“Well, you should have thought of that earlier.”
This made him smile. “I’m to be punished for waiting for my wife?”
“That’s not what I mean, and you know it.”
“And I thought I was being a gentleman by allowing you your slumber.”
“I was tired,” she said, and then she blushed again, because they both knew why.
She was spared further embarrassment by a knock at her door, and before she knew it, two footmen entered with a small table and chairs, followed by two maids carrying trays.
“Good heavens,” Iris said, watching the flurry of activity. She’d been planning to take her tray in bed. But, of course, she could not do that now, not if Richard insisted upon dining with her.
The footmen set the table with quick precision, stepping back to allow the maids to bring forth the food. It smelled heavenly, and as the servants filed out Iris’s stomach growled.
“One moment,” Richard murmured, and he walked to the door and peered down the hall. “Ah, here we are. Thank you.” When he stepped back into the room, he was holding a tall, narrow vase.
With a single iris.
“For you,” he said softly.
Her lips trembled. “Where did you—they’re not in season.”
He shrugged, and for the briefest second he looked almost apprehensive. But that could not be true; he was never nervous. “There are a few left,” he said, “if you know where to look.”
“But it’s—” She stopped, her lips parted in an astonished oval. She looked to the window, even though the curtains were now drawn tight. It was late. Had he gone out in the dark? Just to pick her a flower?
“Thank you,” she said. Because sometimes it was best not to question a gift. Sometimes one simply had to be glad for it without knowing why.
Richard placed the vase at the center of their small table, and Iris stared at the bloom, mesmerized by the thin inner streaks of gold, delicate and bright in the soft violet petals.
“It’s beautiful,” she said.
“Irises are.”
Her eyes flew from the flower to his face. She couldn’t help it.
He held out his hand. “Come,” he said. “We should eat.”
It was an apology. She saw it right there in his outstretched hand. She just wished she knew what he was apologizing for.
Stop, she told herself. Stop questioning everything. For once she was going to let herself be happy without needing to know why. She’d fallen in love with her husband, and that was a good thing. He’d brought her unimaginable pleasure in bed. That was a good thing, too.
It was enough. It had to be enough.
She took his hand. It was large and strong and warm and everything a hand ought to be. Everything a hand ought to be? She let out a little burst of absurd laughter. Good gracious, she was growing melodramatic.
“What is so funny?” he asked.
She shook her head. How was she to tell him that she had been measuring the perfection of hands, and his topped the list?
“Tell me,” he said, his fingers tightening around hers. “I insist.”
“No.” She kept shaking her head, her thoughts making her voice round and full of mirth.
“Tell me,” he growled, pulling her closer.
Her lips were now pressed together hard, the corners desperately fighting a smile.
His lips drew close to her ear. “I have ways of making you talk.”
Something wicked jumped within her, something greedy and lush.
His teeth found her earlobe, softly scraping the tender skin. “Tell me, Iris . . .”
“Your hands,” she said, barely recognizing her own voice.
He stilled, but she could feel his smile against her skin. “My hands?”
“Mmm.”
They spanned her waist. “These hands?”
“Yes.”
“You like them?”
She nodded, then gasped as he slid them lower, cupping the gentle curve of her bottom.
He brushed his mouth against her jaw, along her neck, and then back to the corner of her lips. “What else do you like?”
“Everything.” The word spilled forth without warning, and she probably should have felt embarrassed, but she didn’t. She couldn’t. Not with him.
Richard chuckled, the sound full and solid with male pride. His hands moved to the front of her body, each one grasping a dangling end of the bow knot she’d tied in the belt of her dressing gown.
His lips touched her ear. “Are you my present?”
Before she could respond, he gave a sharp tug, staring down at her with hot desire as the robe came loose.
“Richard,” she whispered, but he had already moved on, sliding those wonderful wonderful hands up along her body, pausing for an agonizing moment on her breasts before reaching her shoulders and pushing the robe away. It felt to the floor in a cloud of pale blue silk.
Iris stood before him in another one of her decadent trousseau nightgowns. It was not a practical garment; it would not even pretend to keep her warm at night. But she could not remember ever feeling so womanly, so desirable and daring.
“You are so beautiful,” Richard whispered, skimming his hand back down to her breast. His palm teased the tip, moving in a slow circle over the silk of her gown.
“I’m—” She cut herself off.
Richard look down at her, one finger touching her chin until her eyes met his. His brows rose in question.
“It’s nothing,” Iris murmured. She’d almost protested, almost said that she wasn’t beautiful, because she wasn’t. A woman did not reach the age of one-and-twenty without knowing if she was beautiful or not. But then she’d thought—
No. No. If he thought she was beautiful, she damn well wasn’t going to contradict. If he thought she was beautiful, then she was beautiful, at least on this night, in this room.
“Kiss me,” she whispered.
His eyes flared with heat, and his face dipped toward hers. When their lips touched, Iris felt a jolt of desire at the very core of her womanhood. He’d kissed her there just a few hours before. She let out a little moan. Just the thought of it made her weak.
But this time he was kissing her lips. His tongue swept in, tickling the sensitive skin at the roof of her mouth, daring her to respond in kind. She did, her desire making her bold, and when he groaned and pulled her more tightly against him, her body thrilled with power. She moved her hands to his chest and shoved his coat from his shoulders, tugging it down as he yanked his arms from the sleeves.
She wanted to feel him again. She was beyond wanton; it had been mere hours since the last time, and already she wanted to pull him down to her bed, to feel his weight pinning her against the mattress.
This couldn’t be normal, this incredible, unearthly need.
“My present,” she said, bringing her fingers to the snowy white cravat at his throat. It had been tied simply, thank heavens; she didn’t think her trembling fingers could have managed one of those intricate knots that was all the rage among the London dandies.
She then turned her attention to the three buttons at the neck of his shirt, her lips parting as his throat was revealed to her, his pulse beating with a hard, strong rhythm.
She touched his skin, loving the way the muscles jumped beneath her fingers.
“You’re a witch,” he groaned, yanking his shirt over his head.
She just smiled, because she felt like one, as if she had new powers. She had touched his chest the last time, felt the hard muscles flexing beneath his skin, but she hadn’t been able to do anything more. He’d been so quick to make everything about her. When his hands had run up and down her body, she’d lost control, and when his mouth covered her most private place she’d lost all thought.
But not this time.
This time she wanted to explore.
She listened to the heavy rasp of his breath as her fingers trailed along his taut abdomen. A thin line of hair, dark and crisp, trailed from
his navel to the waist of his breeches. When she touched it his entire belly sucked in, almost enough for her to slide her hand under the fabric.
She didn’t, though. She was not that audacious. Not yet.
But she would be. Before the night was through, she vowed that she would be.
The food was forgotten as Richard swept her into his arms and carried her to the bed. He laid her down—not roughly, but not gently, either—and Iris felt a frisson of feminine glee as she realized how close he was to the edge of his control.
Emboldened, she let her hand drift back down toward his breeches. But just before her fingertips slid under the waistband, his hand landed heavily on hers.
“No,” he said roughly, holding her still. And then, before she could voice her questions, he said, “I can’t.”
She smiled up at him, some flirtatious inner demon finally waking up in her soul. “Please?” she murmured.
“I’ll make you feel good.” His free hand moved to her leg, squeezed her thigh. “I’ll make you feel so good.”
“But I want to make you feel good.”
He closed his eyes, and for a moment Iris thought he was in pain. His teeth were gritted together, and his face was a harsh, tense mask. She reached up to smooth his brow, sliding her fingers along his cheek as he turned his head into the cradle of her hand.
She felt him acquiesce, felt a little bit of the tension slide from his body, and her other hand, the one resting so dangerously on his belly, edged under his breeches. She did not go far, just to the springy hair that lay on his flat abdomen. It surprised her, although she didn’t really know why, and she caught her lower lip in her teeth and looked up at him.
“Don’t stop there,” he groaned.
She didn’t want to, but his breeches were flat-fronted and snug, with barely enough room for her whole hand. She moved to the fastening, then slowly set him free.
She gasped.
This was not what she’d seen on the statue at the museum.
A lot of what her mother had said began to make sense.
She looked up him with a question in her eyes, and he gave a jerky nod. Holding her breath, she reached out and touched him, gingerly at first, pulling back when his member twitched beneath her fingers.
He rolled over to his side, and Iris fell with him, only just realizing that he still had his boots on.
She didn’t care. And he didn’t seem to, either.
She pushed him until he was on his back, then crouched next to him, just looking. How had it grown so big?
Yet another thing in her world she did not understand.
She touched it again, this time letting her fingers drift along the surprisingly silky skin. Richard sucked in his breath, and his body jerked, but she knew it was with pleasure, not pain.
Or if it was pain, it was a good kind of pain.
“More,” he groaned, and this time she wrapped her hand lightly around him, glancing back up to his face to make sure she was doing the right thing. His eyes were closed, and he was breathing fast and hard. She moved her hand, just a little bit, but before she could do more, his fingers wrapped over hers, holding her still.
For a moment she thought she’d hurt him, but then his grip tightened, and she realized he was showing her what to do. After a few strokes his hand fell away, and she was left in control, thrilled by the seductive power she held over him.
“My God, Iris,” Richard groaned. “What you do to me . . .”
She caught her lower lip between her teeth as she felt a proud smile rising within her. She wanted to take him over the edge, as he had done for her. After so many lonely nights, she wanted proof that he desired her, that she was woman enough to satisfy him. He would not be able to hide behind a chaste kiss on her forehead again.
“Can I kiss you?” she whispered.
His eyes flew open.
“Like you did to me?”
“No,” he said quickly, the word hoarse and wrenched from his throat. “No,” he said again, and he almost looked a little panicked.
“Why not?”
“Because . . . because . . .” He swore and scooted himself up, not quite to a sitting position, but enough so that he could rest on his elbows. “Because I won’t—I can’t—”
“Will it hurt you?”
He groaned, closing his eyes. He looked so distressed. Iris touched him again, watching his face as his body jerked beneath her. The sound of his breath electrified her, and he looked like . . . he looked like . . .
He looked the way she felt. Overcome.
His head fell back, and she knew the moment he gave in. The tension did not leave his body, but something told her he was through fighting himself. She peeked back up at his face to make sure his eyes were still closed—somehow she wasn’t brave enough to do this if she knew he was watching—and she bent over and placed the lightest of kisses on the tip of his manhood.
He gasped, his belly sucking in with his breath, but he did not stop her. Emboldened, Iris kissed him again, allowing her lips to linger a bit longer. He twitched, and she drew back, glancing at his face. He didn’t open his eyes, but he must have sensed her hesitation, because he gave a brief nod, and then with one single word, he made her soul sing.
“Please.”
It was so strange to think that just a few weeks ago she was Miss Iris Smythe-Smith, hiding behind her cello at her family’s awful musicale. Her world had changed so much; it was as if the earth had flipped on its axis, landing her here, as Lady Kenworthy, in bed with this glorious man, kissing him on a part of his body she hadn’t even known existed before. Or at least not in its present state.
“How does it do that?” she murmured to herself.
“What?”
“Oh, sorry,” she mumbled, blushing. “It was nothing.”
His hand found her chin, turning her to face him. “Tell me.”
“I was just, well, wondering . . .” She swallowed, utterly mortified, which was ludicrous. She was about to kiss him there again, and she was embarrassed to be wondering how it all worked?
“Iris . . .” His voice was like warmed honey, melting through her bones.
Not quite looking at him, she motioned to his member. “It’s not like this all the time.” And then, second-guessing herself, she added, “Right?”
He let out a hoarse laugh. “God, no. It would kill me.”
She blinked in confusion.
“It’s desire, Iris,” he said in a husky voice. “Desire makes a man like this. Hard.”
She touched him gently. He was indeed hard. Under the softest of skin, he was hard as granite.
“Desire for you,” he said, then admitted, “I’ve been like this all week.”
Her eyes widened with shock. She did not speak, but she rather thought he saw the question in her eyes.
“Yes,” he said with a self-mocking chuckle. “It hurts.”
“But then—”
“Not pain like an injury,” he said, stroking her cheek. “Pain like frustration, like unfulfilled need.”
But you could have had me. The words hovered unspoken in her mind. Clearly he hadn’t thought she was ready. Maybe he’d thought he was being considerate. But she did not wish to be treated like a fragile ornament. People seemed to think she was delicate and frail—it was her coloring, she thought, and her slight frame. But she wasn’t. She never had been. On the inside she was fierce.
And she was ready to prove it.
Chapter Seventeen
RICHARD DIDN’T KNOW if he was in heaven or hell.
His wife, whom he had not even properly bedded, was . . . She was kissing his . . . Good Lord, she had her mouth on his cock, and what she lacked in skill she was making up for in enthusiasm, and—
What the hell was he saying? She wasn’t lacking in skill. Did skill even matter? This was every man’s erotic dream. And this wasn’t some courtesan, this was his wife. His wife.
He should stop her. But he couldn’t, dear God he couldn’t. He’d been
aching for her for so long, and now, as she knelt between his legs, kissing him in the most intimate way imaginable, he found himself enslaved by his desire. With every hesitant flick of her tongue, his hips arched off the bed, and he was brought treacherously closer to release.
“Do you like it?” Iris whispered.
She sounded almost shy. Good God, she sounded almost shy, and yet she was taking him in her mouth.
Did he like it? The innocence of the question nearly unmanned him. She had no idea what she was doing to him, didn’t know that he’d never even dared to dream she might give of herself in such a way.
“Richard?” she whispered.
He was a beast. A cur. A wife wasn’t meant to do such things, at least not before she’d been given time to be gently initiated into the ways of the marriage bed.
But Iris had surprised him. She was always surprising him. And when she cautiously took him into her mouth he was lost to all sanity.
Nothing had ever felt so good.
Never had he felt so loved.
He froze. Loved?
No, that was impossible. She didn’t love him. She couldn’t. He did not deserve it.
But then an awful little voice from deep inside—a voice he could only conclude was his wayward conscience—reminded him that this had been his plan. He would use their brief honeymoon at Maycliffe to seduce her, in heart if not in body. He had been trying to get her to fall in love.
He should not have done that. He should not have even contemplated it.
And yet, if she did . . . if she did love him . . .
It would be wonderful.
He closed his eyes, allowing pure sensation to wash over him. His wife’s innocent lips were bringing him unimaginable pleasure. It shot through him with electric intensity, and at the same time bathed him in a warm, contented glow. He felt . . .
Happy.
Now there was something he wasn’t used to experiencing in the throes of passion. Excitement, yes. Desire, of course. But happiness?
And then it hit him. It wasn’t that Iris was falling in love with him. He was falling in love with Iris.
“Stop!” he cried, the word wrenching itself from his throat. He could not let her do this.
She backed away, looking up at him with bewilderment. “Did I hurt you?”