The Seduction of His Wife (32 page)

She couldn’t look at her husband as his face was pressed into her breasts. “It seems risky.”

His teeth grazed the flesh before he pulled away. “But you want to.”

She looked back down into his intense gaze. His pupils were dilated from his rising passions. Aside from his firm manhood pressing into her, she could tell how badly he needed her by the stark longing reflected in his deep brown eyes.

Lowering her mouth to his, she whispered, “Yes.” Then she angled her mouth to take possession of his lips and tongue. How she loved his lips, his mouth, his tongue, his taste.

There was no other word she could use to describe what she was doing except devouring, consuming his very essence. She wasn’t afraid to taste from him as he did of her.

The hidden eyelets down the front of her bodice were loosened quickly. The warmth of Richard’s hands seeped through her cotton corset and chemise when he wrapped them around her rib cage. His hands brushed the undersides of her breasts. Tantalizing. Teasing. A promise of what was to come.

She placed her hands over his and moved them higher. She moaned into his mouth when his hands finally covered her breasts and squeezed them closer together. She wanted to be touched the same way he had touched her last night. She ached for his touch.

Would she ache for it when he left? She shut her thoughts down, refusing to think about that. Not till the time came.

He cut off their kiss with a primitive growl. “You tempt me beyond reason, woman.”

“I don’t know what’s come over me.”

Which was the complete truth.

It definitely wasn’t like her to climb atop her husband and grind the center of their bodies together. The dew from her body was intensifying with every movement against the iron-hard part of him she wanted lodged deep inside her body.

Never in her wildest dreams did she expect to find this passion, this fervor of the flesh.

“You’re my very own woodland nymph. All beautiful and glowing with need as you rub off on me. I want to take you.” Richard’s face nuzzled into the swell of her bosom where he’d pulled down the front of her chemise. “God, let me have you, Emma. I’ll not survive the day with this cockstand. It’s not going to go away unless I come.”

“I want to, but what if—”

“They’ll turn right back around.” He was already releasing the buttons on his trousers. “We’ll look as if we’re embracing, nothing more.”

Taking a deep breath, she stared into his eyes. When he moved his hands away, indicating his trousers were undone, Emma reached beneath her skirts and wrapped her hand around the root of his member. The skin was smooth and soft, a contrast with the firmness of his penis. She gave it a light squeeze. Richard drove into her hold with a groan.

Her fingers curled around the heavy sac beneath his rod. She rolled the marbles in her palm, then the skin tightened up, and he thrust into the great volume of her skirts. She ran her hand up his length and stopped at the head. The slit at the top was wet with his own fluids. She drew circles over that part of him, spreading his juices.

“Need you now, Emma.” There was desperation infused in his hoarse voice.

Spreading the slit in her drawers, she slid the smooth tip of his instrument through her feminine fluids. She impaled herself on his great steely length easily. They were both motionless once he was up to the hilt in her. She felt a heavy pulse between her legs. A little heartbeat throbbing at her core. He flexed his cock within her.

She contracted her inside muscles around him, as though she were squeezing his manhood with her hands. It felt so good to have him in her body.

The room was quiet around them, their breaths both ragged even though neither of them moved.

“Stretch your back, love. Enough to lift your breasts above the corset.”

She did as he asked, looking down at what was revealed in doing so. The tips of her breasts were firm and a little redder than normal. A rather animalistic—dare she say, feral—gleam came into his eyes as he stared at her.

How wanton she must look, scandalously undressed and in complete disarray. Did she look thoroughly seduced to her husband? She imagined she did. It made her feel empowered somehow. On top of the world in the moment. Or at least on top of her husband.

She needed more, wanted to feel more, and pressed one breast to his mouth so he’d suckle it in deep. He did not disappoint, though he was gentler than usual. He didn’t nibble down and graze his teeth against that most tender part of her. He used only his tongue and lips as he played with the sensitive flesh.

He pushed his thumb against her nub and rubbed against it with each downward stroke of her pelvis atop his. Their rhythm was slow and easy, as though they could indulge all afternoon.

Her fingers curled around the edge of the sofa, and she threw her head back so her breasts could be licked and sucked by her husband with greater ease.

“So damn beautiful,” he murmured.

Wrapping her arms around his head, she held him tight to her heart as he laved at her exposed flesh. This was as close to her heart as she could allow him. She pinched her eyes shut and concentrated on her husband. A lone tear had escaped, but would dry long before Richard ever saw the physical manifestation of the emotional distress he caused her.

His hands clasped her hips tighter as he increased their pace. She met him eagerly. Thrust for thrust, shove for shove.

Finally he let her set the final pace. His hands tangled in her loose hair and pulled her face close to his. They stared at each other in a silent moment, their bodies still heaving together, their mouths open to take in deeper breaths, and she thought for a moment she saw the same feelings she harbored lurking beneath his gaze. Could he feel the same as she? Did he have any love for her?

He shut his eyes before she could decipher the emotion she had seen. He pulled her that final fraction closer. Kissing each other to muffle their cries of passion, they both came in a deluge of ecstasy.

She slumped atop him. Unwilling to move even though they should right themselves. She held her arms tight around his head and shoulders. His hand smoothed over her back, in a soothing, ceaseless caress.

Dare she hope he felt the same things she felt? Dare she imagine a life with him always and forever?

She was oversentimental because of the moment of passion they’d just shared. She closed her eyes and held him tighter. Afraid that if she let him go now, the moment would forever be gone. Their future forever gone.

He said nothing in the aftermath of their lovemaking. Didn’t ask her to move even after their breathing had evened out.

He just kept at his touch along her spine. Up and down, up and down, until she swore she could fall asleep in his arms. It was a false security.

In two days’ time they’d travel to London.

She’d have her menses shortly thereafter and she’d know if he was going to leave her. There would be no passionate embraces during that time. No scandalous rendezvous in the parlor.

He would either wait patiently … or fulfill his lusty needs elsewhere. It hadn’t escaped her notice that he was a man with daily needs. If he found the arms of another, she’d not accept him back into her bed, or back into her heart. She’d take the money in her trust and leave for good.

Chapter 21

It has taken an age for my confidence to grow. I don’t think I could bear it if you came home now.

“What are we going to do without you?” Grace asked Abby as they hugged.

It was hard for Emma to watch her baby sister leave them. To strike out on her own. But this was obviously something their sister needed to do.

Emma’s hands tightened around her shawl. The train was scheduled to leave in ten minutes. It was too soon.

“You have to promise to write weekly.” Emma pointed her finger in reproach.

It would be strange without Abby’s company.

Abby rolled her eyes. “Stop fussing. You are only going to make me cry more.”

“Well,” Grace said, “it serves you right. Leaving us without any warning. I still say you shouldn’t be staying on with this friend. It’s not right. If word were to get back to London of what you were doing, your suitors might drop off.”

“What suitors? No one cares about me. I’m nothing but a poor relation to two of England’s wealthiest women.”

“Aside from the money you will come into on your twenty-fifth birthday, you know we’ve set aside money for you to settle on a decent marriage,” Emma said.

What else was Emma supposed to do with the money she’d saved from her paintings? She received more pin money than she knew what to do with; add to that the small fortune in selling her paintings and she was indeed a wealthy woman.

Come to think of it, she could support Abby and herself for the rest of their days on that money. It was a thought to file away for a later date.

The first whistle of the train screeched around them, making Emma jump a little. Their time was drawing to a close too soon. Tears prickled at her eyes.

“Come, give your oldest sister a hug good-bye.” Emma wrapped her arms around Abby.

“I’ll miss you dreadfully,” Abby whispered.

“And I you. If you are bored, or not ready to do what you’ve set out to do, you know you can come home straightaway.”

Abby pulled away and gave her a smile. “I know.”

Abby kissed them both on the cheeks and climbed aboard the train with the help of the attendant. Grace stood beside Emma, wrapping her arm around her waist, and waved at their sister. Once Abby took her seat at the window, she opened it.

“I love you both,” she shouted over the crank of the wheels.

“We love you, too,” Emma called back.

Grace’s waves grew in enthusiasm as tears slid down her cheeks.

Emma waved at Abby and clutched her free hand to the locket about her neck. Is this what it felt like for mothers sending off their daughters?

“Write to us every day,” Grace bellowed as the steam engines roared to life on the train.

“Only if you promise to tell me all about London when I come back.”

The train started rolling on the track.

Abby leaned over from her seat and stuck her head and shoulders out of the window. “I love you two,” she hollered back.

“She would have married sooner or later.” Emma grasped Grace’s gloved hand in her own. “We would have had to let her go eventually.”

“I don’t much like this feeling of letting her go,” Grace confided.

“Neither do I.”

“I had hoped to have a little longer with her.” Grace put her head on Emma’s shoulder and sighed. “We’re all going our own way so suddenly. I never expected this. For things to change so fast in our lives. For us to part so quickly.”

Emma couldn’t agree more. She wrapped her arm around Grace’s shoulders and turned them in the direction of the carriage. They had no time to waste. They were leaving for London come sunrise and there was a lot of packing to do. A wedding to plan for, and a husband she still needed to figure out.

*   *   *

Richard pulled a stack of letters from the desk drawer. The ones he’d tossed in there on his first day home after he went through his father’s things.

Releasing the twine that bound them, he placed the unopened envelopes on the top of the desk and studied them. There were a dozen of them, but none of them were addressed. An elegant scroll indicating his wife’s name was written on the back of each lavender parchment. Could these be letters between lovers? Correspondence between Emma and her buyer? Or could the letters merely be kind words and messages between friends? If any of those were the case, then why were they all undelivered?

His desire to better understand his wife far outweighed the fact that what he was about to do was a violation of her privacy. Picking up the letter opener, he tested its weight in his hand. Emma would be livid if she found out.

Still, he slid the point under the edge of the envelope and sliced it open. Pulling out the neatly folded paper and flattening it on the desk, he read it:

Dearest Husband,

I am but a slave to the feelings that bombard me every time I pen another letter. Six years of loneliness, and I still harbor a desire for your company. I am incomplete and long for something more. The fact of the matter remains … you consume my every thought. Yet, you don’t deserve that kind of devotion …

Richard put the missive down without finishing it and sliced another envelope open. It was dated four years ago:

Dearest Husband,

I feel like Sleeping Beauty, forever asleep with the waking world continuing on without me fully aware. Only there is no prince to wake me from this slumber, this half-life. This melancholy only burrows deeper into my heart when I write these letters. I should stop. I should burn this before I have the opportunity to sign it. I should burn them all. Hopeless dreams is all they represent …

Pushing the chair away from the desk, he pulled open the drawer where he’d found the pretty pile of letters, his heart racing as he did so. Inside, there were the letters he’d read through near the front of the drawer, a few quills, blotters, pencils, and paper. He tugged the drawer farther out, almost toppling it to the floor when it ran out of track to hold it up.

His heart nearly stopped with what was revealed.

Of course there were more. He wished that weren’t the case.

Removing the remainder of the letters from the drawer, he set them on the desk and pulled the twine free.

Richard thumbed one open, uncaring that he ruined the envelope. He untied another of the neat stacks, and tore open that envelope, too. All addressed to him as
Dearest Husband.

All of them.

He shook his head. There wasn’t a man less worthy of that salutation than him. Why the hell did she give a damn about him? Why? Hadn’t he proven that he was an ass over the years?

He shoved at the papers on the desk, and they fluttered away from him. Some fell over the edge and to the floor. He stood and paced the carpeted floor.

What should he do with this revelation? Should he confront his wife? Not once in twelve years had he written her a letter, sent her word, or even sent her a gift. He didn’t deserve this kind of loyalty from her. He didn’t want it. He should have left well enough alone.