She thought about it. “No. I lie with you because I wish to. We are together too many times for it to be duty.” Then she gave him a slow, sultry smile. “I wouldn’t dress this way for you if it was only duty.” A teasing light in her tawny eyes, she shrugged a slender strap off one honey-skinned shoulder. “Oops.”
He felt the bottom drop out of his stomach. “Hell, I guess I think of these things as duty appearances, too. At least you’ll make it bearable.” Keeping his eyes on her, he peeled off the rest of his clothing.
She held out her arms. “Come to bed, husband mine.”
He walked over, determined to say what he had to before the light of welcome in her eyes reduced him to incoherent passion. “I want to warn you—the crowd at these parties will stab you in the back if they have the slightest indication that you’re vulnerable.”
“Me? Vulnerable?” She gave an exaggerated sniff. “I am ice, husband.”
“I’d forgotten.” He stopped by the bed, waiting for her to shift so he could climb in beside her, and begin doing things to her that would leave her drenched in sweat. Pleasing his wife turned him on like nobody’s business. “You’re so hot.”
Instead of accommodating him, she moved until she was facing his erection. “Hot, hmm?”
His whole body shuddered as she dipped her head and took him to his own private vision of heaven. “Yup, damn hot.” Those were the last words he said for a long, long time, because his desert beauty was in the mood to pleasure her husband.
Slowly.
Ten
The party was as he’d expected. Except for a few men and women he respected, the glittering ballroom was full of debutantes who did lunch and slept with other women’s husbands, and those same husbands. None of them dared to approach Marc because he wasn’t known to be kind to their species, but he noted the way they looked at his wife.
“Stay close,” he warned her.
She gave him an amused look. “I can negotiate these waters. I’m used to being talked about.”
He nodded. “Don’t let them hurt you or I’ll have to get mean.”
“Yes, sir.” Laughter lit her eyes.
Despite her words she did stay close to him for most of the night. Toward the end of the evening she whispered, “I’m going to powder my nose.”
He nodded and watched her walk off. Lord, but she was stunning. The other men had been noticing all night. But, scared off by her ice-queen expression, none of them had had the temerity to approach her. He had to hide a grin. His wife was anything but ice but she could do ice extremely well.
At that, an earlier thought intruded. Underneath her glittering beauty, Hira had been just a little stiff ever since they’d arrived, though on the drive over, she’d been her usual warm self. It was hardly noticeable, but he knew her well enough, had seen her without her shields too many times to be fooled. The second they were alone, he’d find out what was bothering his wife. And then he’d dedicate himself to soothing her. Smiling, he turned his attention back to the party.
He got caught up in a conversation with the guest of honor for the next ten minutes, and when he looked around for Hira, he couldn’t see her. Intuition had him heading out to the hallway, off which the ladies’ powder room was located. His eyes narrowed when he saw Lydia walk out of the white-painted door, a smirk on her face.
Her blue eyes lit up when she saw him. “Darling!” She went to kiss him on the cheek. Behind her back, he saw the door reopen and a familiar figure walk through.
Without any hesitancy, he pushed Lydia aside. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” He hated being manipulated. Even worse, he hated being used as an instrument to hurt his wife.
Lydia wobbled in her high heels. “But, Marc, our relationship…”
He’d been trying to be gentlemanly, but when he saw Hira’s eyes darken in pain, he stopped pulling his punches. “Last time I saw you, you were showing me your breasts and asking if I’d like a taste. I believe I refused and told you to get your tail back to that old man you married. Isn’t. That. Right.” He made it a command.
Lydia’s face went white. “You bastard.”
“I may be, but I’m an honest one. Why the hell would you interest me when I’ve married a woman who outshines you by megawatts?” Walking over, he hauled Hira to him. She came without hesitation. “By the way, if I ever again catch you taunting Hira, I’ll ensure that the tape of you propositioning me finds its way into your husband’s hands.”
“You’re lying.” Lydia sounded shaky.
“Do you really think I’d trust you an inch?” He turned and looked down at his wife’s still face. She’d been hurt by Lydia. Without further words he headed for the exit.
Marc flicked on the light in their bedroom and turned to Hira. She hadn’t said a word on the drive home and he hadn’t pushed, though his simmering temper had demanded to know everything. Hauling her inside, he locked the door, shutting her in with him.
“Now, you’ll tell me every lie that bitch spouted.” He crowded her until she was pressed against the wall. Her purse dropped to the floor as he wrapped one hand gently around her nape.
“How do you know they were lies?” Her pulse pounded against his hand, but her tone was defiant, her eyes beginning to burn with inner fire.
“Because Lydia wouldn’t know honesty if it bit her.” He crowded her some more until her soft breasts pressed against the jacket of his tux.
“Stop giving me orders,” she hissed. “And back off.”
“No.” His woman had been hurt and he wanted an explanation as to why she’d let that happen.
She blinked at the uncompromising denial. “You are not behaving as American men are supposed to.”
“How am I behaving?”
“Like one of the desert chieftains. They’re known to be primitive.”
“Is that so, cher? Then you’d better start talking. Us primitive types aren’t known for our patience.” His eyes drifted to the lushness of her lips. Before his civilized side could talk him out of it, he leaned down and kissed her the way he’d been wanting to all night. Pure heat and pure possession.
Her soft lips parted for him, inviting him into her mouth. He took the invitation and claimed her sweetness. His free hand went to her breast but he didn’t like the feel of her sparkly dress against his skin. Without releasing her lips, he pushed the strap down and slipped his hand under the dress to close around one heavy globe.
Hira jerked, but her arms came around his neck in permission that he hadn’t asked for. Rubbing his thumb across her nipple, he broke the kiss only long enough to allow her a breath and then he ravished her again, massaging her breast with a hand that knew exactly what she liked.
“What did she say?” he asked, raising his head.
Her lips were wet, her eyes sleepy looking but her mind sharp. “You’re trying to seduce me to get your way.”
“Yes.” He plucked at her nipple before cupping her breast again. “I’m a bastard of a negotiator.”
“No, you’re merely determined.” Her lips curved in an indulgent smile. “Lydia said much, but it all came down to the fact that you were sorry to have married me and were madly in love with her, that you had begged her to come to your bed despite the fact that she was married.”
Raw rage whipped through him. Leaving her breast, he pushed both hands through her lush fall of hair. “And you believed her?” He was furious with her for thinking so little of him.
Her eyes narrowed. “I told her that you’d never lower yourself to trash such as she was.”
He wasn’t fully mollified. “Then why the hell did she look so happy?”
“I believe she thought to drive a wedge between us by planting seeds of doubt in my mind.”
“Did she succeed?”
“You are a man with much pride. You’d never beg the favors of a woman who had rejected you.”
“You know me.” He pressed impossibly closer. Only her height in heels allowed her to meet his gaze. “
But you believed some of it. You looked like hell.”
“No. I was hurt at being reminded that though you say many things which make me think you value me as more than just a pretty face, I’m still a trophy wife to you, like Lydia is to her husband. Most of the couples there tonight were successful men with beautiful young women they treat as ornaments. I fitted right in.”
His control snapped. “Trophy wife?” he asked very softly. He’d been torn up at the sight of her in pain and she considered herself a trophy wife? He was sick of trying to get through to her. Maybe it was time to use nonverbal communication of the kind they were best at. Putting his hands on her waist, he lifted her. “Legs around my waist.”
She obeyed. “What are you doing, husband?”
Good. She sounded wary. But beneath the wariness was trust that soothed the raw edges of his temper. “Teaching you that whatever else you might be, you’re no trophy. Trophies get put up on a shelf and admired. I want you in my hands, to touch and please and own in a far different way.” He reached under her dress and made short work of her fragile panties.
She gasped. “This is…” Her words were lost as his fingers probed her, testing her for readiness. Within a few strokes, he was rewarded with damp heat. The scent of her desire rose in the air.
“Yes, cher,” he said. “That’s it.”
She hit his shoulder with a closed fist. “Do not talk to me as you would to a horse.”
Some of his masculine possessiveness retreated under that sharp-voiced command. Only some. “But, baby, you respond so beautifully to a little coaxing.” He slid a finger deep into her, gentle with her in spite of the desire running rampant through his body.
She cried out and clutched his shoulders. When her eyes opened, they were full of some feminine mystery he couldn’t hope to understand. Clenching around his finger, she pulled his head to hers. He went, his free hand breaking a strap on her dress to give him easy access to her breasts. As one hand closed around her flesh, her teeth scraped his lips.
“Biting, Hira?” He grinned. “Tut, tut.” Another finger deep within her.
Her eyes flashed, even as tiny feminine muscles rippled around him. “I will make you pay for this, Marc.”
He started kissing her neck, wondering if she knew just how rawly sexy she looked with her dress tumbling off to half expose one breast and completely free the other, her hair falling wild and free onto her shoulders and her long, silky legs wrapped around his waist. Suddenly it was too much. She was hot and more than ready.
Removing his hand, he went to work on the fastening of his pants. Holding her gaze, he guided himself to her and then thrust. She gasped and blinked, and it was all he could do to stop with that first deep thrust sunk in the velvet heat of her body.
“Move!” she ordered, breathless.
Since he had no objection to the idea, he moved. Again and again and again until he couldn’t think and there was such erotic pleasure, it felt as if his whole body was going up in flames.
Hira wondered how she had never, in all her researches, come across the mention of how erotic it was to be made love to by a fully clothed man when one was almost naked. Though she couldn’t remember how they had got there, she was now in bed, completely naked. Her forest-green gown was hanging over the back of a chair by the vanity. Beside her, Marc lay sprawled on his back, one arm thrown across his eyes. He remained dressed except for his shoes, which he’d apparently kicked off at some stage.
Very carefully, she sat up and looked down at her husband. Over six feet of long, lean man, he was presently asleep. She was glad. Tonight something fundamental had changed in her thinking about their relationship and she needed time to come to terms with it. Her husband had behaved as an enraged male whose wife had done something that displeased him, rather than as a man annoyed with a woman he’d acquired for her ornamentation value alone.
It was a very sharp distinction. One was a reaction fueled by emotion, the other by logic. Whatever else it had been, their joining had not been logical. It had been decidedly out of control and that was something her husband guarded fiercely against. Tonight, at the party, she’d overheard people discussing his reputation of icy control in the most stressful circumstances.
Except, with her, he’d always been fire and heat.
The bruised bloom in her heart unfurled into full flower at the revelation that her husband was truly not indifferent to her. The hope she’d felt the night she’d realized they’d somehow become a unit, reawakened. She had yet to understand the depth of what Marc felt for her, but it was surely something far more than mere desire.
Perhaps the love in her heart wasn’t doomed.
It had taken her a long time to accept that this wild hunter of a man had found a foothold in her soul, but she was a woman who knew herself. Marc Bordeaux was the one. The only one. In her deepest heart, she must’ve known that when she’d acceded to her father’s demands; she was far too smart a woman not to have found a way out if she’d been desperate. She’d been stalling Kerim for months before Marc came on the scene.
Marc shifted on the bed, throwing his arm wide, and she realized he had to be uncomfortable. Experimentally she reached out, undid his bow tie and slipped it off his neck. He didn’t react. Emboldened, she managed to get his jacket and shirt off him by moving him around when it didn’t seem to wake him. Then, biting her lip, she got rid of his pants and socks, leaving him clad in plain black briefs. Still asleep, he turned over onto his stomach, and she couldn’t help stroking his back, his skin hot and vibrant under her fingertips.
A glance at the clock showed that it was 2:00 a.m., but she was hungry, having eaten nothing but hors d’oeuvres since lunch. Carefully covering Marc with a light blanket, she pressed a soft kiss to the back of his neck, slipped into his formal white shirt and went down to the kitchen.
Marc chanced opening his eyes after a minute of silence. Groaning, he turned over in an effort to ease the pressure on his rigid arousal. Growing up as he had, never knowing when a vicious blow would shatter his rest, he slept lightly. He’d woken the moment Hira had but had kept his eyes closed, wondering what she’d do. And had learned that being undressed by a naked woman, whose breasts kept teasing you with every movement, was sheer torture.
He hadn’t been ready to talk to her, uncertain of her reaction to what had happened between them tonight. Whatever else, she couldn’t back away from this inferno. She was no more a trophy wife than he was a prize husband. However, his little deception had had an unexpected side effect.
His chest tightened as he recalled her tender kiss on his nape and the way she’d carefully covered him up. They hadn’t been the acts of an angry woman or even a woman who saw him as a duty. It had been care, pure and simple. He’d already known his wife had a big heart from seeing her with the children, but until now he’d never really felt the power of that heart. She’d done little things for him but they were all very wifely things, and he’d thought she felt duty bound to do them. But, tonight…tonight she’d gone far beyond duty.
Throwing off the blanket, he went in search of Hira, finding that he was greedy for her. He located her at the kitchen counter eating a piece of bread slathered with crunchy peanut butter. Her eyes widened at his entrance but he didn’t stop, walking around to stand beside her. Leaning down, he bit off the other end of her bread.
She swallowed. “You are hungry, too, husband?”
He nodded. “Why did you put on a shirt to come down?”
Taking another bite, she offered him more. He took it, demolishing almost the entire remainder. She waited and fed him that last bit before turning to get another slice from the loaf at her elbow. It was another small example of her inherently generous nature.
“Because it would be immodest to walk around unclothed.” With efficient movements, she spread peanut butter on the bread.
“But it’s only us.” He moved closer, rubbing her cheek with his knuckles, daring to display the affection that had changed his view
of himself. “Come on, I dare you to take it off.”
A soft smile on her lips, she raised the hand holding the piece of bread to his mouth. After a bite, he nudged her hand back to her own mouth. She took a small bite and chewed. Then, a smile flirting with her lips, she asked, “Why are you in such a mood?”
“Let’s see, I had amazing sex with my wife a few hours ago and, since she doesn’t appear to be holding my somewhat Neanderthal behavior against me, I’m raring to go again and I was hoping to create some sexy atmosphere. How’s that?” He allowed her to feed him again. “Humor me.”
She smiled and blushed. “But—”
“If we can’t be free with each other, who can we be free with?” Even as he said it, he realized that it applied to more than sexual exploration. He’d never truly trusted anyone and he badly wanted to trust his wife.
She handed him the slice of bread. Then, nibbling at her lush lower lip, she lifted her hands to the buttons of his dress shirt. His eyes were riveted to those elegant fingers. She undid the first button. He took a deep breath. She did the second one. He groaned.
“Faster, cher.” He wanted to reach out and haul her to his chest, but no way was he going to interrupt this very private show.
“What would be the fun in that?” Her question held teasing laughter, and the look in her tawny eyes said she was enjoying herself.
“Did I indicate this was supposed to be fun for you?” He fed her a bite from the remaining bread. “This is sexual gratification for me alone.”
“Is that so?” Another button. The valley between her breasts was a shadowed treasure, the softness of her belly a silky plain for his exploration. “What if I wish for some gratification, too?”
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