Chapter Twenty-One #3
He was rigid for a moment before the tension drained out of him and he sank back down, his powerful biceps tightening around her, hugging her to his body as he pressed his lips against her temple.
Almost as if he had heard her.
***
“Love me—or at least pretend for a little while.”
The shocking words were scarcely a whisper, but her mouth was right beneath Gerrit’s ear and so there was no mistaking them. His body responded reflexively, his arms tightening around her slender body as she burrowed into his chest, her hot, damp breath warming the sensitive skin of his neck.
He swallowed down the flutter of panic that surged from his belly to his throat and kissed the top of her head before he knew what he had done.
Love her?
She had agreed with him that day in Chatham’s library. It was a marriage of convenience first, last, and always.
Wasn’t it?
Thinking about it hurt his head.
But Gerrit could happily sit here all night feeling her smooth, taut thighs straddling him, her soft breasts pressed against his chest, and her hot, wet pussy squeezing his cock, which had not completely softened.
Love her?
Thinking of Kathryn and love in the same sentence instantly made him recall his last conversation with Amelia, when she had harangued him until he’d snapped at her, something he had never done before.
But then Amelia had never nagged him before, either.
And yet now, every time he paid a call on her, desperate for the calming influence she’d exerted on him all these years, the only subject she was interested in discussing was his wife.
Or, more specifically, how Gerrit needed to go about mending the breach between himself and Kathryn so they would have a real marriage.
That had been Amelia’s word: real. As if Gerrit was not really caught in parson’s mousetrap with no chance of escape. Well, not unless his wife eloped with another man as his last one had done.
His arms tightened reflexively around the slender body pressed against him at the thought, as if he could keep Kathryn from running away with physical restraint alone. She mumbled something against his throat, snuggling closer, her soft, pliant form somehow heavier in sleep.
The sheer vulnerability of the situation—the trust she showed by sleeping in his arms—made his throat constricted with something, but he didn’t know what. What was wrong with him? Why the hell was he so bloody emotional?
It had to be a result of not just Amelia’s nagging, but his mother’s as well. He could not recall ever being subjected to so much nagging in such a short time.
Thinking about his mother jerked him back from his maudlin musing. Gerrit’s eyes narrowed at her utter gall in offering him unsolicited advice, especially about his marriage. He buried his nose in Kathryn’s disheveled curls, the lavender scent pleasing rather than overpowering.
Gerrit reveled in her botanical, feminine smell.
Or at least he tried to revel. But a tendril of unease that he’d been suppressing for a while began to grow stronger.
Although he couldn’t see the clothing he’d cavalierly tossed behind the settee when he’d been in the grip of passion, he could feel it.
He gritted his teeth against the growing pressure, trying to ignore it.
He could stop the unease by standing up, laying Kathryn on the settee, and tidying up the messy garments. But if he did so, he risked waking her. And Gerrit was not ready to let her go—to let this go.
Chaos, disorder… the insatiable demon inside him whispered and hissed.
I don’t care.
But the unease did not diminish in the least. Gerrit needed something stronger to fight off the building pressure, so he buried his nose in Kathryn’s curls and inhaled deeply, filling his lungs with her scent. Again and again, he breathed in the intoxicating smell of his wife.
My wife. Mine.
The first touch on his neck was so faint he thought he’d imagined it. But then it happened again, soft lips pressing against his sensitive skin. Kathryn was kissing his throat.
Gerrit’s eyes fluttered shut at the butterfly touches, the racket behind the settee muted, as if somebody had thrown a bucket of chilly water over a noisy crowd.
She kissed him again and again, and then she buried her nose in his neck and whispered, “I’m happy now.”
Later that night—after Gerrit had held his wife a delicious half-hour longer before finally capitulating and folding the bloody clothing—he carried Kathryn’s sleeping form up to her bed, tucked her in, and retired to his own room.
His mind was more disordered than usual but—interestingly—the lack of mental order didn’t make him miserable.
Instead, the thoughts bombarding him were pleasurable ones and most of them centered on Kathryn.
His thoughts kept returning to his wife’s last words to him earlier: I’m happy now.
Even in her half-conscious state he’d heard the wonder in her voice and understood that happiness was not a normal state for his wife. It wasn’t for Gerrit, either.
The last thought he had that night, as he surrendered to sleep was that—astonishingly—he was happy, too.