Chapter Thirty-Two
Gerrit knew he was behaving like a jealous, sullen beast and had done so all through dinner, rarely deigning to speak even though Scott and Everett were guests at their table tonight. He’d continued to brood and sulk after dinner in the library, when it had just been him and Kathryn.
When she set aside her needlework to play chess, Gerrit had begged off, claiming he had too much work. He did have a mountain of correspondence and bills, but he did very little of it. Instead, he’d unobtrusively observed his wife. Or at least he hoped he’d been unobtrusive.
Gerrit had long ago accepted that he was clueless when it came to reading other people’s emotions. But he would have wagered a pony—if he were the wagering sort—that something was amiss with Kathryn. And he could trace the change in her demeanor to Lord Jasper’s impromptu visit today.
Gerrit knew very little about Lord Jasper, but what he knew, he did not like.
Part of his dislike was, he admitted, because Lord Jasper so effortlessly did what Gerrit had never been able to do: he was charming.
But charming is as charming does.
To Gerrit’s knowledge Lord Jasper had impregnated at least one young woman in the neighborhood. The girl had been hastily shunted off to family in a nearby village to have her child.
Gerrit’s grandfather had fathered children on women on every one of his estates. But one of the main differences between his grandfather and Lord Jasper—not that it excused his grandfather’s behavior—was that the old duke had always supported his offspring and their mothers.
Lord Jasper had not paid any expenses for the young mother or his own child, so it had been left to Gerrit and Sir John Staniforth, the local squire, to see that the girl had ample money to live on.
That had been five or six years ago, the last time Lord Jasper had come to his grandmother’s house.
Gerrit knew the man had come to visit the Countess of Grimsby and meet the woman he was to marry.
What sort of man impregnated one woman while becoming betrothed to another?
Not an honorable one, that was certain.
And now Lord Jasper’s wife was dead, and he had returned—probably to bleed more money out of Lady Grimsby—and he was entertaining himself not with the baker’s daughter but by sniffing around Gerrit’s wife.
Kathryn had appeared less than delighted to see the man, but it irked Gerrit that she had never told him of their connection. And it irked him even more that she’d said nothing of their meeting.
Perhaps she kept it to herself because you have been so unreasonable when it comes to other men so much as speaking to your wife…
Gerrit refused to feel guilty about his behavior.
It was true he was jealous where Kathryn was concerned.
She was his, dammit. He had been unforgivably stupid at the beginning of their marriage, and it made him feel ill when he thought how easily he could have lost her if she had not been brave and brought them both to their senses.
He would not make the mistake of pretending to be a detached husband again. Not to spare his pride and not to avoid conflict. Not for anyone or any reason.
The clock on the mantel chimed eleven o’clock and Kathryn looked up, meeting his gaze. The notch between her brilliant eyes told him she could sense his anger and was confused.
Gerrit folded the letter he’d had in front of him for the last half-hour and replaced it neatly on the pile before standing. “It is time for bed.”
She put her work away in the large basket she kept tucked beneath the end table.
Not a word was exchanged until he stopped in front of her door.
He grasped the door handle but paused and looked down at her, his eyes lingering hungrily on the snug bodice of her gown which was a dark rose shade that he would have not expected to look so good on a ginger.
But then he was beginning to suspect she could make sackcloth look good.
“What are you wearing beneath that gown?”
She sucked in a breath, doing interesting things to her bodice. “Er, what do you mean?”
“I mean tell me about your underclothing.”
Her jaw sagged and she glanced about, as if somebody might be lurking in the corridor.
Gerrit raised an eyebrow and waited.
“A p-petticoat, chemise, stays, and stockings.”
“What color?”
“P—” Her voice broke, and she cleared her throat. “Pink.”
“Leave them on for me. Only remove your gown.” He opened the door and nudged her inside before she could speak, not that she appeared to be very talkative, for a change.
He strode to his room, already tugging his cravat before he opened the door.
Court was waiting for him as always. If he thought it unusual that Gerrit had already removed his neckcloth, he kept the thought to himself but drew the correct inference: Gerrit was in a hurry.
He disrobed Gerrit with slightly more haste than usual, managing to have him washed, shaved, and garbed in his banyan in less than a quarter of an hour.
As always, Gerrit used the connecting door. His wife was still seated at her dressing table, wearing a dressing gown, and brushing her hair.
Her cheeks bore twin bright spots of color, and she was breathing more rapidly than brushing of one’s hair required.
His wife was excited.
So was he.
The pale column of her throat flexed, and her pearl-handled hairbrush rattled against the wood as she set it on her dressing table.
Gerrit placed his hands on her shoulders when she would have risen.
“Stay a moment,” he said, his voice harsh with need as he stared at their reflection in the mirror.
“La Belle et la Bête,” he murmured, taking a handful of her hair, the dark red spirals twisting around his fingers like living things.
“What did you say?” she asked, drawing his gaze to hers in the looking glass.
“Beauty and the Beast—it is a French story.”
The pulse at the base of her throat beat against her skin hard enough that he could see it.
“You are hardly a beast.”
That made him smile, a contortion of his ugly features that did nothing to improve his brutal appearance.
Her eyes widened at his expression, a rare one, he knew.
Gerrit wrapped her hair around his fist and exerted pressure on her head until her back was pressed against his cock.
“Open your dressing gown and show me what you are wearing.” His gaze dropped to her hands as they fumbled with the sash and then pulled the edges wide, exposing the pale pink half-stays and matching pink chemise beneath it.
He had always disliked the color pink, associating it with his mother. But right now, he could see the appeal.
“Raise your chemise.”
Her eyelids fluttered slightly, but she reached for the bottom edge of the garment and drew it above her knees, exposing the pink stockings and the darker pink garters that held them up.
“Higher,” he ordered, looking up to watch her face.
Her lips parted and she inhaled deeply as her hands lifted the garment until he could see the dark red curls of her sex.
“Part your legs.”
“Gerrit,” she said, making his name a plea.
“You know that you want me to see you,” he said, daring her to deny it.
A dozen emotions galloped across her expressive face: pride, arousal, and, finally, the headstrong, challenging glare she excelled in hurling his way like a gauntlet of old.
And then she spread her legs for him.
***
Katie had no idea what had got into Gerrit tonight.
Whatever it is, you like it…
She did like it. Because she was a wanton, hedonistic trollop. And she didn’t care about anything other than keeping that hungry expression on her husband’s face.
“Look at yourself,” he rasped, his eyes riveted to the part of her that a decent woman would never look at.
But Katie looked, and not for the first time, either. She did not personally see the appeal—men had a far more interesting reproductive organ in her opinion—but she liked the effect it had on Gerrit.
“So pretty and pink,” he muttered, his words causing even more waves of heat to surge through her. He flexed his hips, hissing in a harsh breath when his hard shaft stroked her back, not once, but again and again.
“Do you touch yourself, Kathryn?”
Her head whipped up at the filthy question, her eyes running straight into his. “Wh-what?”
“You know what I mean.”
“No!”
He grinned, the expression even more unexpected than his earlier smile had been. He looked wolfish, his teeth remarkably white against his darkly tanned skin, one side of his mouth pulled up higher than the other. His pale eyes gleamed, mischievous and carnal.
“You are fibbing, aren’t you, Kathryn?”
“I don’t—that is—oh fine, yes, for pity’s sake!” she snapped, flustered and annoyed and aroused all at once.
His grin just grew. “Some night you will show me,” he said, resuming his distracting grinding against her back. “I will spread you out on the bed and you will demonstrate how you give yourself an orgasm.”
Katie could not believe how erotic his threat sounded. Embarrassing, but erotic.
“But not tonight,” he said, and then abruptly leaned down and pulled her robe from her shoulders. “Get on the bed.”
The order reminded her of their very first night and Katie got to her feet, just as eager to comply as she had been then. But she paused and gestured to her clothing. “Should I—”
“No. I want to take you this way.” He shrugged out of his banyan, his own body naked from his toes all the way up. The most intriguing part of him was thick, rigid, and glistening. “On the bed,” he repeated, punctuating his command with a swat on her bottom.
Katie jumped and made the mortifying yelping sound that she seemed to make only in her husband’s presence.
She glared at him, and he raised both eyebrows as if to ask what she was going to do about it.
Katie wanted to shove him or climb him or kiss him or do all three. Instead, she gave him what she hoped was a seductive smile and sauntered slowly to the bed, earning a low chuckle for her efforts.
“No, not on your back,” he said. “Hands and knees.”
She turned to him, shocked. “Like beasts?”
“You’ve seen that, have you?”
“I grew up in the country. Of course, I have—” She broke off when she saw he was grinning. Again. Three times in one night!
Katie scowled at him for teasing her even though she liked it and then climbed up onto the mattress, briefly turning to give him a challenging look over her shoulder before settling on her hands and knees.
“My God, Kathryn.” His voice throbbed with desire. One of his big hands landed gently on her lower back, making her jolt.
“Shhh,” he murmured, as if soothing a nervous filly.
“Look at you,” he said, the words low and worshipful as he stroked first one buttock and then the other.
“Yes, like that,” he said, making her realize she was thrusting against his hand.
“No, don’t stop.” He slowly pulled up her chemise, until his rough skin was caressing her bare buttocks.
She felt movement and then was startled to feel the press of his lips against her hip.
“Spread your knees so I can see how wet you are,” he ordered gruffly.
He gave an approving rumble when she complied.
“Such a good, obedient wife.” His thick fingers slipped into the slick folds of her sex, the pads caressing her in exactly the right spot. “So hot and wet and eager.”
She made a mewling—yes, a mewling—sound but could not have cared less.
He worked her like a musician with a favorite instrument, and she gave herself up to his virtuosic mastery, bucking and grinding and, finally, calling out his name, her inner muscles rippling with the force of her climax.
She rode the waves of pleasure until they faded to warm, when she felt the pressure of his thighs against hers.
“Down,” he said, his hand splaying across her shoulders and lightly pressing her toward the mattress.
Katie went gratefully, not sure how her arms, shaky and weak, had not collapsed already.
She had some vague notion of what he must see from his vantage point above her, but rather than shame her, it made her feel desirable and she pushed her bottom up toward him, begging for whatever he might deign to give her.
“Ah, sweetheart,” he said thickly. “I would like to do this all night long, but I am nearly at the end of myself.” He slid all the way inside her.
Katie squirmed and let out a muffled whimper. “You—it feels—”
“Bigger?”
Katie grunted out a yes.
He chuckled and slid in a bit more.
Who was this man who smiled and laughed?
He reached a hand beneath her and circled the source of her pleasure, his hips commencing to move. She closed her eyes and luxuriated in the slow, deep plunge and the immensely stimulating friction.
His hips moved faster, and his finger kept time. She could feel by the increasing wildness of his thrusts that he was close.
He leaned low, until his muscular chest molded to her back and making her wish that her stays and chemise did not separate them.
“Are you close?” he whispered, his hips pumping so savagely that he pushed her up the mattress.
His question had scarcely left his lips when the spiral that had been building inside her snapped. He thrust only a few times more before he buried himself and they flew over the edge together.
Katie must have dozed, because when she opened her eyes, she saw the candles were no longer burning.
She lifted her head, as if she could see anything in the pitch darkness.
Gerrit’s chest was still pressed against her back, but now there was no clothing between them.
He had undressed her, and she’d slept through it? Pity, that.
“Close your eyes,” he murmured, drawing her closer and pressing a kiss against the back of her head.
Her lips curled into a smile as her heavy lids lowered.
Katie was still smiling as she drifted off to sleep.