Chapter 23
Clad in a black silk robe, Jeremy stood at the hearth and stared unblinkingly into the snakelike blue flames undulating in his fireplace grate, his decanter of brandy half empty, his current glass nearly full.
A man never forgot the thrill of tupping one’s first wench. But that unadulterated lust didn’t even come within an inch of Tremaine’s mindless hunger where his wife was concerned.
From the very moment Linnie pranced into their host’s art room with that provocative shepherdess’s costume, it’d been what he’d ached to do.
In his waking days and over the course of too many sleepless nights—and even the restful ones—he’d dreamed about taking Linnie.
He’d have her in bed. Against the wall. Astride him.
On the stairs. On the breakfast table as his morning meal.
On the dining table for his evening one, and then again for dessert.
He planned to fuck her in every room and in every way.
And then he’d do it all over again.
All that stood between him, Linnie, and every last fantasy he intended to carry out in real life was a damned, blasted oak door panel.
And devil take Tremaine’s soul, he’d not been able to enter that room and take her once and for all. Instead, he remained paralyzed by the same mindless, maddening, and blinding rage that’d followed him from the Earl and Countess of Abington’s residence.
He closed his eyes.
Afraid to have me around? I do not blame you. Not considering how your wife comes alive in my arms.
Inhaling sharply, Tremaine curled his fingers into the marble ledge.
But the thoughts, they kept coming. Every bloody, vile jeer Culross tossed at him . . . and Linnie.
Nothing happened . . .
Goddamn Arran McQuoid, but goddamn the Earl of Culross even more, and all the way to his bloody, rotten soul.
“Not today,” the earl taunted. “But can you make that same claim about before, Linnie?”
Linnie. The bloody bastard had laid claim to her given name, a possession so bloody intimate. So bloody familiar. Uttering her name was a right that belonged to only her male kin and husband—to Tremaine. But Culross had.
His bruised knuckles throbbed—not with pain, but with the primordial desire to unleash his fury on Culross all over again.
You know nothing occurred.
Ah, but would that still be true if your husband hadn’t arrived when he did?
Cursing roundly, Tremaine grabbed his snifter; liquid sloshed over the side and hit his hand.
He tossed the deep-golden contents back in a single, burning swallow until he’d drained the glass.
He slammed the empty snifter over with such force the short crystal stem snapped and the cylindrical top splintered apart.
Wheeling away, Tremaine dragged his damp hands through his hair. Bloody fucking hell!
This was to be his punishment, then.
For having deceived Linnie and won her as his bride, he’d be made to live with the knowledge Culross had put his mouth in places only Tremaine had.
But he’d never possessed her body.
Tremaine’s gaze went to that doorway between him and his wife. He thinned his eyes. Here he’d triumphed over the Earl of Culross, and now but a trivial oaken divide separated him and Linnie.
The hell it would.
His lust burnt brighter as he made his way over. Standing outside his bride’s bedchambers, Tremaine all too eagerly clasped the handle, and without any announcement, he let himself inside.
Stiff as a nun in the nunnery, Linnie sat at the edge of the feather-tick mattress with her palms folded as if in prayer.
His lips eased into an insolent grin. “Hullo, wife,” he purred; he drew the panel closed behind him.
His bride found her voice.
Gasping, she jumped up. “J-Jeremy!”
Leaning his shoulder against the door, he arched an eyebrow. “Expecting someone else?”
He’d intended to tease his young bride. Instead, his question conjured thoughts of another gentleman who’d wanted Tremaine’s wife with a fiery intensity to rival Tremaine’s.
“Expecting . . . ?” Linnie gave her head a confused shake. “My maid, Ada . . . she left some time ago, and I’m not really sure who else I’d be expecting other than you.”
He’d not be distracted or entranced by her blasted innocence.
“Fine. Were you hoping it was someone else, wife?” he jeered.
Linnie tipped her head, and her blond corkscrew curls bounced about her shoulders. “Who would I be hoping it was?”
“Oh,” he said, his body thrumming with tension, “say, perhaps, the only other man to have kissed your mouth and caressed your beautiful breasts.”
That hideous image crawled through his brain like a slow-moving cancer.
Linnie frowned. “Lord C—?”
She caught herself. A guilty blush pinkened her cheeks.
Tremaine arched a black brow, daring her to finish.
“Lord Culross,” he supplied cuttingly when she still didn’t.
That deference Tremaine’s wife gave the bastard who’d stolen his lumber . . . and who’d nearly had Linnie as his wife.
His blushing bride gave a jerky nod, and all those delicious blond curls of hers bounced and danced.
Tremaine tensed.
He’d known the charming, unscarred bastard had sampled Linnie’s lips. Now, Linnie, with her lack of denial about the other man’s familiarity with her breasts, inadvertently confirmed the other man had placed his bloody hands upon her silken flesh.
As he stalked her on slow, languid steps, fury left an acrid taste upon his tongue.
Mine. She is all mine now. She belonged to Tremaine in both body and name.
A fresh wave of blood rushed to his already rampant erection.
He stopped at the bed.
Linnie’s gaze dipped. She stared fixedly at the front of his black satin robe, where his randy organ tented the material.
He hid a triumphant smile. The chit may have enjoyed Culross’s embrace, but she’d not been properly loved by him, nor anyone. From this night forward, he’d show her a pleasure so great it would purge all memories of Culross and his inferior touch from her mind.
Tremaine wrapped an arm around Linnie, drew her close, and lowered his lips close to hers.
She melted like honey against him and tipped her head up to surrender her mouth to his worship.
Tremaine froze.
“So,” he said in silky tones, withholding what she craved, “Lord Culross did caress your breasts.”
Linnie’s lashes fluttered open, revealing her passion-glazed eyes. Confusion filled those revealing depths.
“Jeremy?” she asked haltingly.
Tremaine filled his hands with those teardrop-shaped orbs and weighed the flesh in his hands. Then in the way he knew she loved, he tugged at her swollen nipples.
Linnie’s head fell back. A long, low, sultry moan shook her slender body.
He continued to tease his uninhibited bride, to toy with her until she rocked her hips wildly against him.
Tremaine rolled both pebbled peaks between his fingers and then stopped so suddenly Linnie cried out.
“Culross,” he said, infusing a playful smile into his rival’s name.
Dazed, Linnie looked up at him. “What are you saying, Jeremy?” she asked, desperation lining her question.
Which was it? Desperation for Tremaine to continue, or to relent with his line of questioning?
“I want to know what he did to you.” He paused. “Or perhaps it’d be more accurate to say what he did with you, as you sound to have been a willing participant.”
Linnie lifted her palms in supplication. “We didn’t do anything, Jeremy.”
“Today? Or any other day?”
Pain spilled from her eyes. Pain. Really? She was the one who was in pain here?
“Did he kiss you?” he asked bluntly.
Her chin trembled.
“Did he?” he demanded.
“Jeremy.” Her voice broke. “You know he did.”
“Then he did far more than something,” he hissed. “Now, I want to know if he kissed you here.” He laid his palms possessively over the gentle swells.
“He did not,” she said, her voice catching.
Lowering his head, Tremaine rewarded her honesty by taking one stiff tip deep into his mouth and sucking hard. So as to not neglect either breast, he tugged and pulled at the other peak.
Only Tremaine’s mouth had been here. His mouth would be the only one to worship her this way.
She moaned her appreciation.
Tremaine shifted his mouth over to give the opposite orb the same deserved attention, and then stopped, his lips near the peak.
“You did not confirm whether Culross touched your gorgeous breasts, wife.” As he’d intended, with each word that left his mouth, his lips brushed against her nipple in deliberately fleeting kisses.
Panting, Linnie pushed herself from his arms and glared daggers up at him. “Why are you behaving this way?” Her bare bosom, wet from his ministrations, heaved. “You have had countless lovers and women in your bed, and yet you’ll berate me for having shared a kiss with one other man.”
Rage threatened to consume him.
His wife and Culross shared a kiss, which meant it’d been fully and happily reciprocated.
“It is different,” he snarled.
“How?” Linnie cried out.
Spinning away, he punched the wall with a force that shook the gilded paintings.
“Because since I met you in Rutland’s bloody art room, there has been no other woman but you,” he thundered.
“You have consumed my every waking thought, Linnie. Since I had you in my arms at the masquerade, you have robbed me of sanity and sleep.” His breath came hard.
“You have haunted my dreams,” he whispered.
The anger seeped from him like the sands of time.
Tremaine dusted a tired hand over his face. “While you, Linnie,” he said bitterly, “welcomed Culross’s touch and considered his goddamned suit.”
Linnie stared at him with wide eyes. Reflected within her unblinking stare was a like shock at his revelation. At his all-consuming possessiveness of her.
He froze.
He and she—they both did.
What had he just said? He’d just spit forth feelings and thoughts he’d never acknowledged even to himself, and in so doing he’d laid himself bare.
His muscles twitched and pulsed wildly.
You’re jealous. Fucking acknowledge the raw emotion for what it is.