She sucked in a deep breath, all of her nerves coming to throbbing and aching life where they joined.
Her gaze locked on his. Silence stretched between them, but words passed between them just the same. An unspoken communication. A wordless exchange conveyed in the question in his smoldering gaze.
She answered him by angling her hips and welcoming him into her body. Her hands slid down his back, nails slightly scraping warm flesh to stop at the curve of his spine above his backside. She pushed there, urging him on, propelling him to move over her, in her.
The tendons in his throat worked and his jaw clenched as he pushed the remaining length of himself inside her. He moved neither fast nor slow. He filled her with a steady thrust until he was lodged to the hilt, pulsing and big and shattering her senses.
Her mouth parted on a gasp at the burning stretch of her body to accommodate him.
Hissing air escaped between her teeth and her fingers ached from clinging to him. It was not entirely pleasant. It was not entirely bad either. He felt so foreign inside her, the sensation alien and a little bewildering.
And then he moved again, withdrawing and burying himself again, making her squeak and clutch, if possible, even tighter to him.
A ragged gasp escaped him and he dropped his head into the crook of her neck, his breath fanning hotly on her flushed skin.
Her thoughts spun, unable to grasp any one thought. There was only feeling. The overwhelming pressure of him locked deep inside her.
He lifted his head and snared her gaze again as he nearly slid all the way free of her body. The slow drag of his hard length made her arch and moan under him, the friction unbearable and not nearly enough.
“Camden,” she choked, pleading.
He drove deep again and she cried out in relief, but it was short-lived. She needed more. She didn’t understand how something could be so good and so not enough. She felt her core tighten and clench around him and delighted in his gasp.
His face was tense, his expression fixed almost in pain, his arms bracketed on either side of her head
She reached a hand to touch his face, tracing his jaw. “Wh-What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. This is the most perfect thing I’ve ever felt.” He followed his words by thrusting faster, harder, a shudder racking him. “You. You are the most perfect thing.”
“Oh.” Soft whimpers escaped her as his hands swept under her. Palming her back and dragging her closer, crushing her heavy breasts against the solidness of his chest.
She panted his name like someone possessed. Ripples overtook her, tremoring through her body.
He swept her toward that precipice, driving deeper. His hands dove downward and clenched in her bottom, lifting her hips off the bed and angling her in such a way that she felt everything, impossible as it seemed, better. More. Deeper. Her mouth opened on a silent cry as she jumped off some invisible cliff and flew out of her skin.
It felt as though she were looking down at herself curled beneath this beautiful man, his big body overtaking hers. He moved several more times until she felt him start to tremble. She stroked a hand down his arm, knowing he neared his own climax.
Then he suddenly pulled from her, gasping. His shoulders shuddered as he surrendered to his release, his head bent. She looked between their bodies, watching in a mixture of fascination and confusion as he spent himself in his hand.
Their breaths slowed in the charged silence. He looked up, his gaze searching her face. A sudden bout of self-consciousness seized her. Too late, she knew, but there nonetheless. She lifted one ankle from around him and dragged her knees together.
He hopped from the bed. She watched, her avid gaze crawling over the lean, muscled lines of his body. He really was beautifully shaped. She drank in the sight of him as he worked at the basin, his biceps and forearms flexing as he washed his hands and wrung out a linen.
She couldn’t even look away when he returned, a damp cloth in hand. He lowered himself to the bed beside her and nudged at her legs. “Wh . . . nu-uh.” She shook her head, heat swamping her face.
“Come. Let me attend to you. There are no secrets between us anymore. Allow me to do this, Aurelia.”
She stiffened, wondering if this was the manner of intimacy shared between all men and women. Had he often done this for other lovers? That though only brought an ugly swipe of jealousy.
“Aurelia.” His gaze snared hers, his voice unyielding. “Let me do this for you.”
With a resigned nod, she relaxed her knees. He cleaned between her legs with efficient movements. Finished, he rose and disposed of the cloth. Returning, he sank back beside her on the bed. Close, but not touching. His gaze skimmed her, and she must have been seriously confused because she thought she saw heat flare to life in his eyes again. He was utterly at ease with his nudity, and she tried to feel equally as confident.
It didn’t work.
She reached for her chemise and pulled it over her head. Feeling somewhat better, a little less vulnerable at least, she curled her knees beneath her and faced him expectantly.
She waited, certain he would say something. This changed everything. This was no longer a name only marriage.
“Why did you do that?” she heard herself asking, motioning to the basin.
He shrugged. “It’s the courteous thing.”
“No. That’s not what I meant.” She propped herself up on one elbow so they were at eye level.
“You . . . withdrew from me. At the end. I’ve never heard of a man doing that.”
The corner of his mouth quirked. “Do you often discuss such matters?”
She flushed. “Well. No, but I read. I’ve never come across such a thing in any of the medical texts in the library at Merlton Hall, and those texts have been quite forthcoming on matters such as these. Why would you—”
“It’s done to prevent procreation. A child. So that I don’t spill my seed inside you.”
It took her a long moment to process his words. She understood their meaning, but she still could not understand. Once she did, her chest sank. He did not want to have a child with her.
“I don’t want children,” he added, in case she failed to grasp his meaning.
“What of your line . . . the title—”
“I care not what happens after my death. I’ll be dead. The title can pass to some distant relation for all I care.”
“But I thought every man wants progeny,” she insisted. She knew that her mother had two miscarriages after her birth and it had been a great disappointment to her father. He had hoped for more children. Sons specifically. That was the way of a nobleman. He wanted sons.
Only this one did not. She had found and married the one man in England who had no wish for progeny.
“Not me,” he said evenly, without the faintest doubt or hesitation in his deep voice. “Do not take this as a personal affront, Aurelia,” he quickly said, likely reading her uncertainty to this news in her expression. “I would not want a child with any woman. Any wife. It has nothing to do with you.”
And yet it did.
It had a great deal to do with her now that they had a true marriage. Now that they had a real marriage and she could have children in her future. Yet he was saying it couldn’t happen.
“Oh.” She squared her shoulders and tried not to look affronted. It was a difficult thing. She felt dazed and not quite certain how to respond . . . how to feel.
“Aurelia.” He uttered her name knowingly. “This doesn’t have anything to do with you.” Apparently she couldn’t hide her thoughts entirely.
Nodding numbly, she snatched hold of the rest of her clothes and redressed herself. “I’m your wife. Your decision to never have children impacts me. Does it not?” Even the question fell from her lips tentatively as she looked up at him beneath her lashes.
He winced. “Well. Yes. I gather that it affects you, but I simply don’t wish you to take it as a personal slight.” He studied her, his bigger body reclining casually on h
er bed. “Are we all right on this? I don’t want to quarrel again.”
She nodded. “Neither do I.” She forced a smile, her mind spinning as though he had not just dropped news so significant that it would alter the course of her life. Mostly dressed, if not fully buttoned up, she hopped to her feet and faced him as her fingers fumbled at her buttons.
He lifted one brow in that maddening way of his, clearly reading that she was still grappling with this. “Considering that we had little choice in our marriage and the fact that we agreed to a strictly platonic relationship, it did not yet occur to me to disclose this.”
A valid point, she supposed, but it did not lessen the ache in her heart. “Well, it matters now, does it not?”
“It’s not something I will reconsider.” He spoke so matter-of-factly. As though they had not just shared the height of intimacy. “This has long been my position. I will not change for you. I never wanted to marry, however, there was no escaping it. But children, family . . . it won’t happen.”
Love.
She heard him quite clearly even without the utterance of the word. He was saying love. Her face burned hot. He would not have it. He would not give it. She would be a fool to expect it from him.
He will never love me.
He wasn’t cruel enough to fling it at her head that he would never love her, but she understood. Now she knew that it would only ever be meaningless when they came together. Tupping. Sex. It wasn’t special. She wasn’t. She had been deluding herself to ever think she was.
She nodded once. “I understand.”
His head angled slightly as he stared at her, as though searching to make certain she understood what he was saying. She arched an eyebrow, crossing her arms in front of her. “I understand,” she repeated, her voice strained and tinny to her ears.
He held her gaze for one long moment, his jaw locked, eyes intense. Finally, he stood up from the bed, towering over her, indifferent to his nudity. Unlike her. She was achingly aware of every glorious inch of him on display. The memory of what it felt like to have all that male warmth surrounding her, against her, inside her, was still fresh.
Even staring at him now, she felt the stirrings of desire. A part of her yearned for him to stay. To lose herself in his arms. For things to be right between them . . . for him to say the words that would make everything right . . . better.
For her heart not to feel like a heavy, twisting mass inside her chest.
She glanced to the door, heat itching up her neck, unable to stare at him so proudly exposed before her and know she couldn’t ever really have him—that he would always keep his heart from her. One thing, she realized, that she wanted from him.
“I have to leave now, but this wasn’t a onetime occurrence. I’m not fool enough to think we can stop this from happening again. There’s no going back now. I don’t want to.” He made quick work of donning his clothes, leaving his shirt off and his hard-contoured chest exposed. A blessing and a torment. Her mouth dried as she eyed him. Was she supposed to disagree? She pasted a tight smile to her lips and lifted her chin a notch, trying to pretend that a physical-only relationship would be enough for her—that she didn’t yearn for more.
He laughed low and dark, and the sound sent a shower of gooseflesh along her skin. Her pride asserted itself. Did he think she would languish about, waiting for the moment he turned his gaze to her and decided to bed her again?
“Indeed.” She nodded once, squaring her shoulders. “I’ll let you know when the mood strikes me.”
He chuckled and crossed the distance to her, wrapping an arm around her waist and hauling her against him. Her hands fluttered for a moment before coming to rest on his chest, the expanse of warm bare, satiny flesh stretched over hard muscle.
“Indeed. Let me know.” The very mockery lacing his words fueled her determination to prove him wrong. One of his hands seized her bottom, pulling her tighter against him. She gasped. He was ready again, his manhood hard against her belly. “Something tells me I’ll be inclined whenever you are.” That chuckle again, deep and dark, rolled over her. “Just crook your finger. I’ll come running.”
Then he released her. She took a staggering step before catching herself.
He stopped at the door, one hand on the latch. “Until then.”
She wanted to shout that there would not be a next time, but she would only sound temperamental. Like a child flinging forth a dare. A dare she felt fairly certain she would lose.
Biting her tongue, she watched him pass into the adjoining room, the lean lines of his body disappearing from view.
She backed up and sagged down onto the bed, feeling hot and flushed and achy and bewildered all at once. The memory of what they had done together, how it had felt . . .
It took everything in her not to call him back again for a repeat performance. Pride kept her in check. As well as outrage and crushing disappointment. Love, children . . . she would have none of that with him.
Chapter 21
She didn’t crook a finger for him, and after a few days Max was beginning to think she never would.
There was no invitation. Not even a come-hither glance. She was all politeness, to be sure. Pleasant even. But she wasn’t the Aurelia he knew. He thought after that morning together she would want him as much as he wanted her. Newly introduced to the delights of the flesh, she wouldn’t be able to stay away. No matter what she claimed.
She had proved him wrong.
He strolled about in a constant state of arousal, longing for his wife with a need that made his teeth ache. She avoided him as if a repeat performance were the last thing she desired. Perhaps she had decided that she didn’t want him. That he wasn’t enough . . . that what he was offering wasn’t enough.
A bolt of panic shot through him that he quickly tamped down. He wasn’t so desperate that her rejection mattered. He merely hoped to reach some level of contentment in this marriage. For their sake, for his friendship with Will. Yes, he told himself. That was the only reason for that brief stab of panic. He wasn’t worried. Truly. He wasn’t.
If Aurelia didn’t want him again, then he would go on. He would live. There would be other women.
A foul taste coated his mouth. His hand curled into a fist. The mere idea of other women held no appeal. Aurelia was all he could think about it. All he wanted.
There was no arguing between them. No saucy exchange. None of the interaction that got his blood pumping. He missed that. He knew he should be satisfied at such tranquility. She placed no demands. She certainly wasn’t a haranguing wife. No, she was faultless. Ever gracious over breakfast, treating him to easy and courteous conversation, inquiring after his day. And it infuriated him. It was as though he had never bedded her. She was withdrawn, holding herself back, and he wanted to grab her and shake her and kiss her until he had the Aurelia he craved and wanted and . . .
He shook his head, not finishing the thought.
He simply wanted her back.
“If you’ll excuse me,” she murmured, dabbing at her mouth with a napkin. “I’m meeting Violet in the park.”
He didn’t need to read her mind to know that this was in reaction to the limitations he had placed on their marriage. She’d understood his expectations. No love. No children.
He watched her intently as she rose from the table, staring at her over his cup. She smiled that smile that did not quite meet her eyes and departed the room. He sat tensely in his chair for some moments, his boot tapping anxiously beneath the table, feeling dismissed. Rebuffed. Even without word or deed, she had made it clear that she didn’t need him—crave him—the way he craved her.
“Bloody hell.” Max set his cup down and pushed up from the table.
He stomped upstairs, heading directly for her chamber. If this was a game, then she had won. He couldn’t stay away from her a moment longer. He couldn’t endure her indifference.
He strode into her chamber. She sat on the chaise lounge, her sketch pad in her lap. He had a f
lash of unreasonable jealousy. She preferred that to him.
Aurelia started at his sudden appearance. “My lord,” she murmured as he stopped before her and plucked the pad from her lap.
“Max,” he bit out, tossing aside the pad, seizing her by the elbows and dragging her up the length of his body.
His mouth took hers, and he groaned, missing this. Missing her. She tasted even sweeter than he remembered, and it had only been a few days since he last tasted her. It was like she was in his blood.
“I missed this . . . you,” he muttered, coming over her on the couch, grabbing fistfuls of her skirts and shoving them out of the way so that he could settle firmly between her thighs.
Her arms snaked around his neck. “Then why didn’t you do something about it?” she whispered against his mouth.
“Because I’m a fool.” He thought he could be strong and exhibit control. He thought she would need him first.
Her legs came around his hips, and he dove his hands under her, cupping the swells of her bottom. He growled into her mouth, “If you want me to leave, say it now because in another minute I’m not going to be able to stop.”
The sweet breath from her mouth fanned his lips and she shook her head with a muffled whimper.
It was all he needed to hear. The sound spurred him to action.
His hands dove between their bodies, finding the slit in her drawers and touching her sex, caressing her, shuddering at the sensation of her wet heat, ready and weeping for him. He thrust a finger deep inside her, reveling at the sweet clench of her around him.
She gasped and the sound struck him like lightening. He stroked deeper, curling his finger and finding the spot that made her arch and pant. She was so close, but he didn’t want to give it to her yet. He wanted to be inside her when she shattered all around him.
He pulled back and she whimpered at the loss of him, biting her lip, the sight of her the most seductive thing he had ever seen. Her hands grabbed onto his hips. “I need—”
“I know.” He nodded, dragging his hands up her thighs and hauling her into position beneath him. Leaning down, he lightly bit her throat, overcome with the need to mark her, possess her.
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