Page 49 of The Marquis, the Minx, and the Mistletoe
She heaved a sigh, casting a glance to where the envelope and its letter had been rolled up and stuffed into her jewelry box, only a few feet away.
No.
She shook her head, giving herself a pinch in the cheeks to bring her back to the present moment. He was still going to come, wasn't he? Despite all that strangeness with the letter and her absence from dinner. She had issued a very clear invitation, and he had as good as promised.
She bunched the sheets in her fists, resisting the urge to fling herself off the mattress again into another lap or three of pacing. She squeezed her eyes shut, counting her breaths, and summoned the memory of their kiss, just this morning, against the wall of the church. It did start to ease her mind, her fingers relaxing their grip on her sheets, if only a little.
It wasn't quite how she imagined she would feel awaiting him tonight, but at the very least, she had an abundance of nervous energy that she wished to expel.
When the doorknob finally turned, Tia resumed her clenched grip on the sheets, simply to avoid bounding out of the bed and leaping onto him like some madwoman. She assumed an expression of coy surprise, watching as he carefully closed the door behind him, throwing the lock into place, just like last time.
Tonight, he was dressed in only his trousers and a loose cotton shirt, which sagged open over the impressive lines of his chest, revealing enough warm skin and glossy hair to make her light-headed.
"I thought perhaps you'd changed your mind," she said softly as he approached her.
His expression was not ravenous this time, nor playful. Instead, he seemed rather serious, and lowered himself to sit next to her with the gravity of someone experiencing rather somber concern. He reached out and stroked her cheek, his eyes searching her face, and said, "I was worried when you did not come to dinner."
She reached up to touch the hand on her cheek. "I had a long bath instead," she told him. "I needed some time to think and relax without any prying questions about the letter I received, so I thought it best I stay here."
He blinked, taking her meaning, and seemed to bite his tongue on asking her about that very thing. "You are well, then? Nothing terrible has happened?"
Her expression flickered, a jolt of anxious fire flaring up in her chest. "It is a worry for another time," she told him. "I do not want anything to interrupt our stolen moments together."
"It isn't an interruption, Tatiana," he said gently. "I wish you would confide in me."
She gave a frustrated sigh, dropping her hand from his. She forced herself to draw in a deep breath, to stifle the urge to burst into tears or fly into a rage or any of the other insane things that were pressing at her from behind her ribs. She did not want this evening ruined. She did not want it tainted with sadness. No, she would not allow it, not after wanting him for so long and finally having him, here and now, in her bed.
"You wish to hear my confessions?" she asked after a moment, raising her eyes to his. "I have many, as it pertains to you."
He raised his dark brows. "Is that so?"
"Oh yes," she said, drawing her finger over the crumpled sheets in front of her. "I have known about you since I was a little girl. Did I tell you that? I saw you in a cup of tea leaves and spent my girlhood waiting for you to appear, my true love, on the heels of a hound and the wings of a bat."
"Truly?" He tilted his head, seemingly wondering whether or not she was teasing him.
"Truly," she said, firmly enough to make him believe her. "I pictured everything differently, however. I thought you would be slender and fair and have pretty manners and soft hands. I thought that well past my girlhood, despite knowing in my bones that what I really wanted was someone big and rough and strong. My mind focused on the golden prince while my body burned for the brutish barbarian."
"Well, now, I wouldn't call myself brutish," he replied with a startled chuckle. "But I take your meaning. I think."
She slid a little closer to him, looking intently into his eyes. "From the moment you stomped out of your carriage over a year ago, I have wanted so many unladylike things. That is why I was so contrary, you see? It was not at all what I had convinced myself it would be, and rather than poetry and birdsong, my desire for you was far more primitive."
He held her gaze, his eyes dark and shiny. "What was it that you wanted from me?"
"I wanted to feel how heavy you would be atop me. I wanted to strip your clothes from this big, strong body and see what you looked like underneath it all." She exhaled, her blood quickening at the truth of her words. "It was exactly as you said that night we couldn't sleep. I wanted you to ravish me, to absolve me of any shame while also satisfying something dark and intense that seemed to pull at every inch of me, inside and out, like I was aflame."
"And now that you've had all of these things?" he asked, unmoving despite the sudden heat in the room.
"I only want more," she said raggedly. "Every time I see you, I still want to be ravished."
He made a guttural sound, deep in his throat, and reached for her, snapping his hand around her wrist and hauling her over the space between them to sprawl her into his lap. He dragged his mouth over hers, pushing his tongue into her mouth and raising his hand to cup her breast through her night rail, dragging his thumb over her nipple until it had stiffened, somehow excruciating and delicious all at once. He sank his teeth into her lip, locking his arms around her so that when she squirmed, she could feel the size and persistence of his erection underneath her.
"Like this?" he growled dangerously against her ear. "You want me to simply handle you however I wish?"
"Mm," she managed, tugging on his shirt until he pulled it over his head. "And I want to look at you," she professed, splaying her hands over the rise and fall of his impressive, naked chest. She dragged her fingers down over his nipples, down the sides of his ribs and to the taut plane of his stomach and traced them back up again, this time spreading her touch out over the muscles in his arms. Her breath caught in her throat at the power of him under her fingertips. "All the time, I want to look at you."
"Oh, the feeling is mutual, Miss Everstead," he told her, his hand still fondling her breast through the fabric of her night rail while the other scooped down under her bottom, sinking his fingers into the flesh of her bum. "I want to look at you too, and touch you, and taste you. If we were in my estate rather than Somerton, I'd likely never let you leave the bedroom."
"I've pictured you using me in many ways," she said, biting her lip. "Once you finally did, I have felt empty for the lack of your body. I ache for you to be inside me again, to take your pleasure on me."
