His Sinful Secret (19 page)

“My apologies for waking you. Let me see if I can persuade you to forgive me.” He reached for the ribbon on the bodice of Julianne’s nightdress. When the cloth parted, his hand slid inside, cradling a firm breast. The resilient, warm weight of it was perfect, beguiling, and his thumb lazily circled the crest.

She shivered and her body reacted, the nipple hardening into a tight bud under the light caress. “I . . . I didn’t mean to . . . oh . . .”

He cut off what he imagined to be a stammered explanation for her uninvited presence in his room by brushing aside the material of her open nightdress and lowering his head to suckle the other nipple into a similar taut peak. Kneading, licking, he lavished attention on both her beautiful breasts until she arched against him and her hands urgently caught his shoulders.

“You like this,” he murmured against her fragrant skin.

“Yes.” There was still shyness in the whispered admission, but something else also—a womanly acknowledgment of receptive awareness that her enjoyment fueled his own.

In fact, he was on fire.

And from the look in her eyes, she knew it.

Though he usually had more finesse, the time spent sitting in the chair, musing over what he was going to do, had taken its toll on his control. Michael shifted, pushing up the skirt of her night rail to her waist, his hand trailing the inner side of her slim thigh until it found dampness and heat. He slipped a finger inside her, gratified to find her wet and ready so quickly.

“Michael.” She breathed the word, her cheeks flushed. She trembled, and he wanted to tremble with her.

He didn’t respond and instead withdrew his hand, nudged her legs apart, and entered her in one swift, hungry thrust.

That quickly. Without the usual preliminaries of soft kisses and prolonged foreplay. Without calculated seduction to make sure she was panting and eager and wanted him with equal fervor. He hadn’t even fully undressed her, but as he sank deep into paradise, he didn’t care. Neither did she, he discovered, if her response to such impetuous carnal possession was an indication of her feelings. Her hips lifted into each long stroke of his hard cock, her eyes heavy lidded and half closed, her bared breasts quivering as he drove into her body. Again and again.

Sublime,
he thought with incoherent appreciation of the ecstasy flooding his senses. She was so tight, so liquid around his penetration, so gloriously female in her dishabille beneath him. Julianne’s hand pressed the base of his spine, drawing him closer, and he gave her what she wanted—what they both wanted—chest to breast, their bodies moving in a feverish rhythm.

He hoped it would happen for her first but wasn’t sure he could hold out until it did—a rarity in his experience. When Julianne gave a choked sob and her inner muscles clenched, he uttered a blasphemous prayer of gratitude and welcomed his own explosive release.

Barely sensible enough to keep his weight balanced so he wouldn’t crush her, Michael let his forehead rest against the bedding as he struggled for breath. Her lustrous hair tickled his nose, soft and sweet smelling.

I’ve just fucked her,
he realized with a small frisson of what could be chagrin. She was a refined lady, well-bred, new to passion, and he’d lifted her skirt and taken her without so much as a kiss. He was surprised she’d even climaxed, because he’d done little to urge her to that sexual peak.

There was nothing he hated more than apologies.

Well, that wasn’t true. He intensely disliked unpredictable behavior, especially when it was his own.

For instance, like what just happened.

 

Julianne trailed her fingers along her husband’s neck in a tentative caress. In contrast with the hard muscles, his thick hair brushed her skin in silky curls.

It had been startling to wake to him, naked and aroused, looming over her, but in a very, very pleasant way, she decided, the intoxicating sensation of his hard, long length still pulsing inside her.

Maybe she’d just won some sort of victory. A part of her worried he might resent her foray into his bedroom without a specific invitation. In her defense, she hadn’t meant to fall asleep on his bed, but from his reaction, he hadn’t minded.

Or did he?

Michael hadn’t moved or spoken in the aftermath of his uncharacteristically reckless lovemaking. The intimacy of their joined bodies didn’t make her privy to his thoughts either—if, she thought, anyone ever was cognizant of what he was thinking.

He finally lifted his head, a rueful look on his face. “Tell me I wasn’t too impatient.”

She smiled. “I’m quite well, I assure you.”

“I didn’t hurt you?”

“No. Did I seem uncomfortable in any way?” Julianne lifted her brows a fraction, his muscled strength still something she found uniquely exciting. In his arms she felt dwarfed by his much larger frame, yet protected rather than afraid. The idea of him ever hurting her wasn’t one she’d considered. He might be inscrutable in many ways, but she knew that much about him.

Michael smiled then, with a genuine flash of humor she saw far too rarely. “No, now that I think back on it, maybe my concern is for nothing.”

She felt a twinge of loss when he moved, sliding free and rolling to his back. In the filtered moonlight coming through the window, his skin had a faint sheen of perspiration and one bicep bulged when he bent his arm and put his hand behind his head. The long, dark evidence of the wound she’d noticed on their wedding night was vivid, without any bandages now, a jagged line across his ribs.

He might be a titled gentleman from one of the wealthiest families in England, but when they were like this, with him naked and reclining next to her, it was evident he had the honed body of warrior and the scars to go along with it. Besides the recent injury, the most significant were a silvery puckered scar on his left thigh, at least seven or eight inches long, and a small, round reminder of a gunshot to his right shoulder.

Even more interesting were several puckered marks, red and shiny, that looked like burns on his abdomen.

“London must be tame after the rigors of war.” She spoke the thought out loud before she really considered if she should say it.

Eyes half closed, Michael didn’t move, but she sensed a slight, sudden tension in his muscles. “I take it some of my less than attractive souvenirs from Spain inspired that observation. I never really considered if the scars might repulse you. If so, my apologies. But take my word, I didn’t acquire them gladly.”

“They don’t repulse me,” she answered truthfully. She was in utter disarray, with her nightdress bunched above her thighs and her bodice unfastened, but too deliciously sated to care. “I think it is more that I am reminded how much I don’t know about you.”

“We will learn about each other as time passes.”

He was an expert at making innocuous observations that were no indication of his emotions. “I hope so,” she said softly, shifting a little so she could see his face better. The sculpted planes and angles gave little hint of what he was thinking.

“I know a few things.” It was a reckless statement, but she was feeling adventurous after the way he’d awakened her. If she had stayed meekly in her room, she’d still be sleeping, alone and bereft.

Michael elevated a brow. “Do you?”

“You dislike most kinds of fish, with the exception of sole, I am going to guess, for you ate that the other evening at dinner. Neither do you have a great affection for sweets, but usually choose something plain instead or decline dessert. You never sleep past dawn, and the slightest sound wakes you instantly. If there is music playing you give the appearance of enjoying it, but I think most of it bores you, with the exception of Bach’s more complicated pieces.” Julianne paused, wondering if it was wise to venture further. “You didn’t want to marry me, but sense of duty is one of the things that drives you, and, in truth, you are doing your best to recompense your brother’s loss to your parents.”

She had his attention. He hadn’t moved, but she could tell she had it. After a moment, he said dryly, “You are very observant, apparently. Most of what you just said is accurate.”

“Oh? Where did I go wrong?”

“I very much like Scottish salmon, if properly prepared.” Her husband’s hazel eyes glittered as he gave her a long, considering look.

“I will make a note of it,” Julianne said lightly.

“I had no idea I was so interesting.”

“Then perhaps you don’t understand women, my lord. You are my husband. Of course I find you interesting.” A small smile curved her mouth, and she was well aware of her exposed body and the glistening rivulets of his sexual discharge on her thighs. Whatever power she had in her marriage was in the bedroom. She wanted more—not
from
him so much as
with
him—but this seemed the only venue where she could capture it.

For now. If she could do it, she wanted to change that.

“I have never pretended to understand women.” Michael said the words with amused sarcasm. “It is my opinion few men do, and furthermore, it wasn’t ever meant to be that we should.”

He hadn’t denied that he didn’t want to marry her. It stung a little, but why, she wasn’t sure. She’d known it all along. Julianne hadn’t really wanted to marry him either.

But now, for all of his distance, she was glad she had. Was it too much to want him to feel the same way?

“In turn,” she said with slow, combative emphasis, “men also frustrate us. Part of it is your inability to discuss anything vaguely bordering on emotional attachment.”

“If you want emotional, I admit I am hardly an expert.” He moved suddenly enough that she gasped as he rolled on top of her again. “Guilty as charged, my lady. But if you want physical, I am more than willing. I think we’ll go more slowly this time.”

His kiss was deep, wickedly seductive, and robbed Julianne completely of coherent thought. This time he slowly stripped off her nightdress and wooed her body with practiced caresses and tender touches, and when he settled between her legs again, the sleek power of his penetration drew a long, quivering sigh from deep in her lungs.

She knew something else about him, she realized, drowning in rapturous sensation. He liked to cut short personal discussions in a very distracting, pleasurable way.

 

The British had blown the place to bits after his rescue, so the horrible little cell where they’d held and tortured him was gone. But the memory of it lingered.

Julianne had lightly touched the scars on his abdomen where a particularly sadistic French colonel had tried to extract from him the name of which one of his officers had stolen a set of battle plans that had been found on Michael’s person when he was captured.

Michael had politely refused. The rest of it he only barely remembered, and for that he was grateful. It wasn’t so much the pilfered plans that had fallen into his hands, but that the French had been waiting to get a chance at him for most of the war.

Maybe he should have explained to Julianne what happened, but part of him valued her innocence too much to destroy it, so he had made love to her instead.

It had been deeply satisfying, but sleep had never been his friend, and this night was no different.

This morning, rather.

Michael registered the dim glow of the rising sun only in an abstract way, his thoughts completely centered on the woman curled next to him. Julianne slept sweetly, like always, with the peace of the guiltless, one hand under her cheek, her curvaceous body lax, lacy lashes like fans on her delicate cheekbones.

Not that she was completely unworldly.

His delectable little bride was intelligent, and, worse, observant. Earlier that evening he’d known she was curious about Antonia, which was probably his fault for overreacting to the sight of them together. He hadn’t responded to Julianne’s tentative queries about his relationship with the volatile Senora Taylor, though he’d known that was what she was getting at by her oblique statement that she was puzzled.

Though he wasn’t accustomed to explaining himself, maybe he should assure her his relationship with Antonia was not an intimate one. It was the truth, and offering that information freely would be a sign of goodwill between them. He doubted any woman, whether the marriage was arranged or not, liked the idea of her husband being unfaithful, especially if just recently wed.

He certainly would never allow Julianne to take a lover.

Perhaps it was just that he was tired and physically sated, and her tempting person was currently soft and warm in his arms.

The mixed feelings he had about Antonia offering her protection to his wife were compounded by the lack of intelligence available about his old enemy. Had it not been for the two attempts on his life, he might discount the rumor of Roget’s return. With Julianne as a factor, he couldn’t afford to be less than meticulously careful until he had some solid information.

She was a weakness. A liability he’d never had in the past. In clear, rational thought he’d known that having a wife would be a disadvantage, for she was the easiest target for revenge or leverage in the dangerous games he played, but he hadn’t really realized how much.