Page 80 of When the Rogue Returns
Instantly awake, he murmured, “You’ve become inordinately fond of this game.”
A provocative smile curved her lips. “And I suppose you haven’t?”
“I didn’t say that.” He leaned over to kiss her deeply.
He never tired of kissing her, never tired of taking her. Perhaps one day he would, but it had become an unrelenting obsession as he made up for all the years without her.
Rolling her beneath him, he lifted her nightdress to enter her and found her wet, warm, and willing, which only fired his desire more. When she rose to his thrusts with great enthusiasm, it spurred him into madness.
Her new boldness intoxicated him. In his youth, he’d loved her shy blushes, but now that he wasn’t so young anymore, he loved having a lusty bed partner.
Some time later, they’d both found their release and lay there breathing hard, entangled in each other’s arms. He buried his face in her neck to kiss the rapid pulse at her throat. God, who’d have guessed a month ago that he’d be spending his nights in the arms of his wife again? It still seemed like a miracle.
After a few moments, she left the bed to dress. He sat up and leaned back against the bedstead to watch. Strange how he’d forgotten so many little things about her—the way she’d never liked to linger in bed, the way she did her ablutions... the way her hips swayed as she walked.
When that made him harden, he swore. He had to curb his randy urges before he wore the poor woman out and drove her away again.
No, he hadn’t driven her away, he reminded himself. He must stop thinking like that. She wanted him, had always wanted him. Hell, if she hadn’t balked at his having a mad kidnapper of a father and a tavern wench mother, nothing was going to drive her off. What a fool he’d been, to keep so many secrets from her when they’d married. Perhaps if he hadn’t, they wouldn’t have lost so much time together.
“Well?” she asked as she shimmied into her corset. “Are you going to get up?”
“I suppose I must, if I’m to play lady’s maid,” he drawled.
She lifted an eyebrow. “I could always call for a servant and let her get a look at you lying there in the altogether.”
Chuckling, he left the bed. That was something the old Isa wouldneverhave said. Her lack of modesty around him was another new thing that he enjoyed.
“Remind me—what does Lady Lochlaw have planned for us today?” he asked as he laced her up.
“I suppose, since the day has dawned fair for a change, we’ll finally get to play that Scottish game called ‘golf’ that Rupert loves so much.”
He groaned. “I hate games. They’re pointless.”
“I think it sounds fun. It involves hitting a ball with a club into a series of holes along a lengthy course.” She cast him a teasing glance. “If you really don’t want to play, you can always just walk around holding my club for me.”
“I’d rather you holdmyclub,” he said, pressing his budding erection against her from behind.
“No more of that, now. Rupert wants us on the lawn by nine. He’s afraid it will rain before we can complete a full game.”
Victor snorted. “What a pity that would be.” But he began to dress. If Lochlaw wanted them on the lawn, then her ladyship would wanthimon the lawn, and he did owe the woman for not blaming Manton’s Investigations for his subterfuges.
Isa finished dressing before he did, so he told her to go on. He knew she liked a hearty breakfast, whereas he almost never ate it.
He was heading downstairs when a servant met him with a note. Tristan and Dom had arrived in Edinburgh. The servant asked if there was any answer, and Victor wrote a reply asking the two men to come to the estate as soon as possible. Then he charged the servant with getting the note to them in all haste. Isa wasn’t going to be happy to hear this.
When he reached the lawn, he saw the others heading for the course that ranged over a flat portion of the estate bounded by woods. Good. There’d be no chance to speak to Isa alone for a while. She deserved a few hours of fun before she had to start worrying about Jacoba and Gerhart again.
The morning passed more quickly than he’d expected. After a while, he began to enjoy watching as his wife attempted futilely to master the game. Every time she missed, she muttered to herself, then complained about her faulty club. She was a sore loser, his wife, another thing he hadn’t known about her.
She also had quite an arm on her, for she kept striking the little leather ball too hard. Indeed, when she came up to hit it this time, she knocked it so far that it sailed over the green area around the hole and into the nearby woods.
When he laughed and she glared at him, he couldn’t resist teasing, “You’ve confused this game with archery, Mrs. Cale. The object isn’t to hit a tree.”
“I did that on purpose,” she said, tipping up her chin. “It’s more of a challenge to hit it out of the woods.”
He snorted. “If you can even find it in there.”
She planted her hands on her hips. “Care to place a wager on that? If I hit the ball back onto the course from the woods, you have to take my place and show me you can do better at this than I.”
