Her wedding night.
Ever since that day in the hunting cabin, Heath had forced a respectable distance between them. The proprieties having been observed and scandal neatly avoided, Tia was eager to be alone with him once more. She missed his kisses and knowing touch. In truth, she’d grown frightfully fond of him over the last few weeks as he’d courted her. He was surprisingly considerate, as evidenced by the efforts he’d clearly made to ready her chamber for her. It was beautifully decorated, with touches of bright color and not even a hint of dust to show it had been unused for the last few years. She knew it would have been an undertaking and that he’d given thought to her tastes when he’d directed its preparation. A lovely lithograph of a butterfly hanging on the wall had made her smile when she’d first entered.
A knock on the door adjoining her chamber to his startled her from her reveries and sent a jolt of anticipation snaking through her. Her husband awaited her. She gave her reflection a last look, smoothing down her hair before she turned to greet him.
“You may enter.”
The door swept open to reveal Heath, looking unfairly handsome in a silk dressing gown. A slow smile curved his sensual mouth as his gaze met hers. “Good evening, wife. You’re looking particularly ravishing.”
“Flattery will get you nowhere, sir,” she teased, crossing the room to him. As much as she’d never thought to be a wife again, she had to admit she enjoyed the sound of the title on Heath’s lips.
“Devil take it.” He caught her waist and hauled her against him. “I was hoping to bed you tonight. Is there any way I can change your mind, Your Grace?”
Tia enjoyed his banter. It was a side of him she’d never dreamt existed before getting to know him. She found herself smiling back at him, reaching up to run her fingers over the soft abrasion of his beard. Thinking about it grazing her skin made her instantly wet. She couldn’t help it. “Perhaps there are ways you could persuade me,” she suggested, relieved that their time of polite courtship was at an end. If she’d had to wait much longer, it would have driven her mad.
“Ah, a lady of reason.” His gaze was brilliant and hot on hers, sending a frisson of desire through her. “How might I persuade you?”
“You may begin by kissing me,” she told him boldly.
His hands slid upward, along the curves of her waist and higher, spreading fire in their wake. When he reached her breasts, he cupped them, his thumbs unerringly finding her hardened nipples beneath the thin barrier of fabric between them. He flicked over them once, twice, three times. It wasn’t the kiss she had requested, but it was enough to send another stab of desire to her core. How was it that with a mere touch he could make her desperate for him? Desperate to be taken by him, loved by him, possessed by him. She didn’t know what madness he wrought on her, only that she didn’t want it to end.
“Where shall I kiss you, darling?” His voice was deep and dark and seductive, rolling over her senses like burnished velvet.
She moaned as he gently tugged at her aching nipples, arching into his capable hands. “Everywhere.”
He lowered his head to press a soft, open-mouthed kiss on the side of her neck. “With great pleasure,” he murmured before moving to the hollow at the base of her throat where her frantic pulse beat. His tongue darted against her skin. “You even taste of violets.”
She had dabbed a bit of her perfume on that exact spot earlier. “I hope you don’t mind. It’s always been my favorite scent.” Lord Stokey had detested violet water and had forbidden her from wearing it. After his death, she’d worn it every day simply because she could.
“Of course not.” He dragged his mouth up to her earlobe, catching it between his teeth. “I can’t smell violets without my cock going hard.”
She shivered from his confession and his warm breath and the thought of his cock all at once. For some reason, his lips on her ear made her want him even more. His slow lovemaking was so seductive, so delicious, that she feared she wouldn’t make it much longer without begging him to take her. She wanted him inside her, hard and deep and wonderful. She longed for him in a way that frightened her. It was new, foreign. Never before had a man been such a source of weakness for her.
“You’re making me mad,” she told him on a whisper. She ran her fingers slowly through his thick hair and rubbed her cheek against his. His neatly clipped whiskers were a welcome abrasion.
His tongue followed the whorl of her ear and he rolled her nipples between his thumb and forefinger again. “Good. I want you on fire for me, darling. Naked and wet and hungry.”
Dear, sweet God. The things he did to her. He hadn’t even kissed her mouth yet, for heaven’s sake, and she was already quivering, a wanton woman in his arms. The attraction between them had not dimmed like a candle left burning too long. If anything, it had grown even more intense. How was it that a mere month ago, she had never given him a second thought and yet now, she couldn’t imagine her life without him in it? She didn’t know. But what she did know was that if he didn’t soon kiss her, she’d perish from the wait.
She decided to be bold and turned her head so that their lips met at last. She opened for him, running her tongue against his. He kissed her deeply, holding her close, as if she were cherished. Heath cupped her jaw, keeping her still as he ravished her mouth. Slowly, he led her backward across the chamber, step by step until at last she felt the bed behind her.
He tore his lips from hers, gazing down at her. “Take off your gown for me, darling.”
She gathered twin handfuls of silk and pulled the hem up over her body. The fabric slid over her already sensitized skin like a lush caress, heightening her arousal. Her eyes locked with his, she raised it higher, revealing first her hips, then higher still. His searing stare dipped.
“Shall I continue?” she asked with feigned innocence.
“Yes,” he said without hesitation, his voice thick and low with desire. “Don’t stop.”
Tia shimmied, lifting her gown slowly to bare her breasts before whipping it over her head and tossing it to the floor. It fell behind her in a scarcely audible whisper of sound. She cupped her breasts, watching the way his eyes went heavy-lidded and darkened to the color of the sky just after sunset. “Is this what you wanted, Your Grace?”
“God yes,” he groaned. His hands went back to her waist, lifting her gently onto the bed. He tugged open the knot on his dressing gown and shucked it, leaving him naked and glorious before her.
She allowed herself the luxury of admiring his lean, powerful body. He was not a man who sat about eating muffins all day, that much was certain. His chest was carved of muscle, his stomach taut and lined with whorls of golden hair that ran directly to his rigid cock. He was hers, she thought.
He joined her on the bed then, straddling her and lowering his head to suck a nipple. She arched and moaned as the wet warmth of his mouth shot a flame of desire directly to her core. His fingers slid between them, exploring her slick folds with an expert touch. Somehow he knew exactly how to touch her, how much pressure to exert, where she ached the most. He toyed with the bud of her sex, rubbing it fast and just hard enough to make her moan again as he sucked her other nipple. Looking up at her, he caught it between his teeth and tugged.
The delicious sensation of a climax built within her. She was very near to the edge. When he sank a finger deep inside her, touching her exactly where she longed to be touched, she lost control. The pleasure was as swift as it was sudden, claiming her with such force that she shook against him and cried out.
“Damn,” he muttered, kissing the side of her breast as he withdrew his finger “I wanted to go slowly, but I can’t wait. I need to be inside you now.”
“Yes,” she agreed, spreading her legs wider in welcome. She wanted him, all of him. Tia took his cock in hand and guided him to her ready entrance, tipping her hips to bring him deep. Her mind might not be entirely at peace with the notion of once again being a wife, but her body was more than sure. This was what her body wa
nted. Needed. Desperately. Oh yes.
“Ah, fuck.” He braced himself over her, the tip of his cock just far enough inside her to make her desperate for more. “Tell me what you want, wife.”
“I want you,” she said, breathless, the wicked words making her even more wild with need. She rather liked being called “wife” by the handsome man atop her. “Inside me.”
He thrust home, sending a delicious spear of pleasure through her. “Like this, darling?” He kissed her before she could answer, his tongue plunging into her mouth in the same claiming.
She wrapped her legs around him, drawing him deeper. When he began a fast, hard rhythm, she met him thrust for thrust. He slammed into her again and again, his hand going back between their bodies to once again pleasure her. A few flicks of the sensitive button hidden within her folds, and she was coming undone again, clenching on him in a series of spasms. And then, he too was losing himself, sinking deep within her and spending his seed.
After five long years as a widow, she was indeed a wife once more, and at the moment, that didn’t particularly feel like a bad thing to be.
Heath had spent the night in his wife’s bed. It confounded him that he’d fallen asleep there with her rather than returning to his chamber as he ought to have done. Even as he flipped through the Times over eggs, kidneys and kippers the next morning, his reaction to Tia irked him. While he intended for them to get on well as husband and wife, and he certainly meant to take her as often as possible, he didn’t wish to become—damn it all—attached.
In the short time he’d spent courting her, he’d realized that he needed to rein in his recklessness where she was concerned. He had loved once, madly and desperately, and he had lost that love. He didn’t care to repeat his experience. Indeed, he’d gone to great efforts to close off that part of his life forever. The evidence was sealed up in a chamber in the east wing, for Christ’s sake.
And last night, he’d taken one look at Tia standing in her chamber in that frothy confection, her breasts and waist on display like his personal Venus, and he’d lost control. His plans for an unhurried seduction had been dashed the moment he’d felt her soft, nude curves beneath him.
He stabbed at his plate with extra vigor and attempted to focus on the news rather than allow his already hard cock to once again rule him. He needed to take care, or he’d be following Tia about like a lovesick swain and writing maudlin poetry to her hips. He’d accomplished what he’d set out to do. He’d gained a wife. Now he simply needed to regain his senses.
The door of the breakfast room swept open to reveal the very object of his frustrated musings. She was pretty as an angel in her violet morning gown, her curls piled high on her head. The smile she sent his way when their gazes met sent an arrow of heat directly to his groin.
Devil take it.
They exchanged formal greetings, more for the sake of the servants than themselves, and he pretended not to watch her from the corner of his eye whilst she fixed her plate and was seated. In truth, he couldn’t not stare at her. She was such a gorgeous creature, every bit the butterfly, vibrant and exotic and delicate all at once. If he had still painted, he would’ve captured her a hundred ways. With morning sun filtering over her while she slept, buttoned up in a formidable silk gown, beautiful and nervous on their wedding day, naked and flushed beneath him.
“Your Grace?”
Oh bloody hell. She was talking to him and he was mooning over her as if he were a lad seeing his first woman. “You may call me Heath, my dear,” he reminded her. He’d been the duke for several years already, but he still sometimes looked about for his grandfather whenever someone addressed him as “Your Grace”. And his profligate grandfather was not a man he ever wished to be.
“Heath, then.” Her lips curved in a shy smile. “I fear you were engrossed in your newspaper and quite forgot I was here.”
No. He’d merely been too busy imagining her in various poses. Particularly the nude ones. “I’m dreadfully sorry. What was it that you said?”
“I wished to thank you for making me feel at home.” Her gaze was warm on his, trapping him in her thrall. “I daresay you went to a great deal of effort on my behalf, and it is most appreciated.”
He had written ahead and seen to the redecorating of her chamber with her tastes in mind. Apparently, she’d found it to her liking. But it wouldn’t do for her to continue staring at him as if he’d plucked the sun from the sky and handed it to her on the Cavendish family silver. She was doing wicked things to him with that frank, sensual look. And he was doing his damnedest to keep the wicked to a minimum and his raging emotions under tight rein where they belonged.
He cleared his throat, feeling uncomfortable. “It was no trouble at all. Mrs. Rhodes is an expert at seeing to the comfort of the household.”
“I see.” Her smile faltered. “I shall have to thank her as well, then.”
A silence fell between them then, broken only by the clink of cutlery on china. He had disappointed her. He hadn’t meant to, had only meant to diffuse the heaviness of the moment. Hadn’t he just told himself that he needed to act with more restraint where she was concerned? That he couldn’t afford to continue allowing himself to lose his head over her?
Yes, damn it. Of course he had. And now he was feeling badly when he’d done nothing wrong. He needed to escape the room and put an end to this foolishness. He stood abruptly, startling Tia from her concentration on her breakfast.
“I prefer to take my ride each morning,” he told her, deciding that it would be best that they spent little time together during the course of the day. Some distance would do well to douse his inconvenient passions. Or at least, he hoped it would. “I shall leave your morning schedule to your preference. Today, Mrs. Rhodes will be giving you a tour of the house to better acquaint you with your new home. She will collect you after you finish breaking your fast.”
“Yes, of course,” she murmured in a tone of voice he couldn’t quite decipher. But a tiny frown drew her brows together, and he suspected that didn’t bode well for him. “Will you be joining me for tea?”
“No,” he decided quickly. “I have some pressing matters to attend to, I’m afraid. Being away from the estate has left me with much work to do. I’ve a meeting with my steward.”
In truth, he hadn’t a meeting with his steward, who was a more than capable man he’d entrusted with the running of the estate in his absence. But perhaps it would be a convenient time to arrange one. He couldn’t bloody well spend all day at his wife’s side, sniffing at her skirts.
“Of course,” she said again. “Enjoy your day, Your Grace.”
“Heath,” he gritted out just before stalking from the room.
He wasn’t certain, but he was fairly confident he heard her say, “Yes, Your Grace.”
The minx would be the death of him.
If there was one thing that drew Tia’s interest as surely as a fly to a barn, it was a closed door. Closed doors and sealed-off rooms were meant to be opened and investigated. At least they were in Tia’s estimation. But she hesitated outside the chamber she’d been warned away from in the east wing during her tour with Mrs. Rhodes, her hand poised over the knob.
Tia knew she was likely intruding, but one of her flaws was an unquenchable sense of curiosity. When she’d been a girl, she’d snooped through every room in her father, Lord Northcote’s, country estate. She’d found nothing of interest save for a few spiders and the dusty journal of her great-grandmamma. But oh how she’d adored those days of adventure.
Given her history, she supposed it was hardly surprising that she should be entertaining herself by snooping about in Chatsworth House. After all, her husband was off riding after being rather aloof at breakfast, she’d done the necessary with her housekeeper and she’d even answered all her correspondence for the morning. She’d never been the sort to quietly sit and read books or—worse—engage in embroidery.
She cast a quick look about the hall before she opened the door
and stepped inside. Though windows lined the far wall, curtains had been drawn, bathing the spacious chamber in shadows. Tia stalked across the room and made short work of the drapes, pinning them open to allow the beautiful late-morning light to illuminate the space she’d just invaded.
Everything in the room was covered with cloths, but the shapes beneath their coverings were unmistakable. Large, framed canvases.
“Paintings?” Her brow furrowed, Tia moved to the nearest stack, uncovering it.
Dust billowed forth, causing her to sneeze. Apparently, no one had entered this room or bothered with its contents in quite some time. Years, unless she missed her guess. Odd, that, especially considering Heath was so proud of the restorations he’d made to his country seat. Why would he seal away an entire room and its contents?
She looked down at the paintings she’d discovered and was instantly shocked. They weren’t fusty, old Cavendish family portraits as she’d expected. Instead, they were beautiful works of art. The first was a landscape. Italian, unless she missed her guess. With bold strokes and rich, warm hues, it was so dreamy and inviting that she felt as if she were standing in the midst of the painting itself.
She flipped to the next, a scene of a nude man and woman embracing beneath a tree, presumably Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. The attention to detail and the lush representation quite took her breath. It was exquisite, and each painting she found was equally impressive. She skipped past a beautiful angel to another landscape, this one decidedly English, before stopping at the portrait of a woman who looked somewhat familiar to Tia. She was seated, her hands clasped, and had been represented with an almost loving attention to her beauty. Tia wished someone would paint her in that same way.
Indeed, whoever had painted these works possessed true, inspiring talent.
“What are you doing in here, Tia?” demanded her husband, intruding so suddenly on her thoughts and the chamber both that she gasped and spun about to face him, nearly knocking over the paintings she’d just revealed in the process.
Reckless Need (Heart's Temptation Book 3) Page 11
