want. He

stroked his shaft, smelled Jane and instantly got even bigger.

With a curse, he walked over to his dressing table and broke the

ice on the jug of water stationed there, poured it into the

matching china bowl.

He leaned over the bowl and splashed some of the freezing

water onto his stomach and groin. His breath hissed out as the

icy droplets settled on his skin like shards of glass. God, he

wanted to go back in there and fuck her all night... He closed his

eyes, forced himself to remember why he needed to remain in

control.

Whenever he lost a fight, his father had taken him out to the

stables, thrashed him again and forced him to clean himself up

with one of the coarse brushes used on the horses. Minshom

found himself reaching for his hairbrush, wanting to scrub at his

groin until he bled, until the sense that he had somehow lost to

Jane was obliterated in the rough pain he knew he deserved for

treating her so badly.

But he wasn’t going to do that to himself anymore. He wasn’t

going to let his father win. Better to call Robert and have him

rather than to give into that old urge to harm himself to take the

taste of defeat and shame away. With a grimace, Minshom

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cupped his balls and dunked them into the water as well, watched

his cock shrivel and his desire fade.

It was well past time to go to bed and sleep. The morning

would show him whether he had achieved his aim. Would Jane

be leaving and, if not, what the devil was he going to have to do

next?

Jane lay still until she heard Minshom softly close the door

between their two suites. Waited a moment more until she heard

the second door into his bedchamber close, and then allowed

herself to cry. She’d been manipulated and outmaneuvered by a

sexual expert. How could she have thought she could remain

unaffected when he touched her? She’d never managed it before

and apparently her body was just as overeager as her seventeen-

year-old self.

She groaned and hurriedly covered her mouth, not that she

thought he’d be listening; the walls were far too thick for him to

hear her unless she screamed. She felt like screaming and

pummeling her pillow or, preferably, his head. How quickly he’d

disabused her of her notions of controlling him, of getting what

she wanted without a fight.

His smell, his taste, the press of his body over hers, had all

combined to render her useless, to turn her into just the sort of

woman he despised. Her hand drifted between her legs, felt the

wetness he’d left there and also the steady throb of unsatisfied

desire. And he was wrong; she hadn’t just come after him for his

seed. She managed a tremulous smile. How arrogant an

assumption was that? And how very like him.

There were other matters at Minshom Abbey that required his

attention and he had to face them before it was too late. She bit

her lip and realized he hadn’t kissed or caressed her once, had

denied her the intimacies of love and mutual satisfaction simply

because he could.

What had happened between them changed nothing. She still

had to talk to him. Relieved to have regained a modicum of her

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Kate Pearce

composure, Jane rolled onto her back and stared up at the

canopy over her bed.

Even though part of her shuddered at the thought, she would

have to try a more direct approach. Despite his apparent

disinterest, she guessed Blaize wouldn’t appreciate her widening

her sexual experience without him. She’d liked Madame Helene.

Perhaps she could persuade the good lady to help her fool Blaize.

Jane stripped off the damp shirt that smelled far too potently of

Blaize and threw it as far away from her as she could. And if

Madame Helene couldn’t help, perhaps it was time for her to

renew her acquaintance with Captain David Gray.

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8

«Good morning, my lord.»

Minshom flicked his newspaper an inch to one side to reveal

Jane dressed in her highly respectable yet dowdy blue gown,

about to sit down opposite him. The white-paneled breakfast

room was bright at this time in the morning. It was positioned to

take advantage of the sun at the rear of the house and overlooked

the small garden between the house and the mews.

«Good morning, my lady. I see you are dressed for travel. May

I bid you a heartfelt good-bye?»

«Not at all, my lord. I’m going out with my friend Emily this

morning to help at the charity school for orphan girls she

cofounded in Blackheath.»

He put his paper down. «You are staying?»

She met his gaze, her hazel eyes as clear as the morning sky,

knife raised over her plate. «Yes, my lord.»

«Even after what happened last night?»

She continued to butter her toast. The scraping sound set

Minshom’s teeth on edge. He motioned at the solitary footman

to get him a fresh pot of coffee, waited until the door closed

behind the man and returned to his perusal of his wife.

«Even after I fucked your arse?»

She stopped buttering the toast and neatly cut it into four

triangles. «You are my husband; you were merely exercising your

marital rights.»

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Kate Pearce

He carefully folded his newspaper and put it down on the

linen cloth beside his plate. «Oh, we’re back to that, are we? Your

unconvincing portrayal of a martyred wife. Don’t ever go on the

stage, Jane, you’d be laughed off.»

«I have no intentions of going on the stage, sir. I’m quite

happy as I am.»

«Last week you told me that you weren’t happy at all. What’s

changed?»

She looked at him, her expression thoughtful. «Me, I think.

I’ve realized that I’ve done without sex for far too long.»

« You’ve realized? Don’t you mean that I’ve showed you?»

She waved an airy hand at him. «You certainly helped, but it

isn’t always about you, Blaize. You also reminded me of how

much I’ve always enjoyed sex.»

«Wait a minute, are you suggesting that you haven’t had sex

since I left you?»

She blinked at him as if he were a half-wit. «Of course I

haven’t.»

He sat back in his chair to study her more completely. «I don’t

believe you.»

«Just because you are an adulterer doesn’t mean that I have to

be one as well.»

«I still don’t believe you.»

«Believe what you like, but it’s true.» She bit into a piece of

toast, chewed slowly and swallowed. «I would’ve thought you’d

like to know that you were irreplaceable in my bed.»

«That’s the part I don’t believe. You loved fucking, Jane,

almost as much as I did. God, you were desperate for it from the

day I met you.»

«You make me sound like such a great marital catch.» She

swallowed hard and looked across at him. «I didn’t feel like that

about any of the other men I met. Only you.»

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Minshom got to his feet, aware of that sensation again, the

one when he stood far too near the edge of a rapidly crumbling

cliff. He picked up his newspaper and tucked it under his arm.

«Gratifying as this display of emotion is, Jane, I’m not

changing my mind. You still need to go home.»

«Because you don’t want to bed me.»

«Because you are interfering where you are not wanted.

Haven’t we had this discussion before?»

«But as we just discussed, you have stirred my sexual

appetite.»

«So?»

«So what am I to do?»

«I could tell you, Jane, but I try not to be too coarse in front

of a lady, even my wife.»

She raised her chin to stare at him. «You were certainly coarse

last night and I didn’t complain. And if you are talking about

pleasuring myself, I know how to do that; how do you think I’ve

survived the last few years?»

Minshom stared at her and deliberately licked his lips.

«Perhaps you could show me one day. I’d be delighted to critique

your performance.» He strolled toward the door and put his hand

on the ornate gold handle.

«That’s hardly the point, is it?» Jane said. «If you will not

oblige me, I think it’s time I found myself a lover.»

He let go of the doorknob and swung around, felt his temper

start to rise. «You will do no such thing.»

«Why not?»

«Because you are my wife.»

«You are my husband and yet gossip says you have fucked

almost everyone in the ton.»

UT) «

I m a man.

«And that makes it different?»

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Kate Pearce

«Of course it does.» He gave her his most patronizing smile.

«You know the rules. I get your money, your body and your