Chapter Ten
The cords in the back of Harbury’s neck ached with long-held tension, though less so now that his wife had threaded her fingers into his hair.
She ruffled and teased his curls, unaware, he suspected, of the sensations she aroused and of how those sensations placed him entirely in her power.
Beneath her fingers he became pliant, moldable—a drastic change from just a few moments ago, when he’d needed to summon an untold amount of willpower.
If I pressed right here hard and long enough, you would faint.
His Cassandra, his sweet Cassandra, had boldly, intentionally threatened to strangle him.
His mind had recognized her challenge as a test, but his body had seized on the danger. For one, mad moment, he thought she would succumb to the wrong kind of temptation, wrap her hands around his neck and squeeze the consciousness from his body.
How heavy her small hands had felt. His swallow had increased the pressure of her thumbs, and he’d become aware of his lifeblood throbbing. She could have, with the slightest pressure, readily restricted, restrained his access to air.
He suppressed a shiver.
Then, instead of hurting him, she’d done the opposite.
She’d confessed her ignorance, her desire, and then—sweet angels in heaven—she’d lifted herself onto her toes to kiss him.
Her kiss had been so gently and willingly offered, the merest touch of her lips had awoken in him something possessive, something animal.
She whispered about madness of her own, spurring him to reclaim her mouth with unthrottled, fierce desire. Her knees gave way, but his clasp was tight enough to prevent a fall.
Now, each subtle sign of her surrender heightened his focus. And, judging by the dreamy way she continued to caress his hair, passion had rendered her not only compliant, but eager. She clung to him in a way that made him feel as if he’d caught a gift dropped from the heavens.
He had, he realized.
If he had plucked some other lady from the Almack’s crowd that fateful night—her sister Eliza, for instance—everything could have gone badly. Right now, however, he regretted nothing. Cassie felt as if she were made for him, not just physically, but in spirit.
He cradled her neck as he wrapped her even closer to his heart.
Could this be the first time he’d ever truly held his wife?
The devil.
He’d been inside Cassandra, for God’s sake. He’d kissed her soundly, he’d held her hand, but they hadn’t, to his recollection, simply embraced. If they had, he would have remembered the way her body fit to his—not when lying on a bed, but when standing, as they were now.
Everything between them had been backwards from the start. He intended to reverse course.
Now.
“I’m taking you to bed.”
Not a stated desire, as in you’re the one I want. Right now. In that bed. Nor a question, but a statement of unambiguous intent.
A fact.
He bent down, cupped the back of her already bended knees and then lifted her from the floor. She wasn’t heavy, and yet every one of his muscles strained.
Anticipation left him taut. Taut and yet vibrating everywhere, all at once. If he were a string, he’d be emitting a low, clear, and soulful sound, much like he was humming a growl of possession.
She crossed her ankles, stroking one of her calves with the other while flexing her toes. The bedframe squeaked in protest beneath his knee. His ears pricked, praying the sound had not disturbed the pup.
All he heard was Cassandra’s heartfelt sigh.
Gently, he released her onto the bed. As her head sank into the pillow, he followed her single, dark braid’s line as the weave snaked around her neck and then down into the valley between her breasts. Even wretched with need, he could still derive profound pleasure from simply gazing at his wife.
He settled by her side, crooked his elbow over the pillow, and rested his cheek on his fist. Her breath was light and fast, her upper arms covered in gooseflesh. Her flushed skin betrayed her hunger for his touch.
He wondered how he could have ever thought her unresponsive. Then, he remembered.
The last time they’d lain thusly, she’d been hesitant and still, meeting his gaze either to then quickly close her eyes or to turn away. This time, she was gazing at him as if he had the answers to every possible question in the universe.
Her confidence gave him a sense of pride—false pride. He didn’t have any answers.
Where bedding was concerned, he hardly knew more than she did. He’d been so inept at seduction on their wedding night, when she’d reached out to him, he’d kissed her and told her he was honored.
He suppressed a snort.
Excellent way to express yourself, Lothario.
This time he intended to keep the intimate in intimacy. To do so, however, he’d need to take a risk. And he’d need to keep her connected to him, verbally, physically, imaginatively.
“Touch me again,” he urged. “Anywhere.”
Her thickly lashed eyes closed, briefly, only to reopen, focused on his throat.
“That is,” he amended, “if you’d like.”
“Wouldn’t my touching you be strange?” She raised her gaze. “For you?”
“Not strange.” He paused. “Erotic.” His groin tightened with anticipation “Exciting.” New. “Go ahead…”
With hesitant, feather-soft fingers, she traced from his cheekbones, up his nose, over his eyebrows, then down past his ear.
Finally, her hand rested against his jaw.
She touched him as if she couldn’t see him at all.
In truth, he was revealing more to her than he’d ever expected to show anyone ever again.
He offered himself purposely, shielding nothing, leaving every emotion billowing up plain on his face. Not just his needs—carnal and those even deeper—but also raw, unbidden frailty spiking up from hidden, empty places, empty places he had once believed could only be filled by someone else.
Only Viv had seen those wounds.
The vulnerabilities he’d revealed to her, however, had been unintentional. He simply hadn’t yet learned to fully hide weakness from a woman he loved. Not, at least, in the way he’d been trained to hide his furious, pained reactions to his father’s thrashings.
He must have flinched because Cassandra frowned.
“You’re thinking too much.” Again, her fingers flitted over his brow. “I don’t want you to think.” Her tone deepened. “Especially of anyone else.”
Yes, he was thinking. And someone else had been part of those thoughts, too. But not in the way she believed.
“I’m fully present.” And he was. He was embodied and aware, like a sailor with eyes trained on the sea. He’d do everything he could to navigate to a safe harbor. “I’m not thinking of anyone else. I don’t want anyone else but you.”
He cupped her opposite arm, a physical entreaty that she believe him.
Her breasts brushed against his chest as he leaned in to place a warm, lingering kiss just above the bridge of her nose.
The furrow in her forehead gradually flattened beneath his lips.
Her hand crept up his back until her fingers were again threading through his hair.
She let out a shuddering sigh as she forced his head down.
“Kiss me again.” Her breath teased his face. “Kiss me as you did at the ruins. Kiss me properly and put my dreams to shame.”
“My pleasure,” he replied, bringing his mouth down hard only to give himself completely to the heavenly softness of her lips.
*
Cassie was, in essence, trapped beneath her husband. And though she did not think she could escape him, her heart inexplicably soared free. With deliberate provocation, she bent her knee, making sure she slid her thigh along the hard length she now understood was his manhood.
In response, he groaned and deepened their kiss.
How could touching in one place—their mouths—leave her throbbing in another? A place, in fact, she didn’t have a word to name?
But a lack of verbal identification didn’t stop her body from demanding attention there. She was swollen and hot and greedy. She wanted to be beneath him, to take him fully into her body.
She’d always been told the point of the “marital act” was the planting of a babe, a tiny being to grow inside her—part him, part her. She wanted to carry his child, physical proof they would forever be entwined. But her true desire had always been to plant herself in his heart.
He pushed himself up without breaking their kiss, pressed down on the inside of her knee and maneuvered into the space between her thighs. Last time, her body had responded to his as if he were a threat. This time, his confidence, his ease, his sincerity, released her from those shackles.
He’d told her he was fully present. As his hands stroked her flesh, she didn’t have anything left but the present. If she wanted to live—fully live—she must hold on for dear life.
She had no past. She sensed no future. Only now.
Only him.
He touched her as if each careful caress spread thick and vivid paint on her body’s canvas, forever changing how she would be seen, how she would be perceived, both by herself and by others. She was no longer Cassandra, sweet and gentle. She was Cassandra, wanton and bold.
When finally, he pulled back, his eyes had a strange and thrilling glow.
“I missed this,” he murmured. “I missed you.”
How could he miss something he had never known?
As soon as her mind formed the question, her heart rebelled.
She understood what he’d meant. The promise of this passion had existed between them from the very start. What was happening felt less like an introduction and more like a return.
Under his gaze her breasts became even heavier, more exquisitely sensitive. Every time she took a breath, she tingled as her night rail raked over her puckered skin. The titillating sensations, too, were only a promise, a foreshadow of something to come.
On their wedding night, he’d caressed her nipple, and she’d mewed in embarrassed protest, not because the sensation hadn’t been pleasurable, but because she’d felt too much pleasure.
Outrageous pleasure.