Page 38 of Secrets of the Marriage Bed
‘None at all. In fact, I feel very much better, if a little tired. I think I will retire.’
He rose to his feet, took her hand and helped her to rise. ‘I will escort you. If you will allow?’
She must have heard something in his voice for her eyes widened and her breath caught. ‘I would be delighted.’
He brought her fingers to her lips, grateful for her honesty. The night they had met, she had been flirtatious, but also honest. He’d forgotten it was one of the things about her he had found so attractive.
When they reached her chamber, he dismissed her dresser, who for a moment looked as if she might dispute his right of entry, until he glowered. The woman sniffed and disappeared.
Julia stifled a giggle and he frowned at her.
She laughed outright. ‘She will never forgive you, you know.’
He raised a brow. ‘I am supposed to care?’
She turned her back and glanced over her shoulder with a smile. ‘In her absence, perhaps you might help with my fastenings.’
‘The pleasure will be all mine.’
Her little gasp sent great deal of pleasurable anticipation heading south.
As seduction went, the smile on his wife’s face was surprisingly innocent. Yet undeniably welcoming. A look of such courage, it captivated a man used to the jaded ladies of thedemi-monde.
Her brief glance touched every inch of his skin. Resided in every beat of his blood and had done so since their earlier kiss in the apple tree. Heat trickled along his veins.
Turning away, she dipped her chin, presenting her vulnerable nape. A delicate spot he ached to taste with his lips and tongue. A whisper brush of the pad of his thumb and tiny hairs rose along her hairline. A shiver, she scarcely repressed. She was so responsive, his wife.
Resisting the temptation to touch his mouth to the place where his thumb had grazed, he gently, carefully, unfastened the buttons of her gown, exulting in the occasional brush of his knuckles against the creamy skin of her back and the resultant hitch of her breath.
What man wouldn’t want to unwrap such a delicious parcel? Desire, perhaps even need, roared through his veins. Hot. Demanding.
For years, lust had been little more than a physical nuisance. A function of being male, requiring an outlet from time to time. Or not. It had always been his own decision. Until Julia. From the first, he’d found control elusive.
Everything about her aroused his base urges: her voice, her smile, even her scent. He inhaled deeply. Jasmine and a deeper note he had never quite isolated. Clove? Delicious. Enticing. Uniquely her.
He pressed his lips to the curve of her neck above her collarbone.
She curved her spine, like a cat seeking more stroking. He half expected her to purr. A tiny vulnerability that hit him like a blow to the heart. A strange longing deep inside him battered his carefully constructed walls. Seeking the light. Her light.
He could never let her see how much this husbandly act meant to him. Never know how she pulled at his deepest desires. While he did not deserve such bounty, perhaps they could enjoy each other on the physical plane.
The gown slid down her hips to the floor. Lips parted, eyes slumberous, she laid it on the end of the bed.
He swallowed a growl of frustration at the sight of her stays. The dresser had threaded them in some complex arrangement that caused a man anxious to see his wife to wish for a pocket knife. He started at the bow at the bottom.
She inhaled a deep breath when he’d worked halfway up her back. ‘That feels better.’
He frowned at the relief in her voice. ‘Why lace so tightly if it is uncomfortable?’
‘To improve the drape of the jacket.’
‘Are you some sort of mannequin that you must conform to the shape of your clothes?’
She threw a glance over her shoulder. A teasing smile curved her lips. ‘That, Your Grace, is fashion. It is a hard little god who must be obeyed or one suffers the consequences.’
Teasing he could handle. He welcomed the distraction of conversation. He tackled the last few holes. ‘Consequences such as letters to the editor ofThe Times, perhaps?’
The Timeswould no doubt prefer the story of a duke come back from the dead. The true story—a sorry tale of hiding behind a woman’s skirts while the gendarmes searched from house to house and her final betrayal when he ran out of money—rather than the one he had concocted for the sake of his pride. He swallowed his shame.
