The Ugly Duchess (26 page)

“You liked it when I touched you in the bath,” he pointed out, gentling his voice.

Surprisingly, she grinned at him. “Only an idiot would dislike that.”

“And you like kissing—”

“May I say again, I’m no idiot?”

“I would never again ask you to walk around the house without drawers.”

“
Why
did you ask that?” She looked genuinely curious.

“I was mad with lust for you. And I was drunk on the fact that you were responding. I had some sort of inchoate idea that I would make love to you everywhere in our house, on the stairs, in the butler’s pantry, on the window seats, and that it would be easier without drawers because I could simply pull up your skirts. It was stupid. But it was the kind of thing a young man dreams about.”

Her finger was tracing his tattoo again. He liked it. But at the same time he was starting to feel unhinged. Her soft body against his was driving him around the bend. He tried again to rein in his lust. If he gave her the faintest idea of how it was raging through him, she’d be out the door.

Instead, he carefully put on the sleepy, amused expression that covered up everything else.

“I suppose,” she said. But there was discontent in her tone.

“And I wanted to kiss you in your sweet spot,” he said, succumbing to the truth. “Hell, I wanted to kiss Bella there, but she never permitted it. I love that part of a woman, especially yours. You’re all soft and pink and you taste so good, Daisy.”

“Theo.” But her voice was gentle.

“You must remember that I was only nineteen. I had no idea what married couples did or didn’t do until my father blurted it out. Men don’t talk about that sort of thing. And I wasn’t the sort to form close friendships with other boys.”

She nodded.

“I always had you.” He watched her closely, cataloguing her every blink. “I would
never
have asked for something you might feel demeaned by. When you offered to kiss me in the library, it was the most sensual thing that had ever happened to me. It never occurred to me to say no. I would have stripped myself in Kensington Square if you had asked me to. I was in love with you, but I was also overwhelmed by love of your body and fascinating with making love to you.”

“So it was all new and raw to you as well?”

He nodded. “Bella had been my mistress for around a month, I believe. She would allow me to have some time with each breast, and then it was time to do what I paid her for. And that was that.”

“Dear me.”

“I didn’t even like her breasts; they made me feel as if I might drown in all that flesh, whereas yours . . . You know how I feel about
your
breasts.”

He liked the smile in her eyes. He liked it so much that he would spend his whole life just trying to get her to smile at him like that. But there was one thing that was bothering him, and he knew he had to confess before they could make love.

“I must tell you something you won’t like.”

“Oh?” The bleakness in her eyes replaced her smile as fast as summer lightning.

“I bet Griffin that I could get my wife into bed before he got his wife into bed.”

She pushed away from him, tumbling onto her knees. “
What?
”

“I bet Griffin—”

“I heard you. Why on earth would you do such a thing?”

She looked down at him, eyes sharp and disapproving. But not horrified. He saw that. Not horrified.

“Because I’m an idiot. I made up a reason to woo you. But the truth is that I just wanted you back, Daisy. I came home for you.”

It was all so complicated. James said he wanted her, but then he placed bets about whether she would let him into her bed. Theo wrapped her arms around her knees, realizing with a shock that the sheet had slipped, and she had been naked for some time without even noticing.

The actions that had seemed utterly demeaning and horrible a day ago didn’t feel that way now. Of course, she knew what had happened. She had fallen as stupidly and helplessly back into love as any mouse into a trap.

James was still talking. “I can help run the estate now, you’ll be glad to know. I managed all Griffin’s and my finances.”

“Those bank accounts?”

“Gold,” he said, sitting up and leaning back the headboard. “Jewels. Five bank accounts in various countries. A scepter. That sort of thing.”

Theo uncurled her legs and climbed down from the bed. “This is a mess,” she said, surveying the remains of their picnic, hands on the curve of her waist.

It wasn’t possible for James to be any harder, but he managed it just looking at her.

“Are you still hungry?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said, not really listening.

“For
food,
” she clarified.

“No.”

“Good.” She reached over, collected the plates, and put them neatly on her dressing table. She then collected the wine bottle and glasses, the napkins, and the little cakes they hadn’t touched, and added all of it to the pile on the table. “You need to move,” she informed him.

James rolled off the bed, telling himself that he was probably going to spend a good deal of his life being told what to do. And making beds. It didn’t matter. He wouldn’t trade one of her commands for a moment of piratical freedom.

“Now we’re going to tidy this sheet,” she announced.

He eyed her. “I think we should go to that island we own and live in a hut with no well, only one stream, and no sheets at all.”

“I think not,” she said. “If you stand on that side, we can get this nice and tidy again.”

He obeyed. “And then?”

“And then we will put the coverlet back as well.”

“And?”

She looked up at him, and the expression in her eyes sent a bolt of heat straight to his groin. “Then we’re going to make love the way respectable married couples do.”

“We will?” His voice came out in a groan and he snapped the coverlet over the bed as if a tornado had entered the room. “What way is that?”

“Under the covers,” Theo told him. “In the dark.”

“Right.” He cared neither where nor how it took place as long as she would consider letting him back inside her delectable body.

A few minutes later he learned that when his wife said “dark,” she really meant it. Theo snuffed the candles and turned the Argand lamp down to a dim glow, and then had to feel her way in the dark back to the bed.

He heard a thump and a “drat” that made him grin. For his part, his eyes adjusted quickly; he was used to stealing aboard ships in the dead of night.

By the time she made her way under the covers, James was shaking all over with less-than-altogether-controlled desire.

But he had one last thing to tell her first.

“I love you.” He whispered it into the darkness, running his hands through her sleek hair. “You’re too elegant for me, and too beautiful, and far too smart, but I
still
love you, even given those drawbacks.”

She snorted, but then she turned her head and kissed his wrist. He’d take it.

James was sure of one thing. He would keep the sheets over their heads, if that’s what she wanted. He didn’t need light. All he needed was her warm, sweet-smelling body twisting under his hands.

He gloried in the way she arched toward him with a sigh of relief when his lips found hers, and her squeak of pleasure when he ran his fingers up her inside thigh, her moan when those fingers moved on to warmer and wetter areas.

Every time their movements disarranged the sheet, he pulled it back into place. No words were exchanged, until he was kissing his way down her stomach.

“Are you . . . you aren’t going to do
that,
are you?”

Her voice came with a little pant, it gratified him to notice.

“Yes,” he said, trying to keep his voice mild and detached—and failing. “I am. I must, Daisy. You never said
this
was distasteful.”

He thought she muttered something, but it wasn’t in a
Theo
tone of voice, so he took it as a yes. Surely she would be Daisy for him, now and then? Between the sheets?

She tasted like the sweetest nectar a god could wish for. He licked and played and did all the things he spent seven years dreaming of doing. He eased her legs apart to give himself more room and kept exploring until he could feel tension building in her body. When she was strung tight as a wire, her breath escaping in tiny gasps, he slowed down and practiced torment.

And when he could feel that she was on the very edge of breaking, he raised his head and said, from under the tented sheet, “I don’t think we should have babies, Daisy.”

He heard a mumbled expletive, followed by a sharp “Don’t stop!”

“But I have something to say,” he persisted. “As I said, I don’t think we should have babies. I’ve changed my mind.” He blew on her, very gently, and ran his thumb down all that silky skin.

She trembled under his hands and then the sheet was snatched off and tossed to the side, and she cried, “
What did you say?
”

“No babies,” he said, easing his finger into a passage so tight and wet and hot that he nearly came on the bed, in a way he hadn’t since he was sixteen. He stifled a groan and dropped his hand down to readjust himself.

“Why?” she asked in a husky whisper.

“I’ll never be able to love anyone the way I love you. I don’t think I ever have, in fact. I’m a limited person. I wouldn’t want to make a child feel unloved.” It was a trifle manipulative, but at the same time, it was true. He couldn’t imagine having any love left for a baby.

He slid a second finger inside her. She gave a little shriek.

“Hadn’t you better pull up the sheet?” he asked, raising his head again.

“You!” she said, and the command thrilled him to his bones. “
Don’t stop.
” He obeyed her command.

When she was sobbing and shaking, he crawled back up her body and whispered, “Would you be more comfortable if I were to lie on my back?”

She didn’t seem to be thinking clearly, so he rolled over, lifted her into the air, and put her gently in position.

“Might I ask you to lower yourself a little?” he asked politely. He kept his hands loose on her arms, though he wanted nothing more than to pull her down and thrust up into her wet warmth.

“Yes, of course,” she said. She sounded a bit odd.

“I won’t last very long,” he said, gasping as she slid lower.

She stopped.

“Daisy?” James’s hands were shaking, so he made himself let go of her arms and grip the sheet instead. He couldn’t frighten her. He couldn’t provoke a disgust for him.

Damn, she was pulling away. He gave a silent groan: this was agonizing.

“I want a lamp,” she said, stumbling away from the bed. A gentleman probably would have risen to help, but James didn’t feel like a gentleman. He felt like a bloodthirsty ex-pirate with blue balls. An ex-pirate who was on the verge of losing every claim to control he had, because it had been too long.

She managed to find the Argand lamp across the room, and turned it all the way up. The light spilled over her body, making her limbs shine like alabaster. When she didn’t immediately return to bed, he sat up, groaning a little; his body did not want to bend in that precise fashion at this moment.

“Aren’t you coming back?” It emerged as a harsh growl.

Theo was standing by the mantelpiece, her hands once more on her hips. “What’s the matter?” he asked, choking back “
now.
”

“This,” she said, with a wave of her hand. She seemed to be waving toward him. Or possibly the bed. “It’s not the same.” Her eyes pooled in the soft light like darkness itself. Her lips were plump and luscious. “Doesn’t it all seem different to you?”

“Well, you’re much more beautiful than you were as a mere girl,” he said, schooling his impatience. “And I’m more battered.”

She opened her mouth, and then stopped. “Right.” She paused and then said, “No. We must get this right.”

“I’ll do anything,” he said instantly. “I shouldn’t have—or rather, I
should
have—let you—”

“Don’t!” She shouted it at him.

“What?”

“Don’t
be
like this!”

James cleared his throat. For the first time, he wasn’t sure he could be the man she needed or wanted. Which meant he wasn’t sure he could stay married to her.

In that moment a stroke of fury lit his entire body, fueled by an hours-long erection that was driving him around the bend. In one stride he was beside her, hands on her arms. “You
are
my wife!” he growled.

She tipped her head back to see his face, baring the long clean line of her neck. He wanted to bite it. He wanted to bite her all over, to sweat on her, and plunge into her, and lick her head to foot. He wanted to use her body. He wanted his own to be used.

“You liked the way we made love. No: you
loved
it. I can’t become some sort of tame spaniel just so you’ll go to bed with me!” The last declaration came out in a shout worthy of his father.

She didn’t seem to mind. An expression that looked a great deal like relief spread over her face and she looped her arms around his neck and tried to pull his mouth down to her lips.

James didn’t let her. Instead, he picked her up and half threw her onto the bed, then crawled on top of her, acutely conscious of his bulk and muscle looming over her. “I’m tattooed and scarred, and bigger than hell,” he reminded her, when she said nothing.

The smile that curled on her lips was pure greed. He felt a germ of hope. “I see that,” she purred. She gave up trying to pull his head to hers and ran her fingers up his arms instead.

“Are you afraid?”

She laughed, and something in his gut eased, but he had more to say.

“I don’t give a twopenny damn what you wear under your skirts, but if you wear drawers, I might rip them off you in the pantry. I want you so damn much right now that I feel as if I’ve lost my mind. I’ve never really wanted any woman but you.” He took a deep breath. “My mistresses were just signs of how dead I was. Dead to you, dead to the world. Dead to myself.”

Her eyes softened, and she cupped his cheek with her hand. “You’re back now.”