Page 32 of The Duke and the Scarred Bride

“Ineed you to please me, husband.”

Percival groaned as the words played over and again in his head. God, she was killing him. He had never thought it possible for a man to die of extreme arousal, but he just might be the first.

But then he guessed it served him right for thinking that marrying a seemingly prim and proper young lady would allow him to continue to live his life the way he wanted. There was nothing prim and proper in the thoughts she had planted in his head, and if he were to show her even a glimpse of the evil her proximity stirred, he was sure she would demand that he stay as far away from her as possible.

Damn.

He didn’t know how he had thought that he could marry the girl who had tempted him from the very first moment they had met and then proceed to ignore her as if she did not exist.

Now that he thought about it, Louisa was never exactly demure. In the days he courted her, he could see the signs of the fiery, bold spirit she hid behind her prim facade.

The times when she had taken him to task for his tardiness, negotiated the terms of their marriage, and teased him should have been warning enough, but he had been so preoccupied with the financial and social benefits of having a wife that he had not taken the time to think about what it would actually be like to be married to Louisa.

Those proverbial scales fell off his eyes when he stood at the altar and watched her walk down the aisle, looking as beautiful as an angel—so beautiful that for a moment, he believed that she might save him from the darkness in his soul.

With every step she took towards him, she drove his arousal and obsession to greater heights, and when she finally stood beside him, the torture worsened because the scent and heat that emanated from her body had almost driven him insane. It was rosewater and some other haunting scent that seemed to be uniquely hers.

He spent the whole wedding ceremony fighting the urge to pull her to himself, bury his nose in her neck, and breathe in her scent.

With how distracted he was, he was surprised that he had managed to repeat his vows in a normal voice. But the moment he was asked to kiss his bride, he hesitated because heunderstood the risk of pressing his hot, aroused body anywhere against hers.

He did not understand how easily this young lady disarmed him, reducing him to a primal caveman who just wanted to mate with his bride.

It was madness because he had decided to abstain since his return to England, simply because it was never just about satisfying desires of the flesh with women. They always wanted more, except when it was transactional, like his routine visits to his favourite brothel.

Besides, his desires had changed from sweet trysts that his new wife would have no doubt expected to hard, fast coupling that would expel the excess energy from being on active duty.

She had been so innocent earlier, her eyes closing in anticipation, and he wondered why her sweet innocence aroused him when he had sampled some of the most experienced girls in the Continent, who flaunted their sexuality and nakedness rather than saw it as something shameful.

He wanted Louisa, he knew that much, but he knew she expected more than just cordiality between them even if she had agreed at the onset. She was a woman—a noble one at that—fed on romantic notions and hope of true love, and he had no such feeling to give her.

Every time he neared her and smelled her delicious scent or saw her lovely neck flush with desire, he was sorely temptedto change his mind and tell her that they could have a normal marriage, one that involved sharing and enjoying the pleasures of the marriage bed. His body agreed, for it was a means to satisfy the desire coursing through his body. But was it worth it to destroy her just for the selfish reason of satisfying his needs?

One thing he was sure of was that if they consummated their marriage, he would destroy her. She would scarcely be able to return to normalcy once his hands and darkness got hold of her, and he wasn’t that selfish.

No woman deserved to be a casualty in that battle, least of all Louisa. If he told her as much, she would no doubt make it her life’s mission to save him, but she would lose herself in the process.

So, he had decided to keep her at arm’s length, content to watch her from a distance even while he stood beside her.

He maintained a cold facade even while he imagined throwing her on his bed and spreading her sunshine-coloured hair on his pillows.

He had been mistaken to think that he could only control his response to her by suppressing his lust, but Louisa found other ways to get under his skin.

She asked questions that reopened old wounds and displayed endearing quirks that he preferred not to know if he was to keep his distance.

He soon had to leave before she destroyed what was left of his resolve and self-control.

He locked himself in his study, his sanctuary, hoping he would succeed in banishing her to the recesses of his mind by focusing on the estate’s ledgers. But the memory of her followed him here, feeding lascivious fantasies that kept him up most of the night, waking him up from short slumbers.

Several times, he had almost gone to her to soothe the ache that was now skin deep. He had held on, persuading himself that he was right in keeping his distance from her, that such maddening lust would eventually burn itself out if he didn’t see her.

He was wrong because he had thought she would not dare come in, but then his fiery sprite of a wife did dare, marching into his study with righteous rage flashing in her eyes and heating her skin.

She was magnificent in her anger, and just like that, the banked fires of his lust blazed anew. The moment she suggested that he didn’t want her, he almost laughed.

He didn’t want her? How did she come to that conclusion when he was being tortured by lust that he was sure he would go mad before the week’s end?

Before he knew it, he was walking towards her, a primal part of him enjoying the intrigue and wariness warring in her eyes as he cornered her.

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