Page 22 of The Viscount and the Vixen
Her eyes slid closed. It seemed his idea of pleasure involved a great deal of torment. His lips traveled across her shoulder, just before his fingers outlined her skin where it met cloth. How could so light a touch affect her so deeply, reach through her to the core of her womanhood? When she’d responded to the advert, she’d done so expecting a passionless coupling. She was hardly prepared for every sensation he was so effortlessly stirring to life.
She felt a tug on the lacings of her gown, was acutely aware of him pulling them completely free, so the material began to separate and was soon gaping. The gown was heavy enough that it began to fall from her shoulders. She jerked her hands to the bodice to hold it in place. Why didn’t he douse the lights?
Aware of him brushing by her, she opened her eyes to find him standing in front of her.
“Lower your arms,” he said quietly. Not an order exactly, and yet she didn’t think he’d brook any disobedience. She wanted an amicable marriage, no tempers flaring, no fists flying.
Balling her hands, she lowered them to her sides. With only a single finger of each hand, he nudged the shoulders of her gown over until the silk slid down her body. His eyes drifted to the swells of her breasts, and she saw heat mirrored in the green, even though she was still covered with her corset and chemise. And once again, he traced that blasted finger along the line where cloth met skin. She wanted to push her breasts up against his palms, wanted a sure touch, a complete touch, not this irritating teasing that was setting every nerve ending on fire.
“Turn around,” he ordered, and she took perverse satisfaction in the fact that he sounded as though he might be strangling. At least he wasn’t completely unaffected. When it was her turn to remove his clothing, she would go just as slowly, would insist upon it. Make him suffer.
Although now that she was facing the bed, staring at it, she didn’t know if she could go slowly. Her body was yearning for sure caresses, the hardness of his form pressing into the softness of hers.
A series of tugs as he loosened the lacings on her corset. Then it, too, fell away, leaving only the thin linen of her chemise. Once again he moved in front of her, his eyes darkened.
“I misjudged the size of your breasts,” he said. “They’re smaller than I thought.”
“Disappointed?”
He slowly shook his head. “No.”
He cupped her breast, and she couldn’t hold back the moan as she nearly sank to the floor, nearly grabbed his free hand and pressed it to her other breast. It felt so good to have the firm touch of his large palm, his fingers gently kneading as though to test the fullness of what she had to offer. She wanted to shout for him to rip everything else away, to take her to the bed, to take her.
This time when he began to trail his finger along the décolletage, he hooked it beneath the cloth, moving it aside, approaching the mound, and she knew his finger was going to graze her nipple—
A horrendous shout, an almost feral cry, startled her, had him cursing beneath his breath before marching to the window and jerking the drapery aside.
“What was that?” she asked.
He strode to the door. “Wait here.”
As though she was going to go somewhere in her half-dressed state. “What is it?”
But he was out the door, slamming it in his wake.
She scampered over to the window, pulled the heavy velvet drapery aside, and glanced out. A nearly full moon coated the land in blue, provided enough light that she could see a shadowy figure in the distance running over the moors. Then she caught sight of another figure. She recognized the shape of this one. It was her husband, racing from the house, obviously in pursuit of the person she could no longer see.
Had it been his father out there? It had to be. She couldn’t imagine Locksley rushing out after anyone else. What was the marquess doing out there, and what had he been shouting?
Although she’d heard the rumors, she hadn’t believed the Marquess of Marsden—since he wasn’t locked up in an asylum—was truly mad. It appeared she might have been mistaken.
Chapter6
Locke didn’t know why he bothered to run. He knew exactly where he’d find his father, where he always found him eventually. At the Marchioness of Marsden’s grave.
Until tonight, he’d never understood why his father had insisted on burying his mother near a tree on their property instead of in the graveyard beside the church in the village where all his previous ancestors rested. But after hearing the tale at supper, he was left to wonder if it was that tree in which his father had first met the girl who would eventually become the love of his life.
When he saw his father nearing the grave, knew he was going straight there and wasn’t planning to wander about the moors, Locke slowed his gait, settled into a walk. The moon was bright enough that he hadn’t bothered with a lantern. He fought not to be irritated with the interruption. He’d certainly not wanted to abandon his bride, although he suspected curiosity had gotten the better of her and she’d glanced out the window to see father and son darting across the moors as though the hounds of hell were nipping at their heels.
No doubt by now she was beginning to realize the fate from which he’d saved her. He was still struggling to understand his rash decision to marry her. To protect his father, yes, but he could have done that by paying the exorbitant fee spelled out in the contract. Perhaps if the income from the mines were flourishing, if he didn’t have better uses for the money...
No, even then he would have been hard-pressed to hand over a small fortune to a scheming woman who had done nothing more than answer the advert of a madman. She’d no doubt expected to be paid off, although maybe she had in fact gained exactly what she’d sought. Difficult to tell with her. What he did know was that he’d left her smoldering as though she were kindling.
He could sense the awareness sparking every time he touched his skin to hers. It didn’t matter if it was nothing more than the tip of his finger. She reacted as though he’d laid his entire naked body against hers. He could hardly wait until he actually did.
He wanted to go slowly, to savor, but damnation, more than once he’d come close to ripping off her clothes, then tearing off his own. He wanted her on her back, on that bed, staring up at him as he took her. With a groan, he shoved the musings aside. Time for all that later. Right now, he had to deal with his father.
As he neared the man lying prone over the grave, he could hear the sobs, the pleas. As though a dead woman had the power to pull him from this world into the next.
