The Seduction of His Wife (17 page)

He pressed his lips to her nape again with a deep groan. Her pulse beat furiously beneath, and he couldn’t resist taking a small lick and scraping his teeth along the thumping vein. Her skin tasted like the floral body cream she wore, a little bitter against his tongue, but under that he tasted the saltiness of her perspiration just breaking the surface. The room smelled of sex; the sweetest smell in all the world. A heady, perfect mixture to his senses.

The texture of her skin was smooth and soft. He lowered his hand to cup her breast again. She stiffened a little beneath him when he tore the opening of her chemise to touch her bare flesh this time. He needed to get the damn thing off her. He wanted the press of her breasts against his chest. Slickness of sweat to build and aid the slide of their bodies the longer he fucked her.

Cursing himself for his hurry, he knelt between her legs and held her waist between his hands to guide her body along his rigid length.

His eyes feasted on the short, crisp hairs covering her womanhood. With one hand, he spread the lips of her sex open to see her pink flesh ride along his cock. His thumb rotated over the swollen red nub. What he’d give to suck that bit of flesh into his mouth and tickle it with his tongue.

Her body was tense as a cello bow with his each driving push into her body. She was close. He unsheathed himself long enough to wet her clitoris with the slickness covering his prick before slamming back into her. Thumb pressed and rotating against her swollen nub, he rode her harder.

Pulling her hips higher off the bed, he grasped her buttocks tight and ground their bodies together. He leaned over her to taste her skin, sucking on the pearly tip of her titty through the linen.

There was no holding back. Her body was so damn sweet, so damn perfect his balls drew up tight against his body and he exploded in her.

Well, shit.

He ground into her cunny and rode out his release. When the pumping finally ceded, he realized that she was tense beneath him.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

She took a great many minutes to answer his question. So long he wondered what in hell he’d done wrong, aside from finishing before her.

Finally, she replied, “Nothing.”

“Don’t lie to me.”

“I’m not. You’re just different tonight. I’m sorry. I must be doing something wrong.” There were tears in her voice. Unfamiliar with causing tears in a woman through acts of congress, he stroked her leg as he would a skittish mare.

“I want you to find release.”

Afraid he’d frighten her with any bold words of exactly what he wanted to do to her, he said no more. If he could excite her to a fever pitch, maybe she would relax in his company.

He held himself over her body, keeping most of his weight from crushing her. He was not willing to move from the warm haven between her legs. For Christ’s sake, her inner muscles still milked at his cock.

They were far from done. If he left, her thoughts would be free to wander, and he’d give her no reason to think or compare him to any other man—namely the duke. So help him God, he’d kill the blighter the next time he dared to touch his wife.

He was a little shocked to realize he wanted to spend the night in his wife’s company. He’d never spent a night with any woman. The women he’d enjoyed in the past had been nothing to him but a means to an end. To be counted amongst Emma’s friends meant more to him now than anything, including his business.

The knife wound to his side must have addled his brain. He’d never been the sentimental type, and here he was sprouting sweet platitudes while he thought about Emma.

Truth of the matter was, he did want more. Sometime in the last few days, he’d decided he wanted his wife all to himself. Maybe it was his near-death experience. Or was it part of growing older? Quite possibly it was seeing his wife in the arms of another man that sparked this added possessiveness, this desire he had to own her.

Why had he wasted twelve years? Had he been less cowardly as a youth, she might be happier and more willing to receive his attentions now. Had he contacted her even once during their marriage, she might be warmer toward him. His own bloody fault she was at odds with him. He excelled at ruining good people.

He didn’t like where his thoughts were going. He pulled out of her body. Lying on his back, he stared up at the blackness the canopy created. The taper on the candle was burning out and giving off less and less light. His breath had long ago calmed so he could hear her fidgeting with the ribbons on her torn chemise. He should have torn the damn thing off so he could suck the tips of her breasts into his mouth. His prick reacted to the thought. Filling out and ready for another round with his pretty wife. He ignored the desire to act on that thought, for now. There were things that needed to be said between them.

“I haven’t done well by you, have I?”

He needed to hear the truth from her lips.

Rolling back to his side, he rested his head in his hand. The curtains remained open, but what little moonlight shone through did nothing to illuminate the still form of his wife. The rise and fall of her chest was so minimal that he almost reached his hand out to make sure she hadn’t fallen into a deep slumber.

“I don’t necessarily see,” she answered, “how you could have done me wrong.”

“Who knows what my point is.” He flopped back down on the bed, staring up at nothing as thoughts tumbled over in his mind. Would she ask him to leave now that he’d finished having her? “Do you hate me? Hate what I did to you?”

She sighed and put one hand between them on the bed. “We were so young when we married. When you left, I thought you disliked the idea of marriage. I was barely a woman, for heaven’s sake. A mere child, really.”

“What did you think after a year? After five years, even, of not hearing from me? You couldn’t have remained indifferent. I don’t think anyone could.”

He rested his hand over hers. Needing to touch her.

“
Hate
is too strong a word,” she said truthfully. “
Angry
would have been more apt to how I felt. At first, I didn’t understand what I had done wrong. Nor what I could do to make you come back. Then I grew up, and I understood the unfair predicament you’d been put in by marrying me, and me you. I was angry for a long time.”

The greater question was if she was still angry after all these years. “There was nothing you could have done to make me stay. As you said, we were both young when we took our vows.”

She sat up, pulling a pillow into her lap, to cover her bare legs, he thought. He stayed where he was. Watching her. He studied her pale skin in the dim light, the white night rail she wore as a shield, her beautiful golden locks of hair tumbled all about her shoulders and arms like Helen of Troy come to life. This wife of his could probably fell a whole army of men with her shy yet vivid beauty.

She’d tucked her legs under her. The bedding beneath him pulled tight as she tried to tug them higher. He wasn’t willing to give them to her just yet. He wanted to get a visual fill of his wife. He had a lot of time to make up for. Starting now.

“Why discuss this now?”

“Does my presence in your bedchamber distress you so much?” He knew it for the truth without having to ask the question.

“No.” There was a waver in her voice, belying her answer. “Did you run off so you could live the grand adventure?”

“Some would say that.”

“Was it worth it?” She paused, her finger tracing the piping on the pillow. “I mean … would you change what you did or do the same thing all over again?”

“Hard to say. Some say you are doomed to make the same mistakes if given a second chance.”

They both grew quiet. The only sounds to be heard were the odd creaks in the old house.

Emma gave a great yawn, barely covering it in time. It was an obvious hint that he should take his leave. He didn’t much want to go. Would she welcome him in her bed overnight? He’d never spent the night with a woman. He’d never had need to.

He should do that with his wife, wanted to do that, because she was different from any other woman he’d made use of over the years. Not that he could explain that to her. And not that it was about making use of her. There was something more between them. Indefinable, but more.

The awkwardness of their after-moment was enough to convince him he needed to leave. She’d not welcome further advances. Maybe tomorrow night he could demand more from her. He pulled himself up and stretched his feet down to the soft-carpeted floor. Hating that he’d been so quick about reaching his finale without so much as a care for hers. Part of him insisted that wouldn’t be the case if he stayed.

Glancing over his shoulder, he saw that her eyes were half-lidded with tiredness. Maybe the yawn hadn’t been feigned.

Her sleepy gaze locked with his. “Will you be staying this time?”

Shame he knew her meaning had nothing to do with sleeping in her bed. It was not an invitation to stay, but a question on whether he’d travel abroad again. Were his adventures in trade really over? The answer to that was simple. His life in the opium trade was over. Though future business dealings wouldn’t take him far from England, he knew his life in trade was far from over.

Perhaps if his father hadn’t been so damn insistent on him taking a seat in the House of Lords next to him, he’d have stayed. Time could not go backward, so he’d never know.

All Richard knew was that the answer he gave his wife was the truth. “I plan to stay.”

Chapter 12

I feel old, yet young in the sense that I have no life experience. A woman but not really fully a woman. A sad predicament.

Emma set her brush down in the bowl of turpentine and looked to the tall clock. It was still fairly early in the morning. Richard would be searching for her soon. It was usually near midmorning that he found her. She definitely didn’t want Richard searching her out in her private sanctuary. This was the last place she could just be herself. A refuge of sorts where she could forget everything that was going wrong in her life.

Questions flitted across her mind. When would she hear news from Nathan about her painting? Would Waverly do anything rash before the painting could again be safely hidden? How had the man even come by that canvas? It had been sold abroad to a collector more than eight years ago. Nathan was always so careful about whom he sold her works to.

She wiped the excess liquid from her detailing brush and set that down on the easel.

Staring back at her most risqué piece to date, she brushed a rag over the still-wet paint to blot out some of the mistakes in the lineaments of her form. The light was too strong in the background; it needed more shadows, more fading, more detail to her figure. The lady stretched out on a gold-and-green brocade divan, her supple, naked body on full display. She’d paint in a sheer white shawl to cover the middle section of her naked body this time, and leave the breasts completely exposed.

The eyes of the lithe lady stared back at her in silent mockery. They said:
You wish you were free like me; you wish you could act without a care in the world, just as I do
. Emma thumbed over the facial features and decided right then she’d paint her facing away from the viewer, and wiped the wet mess into her apron. Tossing a cloth cover over the piece, she set a larger canvas atop with a serene landscape painted on it. She’d finish the painting tomorrow; hopefully she’d be sending this parcel to Nathan by week’s end.

Sitting down with a heavy sigh, she cleaned her hands with the sponge and a tiny bit of turpentine, making sure she scraped out all the paint underneath her nails.

How was she going to face her husband after last night? She’d wanted him a second time, before their conversation had turned so serious. Goodness, the world would have thought her a wanton, a harlot. Come to think of it, she was starting to act more like one of the women in her paintings than the proper Countess of Asbury she’d schooled herself to be.

Placing her cool hands to her flaming cheeks for a moment, she tried to clear her mind of the intimacies she’d partaken in with Richard. She hadn’t expected their time together to be so raw, so untamed. She hadn’t wanted it to mean so much to her. What would it take to make Richard stay on with her? What would it take to make their marriage really work this time around? Ha! Her thoughts swayed toward a positive outcome.

She couldn’t forget that him staying might mean the end of her painting. She wasn’t ready to give up her only passion. Couldn’t give it up.

Needing to focus on something else, she cleaned the painting area, tucked her apron away, and covered the powders she used in mixing paint colors. Perhaps if she pretended that nothing had happened, that they hadn’t connected so deeply on an intimate level, her husband would remain quiet on the topic. She doubted she’d be that lucky. He’d use her desires against her; she was sure of that.

She wanted something more from the intimate relations they’d had thus far, but didn’t know what “more” entailed. She couldn’t think of this right now. Her husband seemed to consume more and more of her thoughts. That was not acceptable.

She had to go and see her sisters. Forget her problems for the time being and just spend the rest of the summer in her sisters’ company. They could keep her mind from straying in directions it had no right to go.

*   *   *

“We’re going to dress in trousers and roll down a hill like ten-year-old boys?” Emma asked.

Both sisters reddened at the comparison. Then Abby smirked and held the bundled stack of clothes toward her. “We even adjusted the size so they’d fit properly.”

“We’ll stay on the manor property. No one will see us. No one needs to know but us.” Grace’s mouth screwed up on one side in a grin.

Emma started shaking her head back and forth immediately. “You’re lying, Grace. You always make that face, like you’ve sucked on a sour lemon, when you tell a fib.”

Grace ducked her head, walked over to the bed to toss down her stack of clothes, and started to undress. “Of course we won’t tell a soul what we’ve done. It’s to be our little secret.”