Tempting Bella (Entangled Scandalous) (17 page)

“Surely,” he murmured in her ear, “you cannot think I am immune to your charms.” It was so hot in the room with him holding her. Her heart contracted. She longed to sink back into him, to be encompassed by his virility, to surrender to him. Determined to fight it, she shook her head against the feeling. Caring for her husband might very well lead to despair and disappointment.

She pushed away from him. She felt his hesitation, but then he released her. “If that is all—”

“It is not.” He returned to his desk. “Please indulge me for a few more minutes.”

She forced a breath and her shaky legs carried her back to the chair he’d offered earlier. This time, she gratefully sank into it.

Crossing his arms over his wide chest, he leaned his hip back against his desk again. She immediately realized her mistake. Sitting put her at eye level with the contours of his groin area. Josette’s words about his manly assets swirled in her mind. Swallowing hard, she forced her gaze up to her husband’s face. As usual, his expression was inscrutable.

“Since you brought up the subject of the marital bed.”

“I did no such thing.”

“Of course not. Please forgive my impertinence.”

Eager to escape this line of questioning, Bella started to rise from her chair. “Now that we’ve cleared that up—”

“Still, you are my wife and it is not outside the bounds of propriety for me to assert my husbandly rights.”

She plopped back in the chair with an unladylike thud. “Why don’t you satisfy yourself with your ladybird?”

“I have no mistress.”

She snorted. “Please. You must think me an incredibly silly chit to believe that.”

His dark eyebrows drew together. “You must think me completely without honor.”

“It is not a question of honor. Many husbands have…a friend such as that.”

“I do not.”

“Perhaps not at the moment.” She squinted her eyes at him. “When did you give her up? Your last mistress, I mean.”

“When we married.”

“When I came to live here a few weeks ago?”

“No, when we married. I parted with my mistress on my wedding day.”

“So you’ve resorted to occasional dalliances with ser…whoever is at hand…instead of having a formal arrangement with one woman.”

“No. I have not known a woman in that way since we married.”

Six years ago?
She laughed. “You must think me a fool to believe such a Banbury tale.”

“It is no tale. There was nothing to be done for it. We had married. There was no honor in betraying my wife.”

It took her a stunned moment to process his meaning. She searched his face for signs of mendacity, but his clear eyes returned a strong and steady gaze. She shook her head in disbelief. “Six years? Are you telling me you’ve gone without a woman for six years?”

His unwavering eyes held hers. “Yes.”

“What is the matter with you? Do you not like women? Oh.” She felt dizzy. This was a complication she had not foreseen. “I saw men such as that in Paris.”

A line formed between his dark brows. “I don’t follow.”

“Men who are drawn to…their own kind.”

His chuckle was a low baritone, the sound warm and amused. He knelt in front of her, his enormous hands brushing her flanks. “I assure you, my taste is for women. One woman in particular.” His hands slid higher until they rubbed the outsides of her hips.

Her nerve endings quivered with excitement, as though they’d been awakened from a long hibernation. “What are you doing?”

“Convincing my wife of my desire for her.” He leaned in to kiss the side of her neck, sending pleasurable sparks through her body. “I assure you, I am most anxious to end my years of abstinence.”

“Oh.”

He nipped at her neck. “My little hoyden is speechless for once.”

She gripped the arms of her chair while his soft lips and hot touches of tongue feathered against the rampant pulse throbbing in her neck. His mouth moved up her neck, tasting her along the way, taking a sensual soft bite every now and again.

“I should like to take my boon now,” he murmured against her prickling skin.

“Hmm?” she said, too distracted by his drugging ministrations to follow his words.

His lips moved up her neck, tasting her along the way, taking a sensual soft bite every now and again. “My bout with Orford. A kiss was to be my reward.”

Yes.
Yes.
“Then I suppose I’ll have to allow it,” she said in as distant a voice as she could muster.

After what seemed like an eternity, his mouth finally reached hers and fastened on to it. Soft and warm, his lips caressed hers with tender movements. Beyond any pretense, she parted her lips almost immediately, hungry to taste him.

His tongue rubbed hers with confident, insistent strokes. He tasted indescribably good, tangy, sweet, yet masculine. She’d never experienced such sensory pleasure; every part of her awakened and vibrated with life. She finally forced herself to break the kiss. Gasping for breath, she searched his face. “Have you really been faithful to me?”

He bent to nibble on her ear. “Yes.”

“Oh!” Acute pleasure shot through her at the sensation of his mouth on the tender flesh of her lobe. She gulped and forced him back, her hands on his chest. “But why?”

He was clearly a virile man, perhaps the most so she had ever met. To go so many years without a woman seemed unnatural. And utterly romantic. “Tell me.”

He sat back on his heels, his beautiful eyes fastened on hers. With a deep sigh, he pushed to his feet and walked to stand in front of the hearth. After a moment, he turned to face her, a grave look on his face. “Do not think I am at ease with what I did to you, Mirabella. I allowed our fathers to take an innocent child and force her into a lifetime attachment to a stranger.”

Her heart thumped painfully. “Why did you do it?”

He rubbed the back of his neck. “I was ten and nine. I had never heard of anything so disagreeable, forcing marriage on a child. But your father owed mine. With our union, the gaming debt was settled.”

She must have misheard him. “I don’t understand.”

“My family would have been ruined if I hadn’t agreed to the alliance. It was well before Cam inherited the marquisate. There were no funds for the education of my younger brothers and long-time servants would have been put out without a pension. I could parse no other way to save my family from certain destitution.”

The world tilted. He seemed so far away. “A gambling debt that
you
were forced to pay the price for?”

A look of puzzled alarm firmed on his face. “Surely, at some point, His Grace informed you of the circumstances of our marriage.”

Tears blurred her eyes. “A wager.” Air gushed out of her lungs. She shook her head. “Dear Lord, it cannot be.”

“I assumed you knew.” His face softened. “Your father owed mine a significant gaming debt. The resolution was our marriage. I resisted, but not strongly enough. My family gained the invaluable connection to yours and Traherne’s debt was satisfied.”

“But why would His Grace need to resort to that to settle the debt? Traherne is very profitable.”

An expression she couldn’t interpret crossed his face. “It has not always been so. Traherne’s purse was considerably less robust when we married.”

“My father wagered me away like one of his mounts or a fistful of guineas?” She blinked away tears. “Tell me it’s a lie.”

He came to kneel before her, taking her cold, lifeless hands in his large warm grip. “It is the regrettable truth. I resolved at that moment to soften the blow of this marriage for you in every way.”

“You sent me away.”

“No,” he said fervently. “I vowed to give you your freedom, to restore whatever bit of your youth that was within my power.”

“I was alone.”

“When you wanted to travel, I agreed because it was what you deserved.” Tenderness infused his voice. “What you did not deserve is what we did to you.”

She raised her hand to her strangled throat. “I mean nothing to my father. He wagered me away.”

“On the day we married, I vowed to treat you with complete honor. That included remaining faithful to my wife.” He tilted her chin back to him so she that she gazed into his emerald depths. “I cannot regret it. However it happened, you are my wife and I am grateful. I look at you and I know you were worth waiting for.”

Bella’s chest squeezed with some unknown emotion. A sob escaped her throat. He brushed a tender kiss on her forehead. “I am here, Bella. Let me cherish you as you deserve.”

Tears streamed unabated down her cheeks, as though they would never stop. He leaned over and lifted her in his arms. Weightless in the air for a moment, she settled blindly on his lap, large, comforting arms drew her close against a wide protective chest.

Her heart burst with pain for the little girl whose father cast her off on a stranger, for the times she aimlessly traveled the world with no real family ties to speak of. Grief rose up and consumed her. Gentle hands stroked her hair and cheeks, the curve of her back, murmuring words of comfort, showering her with soft kisses. She nestled into the smooth contours of his enormous chest, feeling the hard turn of muscle beneath it, her tears sopping his linen shirt.

She rubbed her lips against the bare expanse of his sinewy throat and the warmth of his bronzed skin. He swallowed hard, the muscles of his throat working.

“Bella.”

Ignoring the warning in his tone, she kissed the hard curve of his jaw, relishing the feel of the unyielding bone beneath it. She ran her hand across his cheek with a light touch, exploring the stubble that scratched against her skin. The musk scent of shaving soap enlivened her, awakening her body to his maleness.

He closed his eyes, nudging his cheek into her hand with a shuddering breath. “Bella, we must stop.”

“Why?” She kissed along his temple, to his brows, her hands stealing around his neck. “We are married. Haven’t we waited long enough?”

Chapter Twelve

Sebastian knew something of heaven and hell because at the moment he was experiencing both. Ever since her arrival, Bella had constantly challenged his hard-won equilibrium. He’d spent years honing the ability to keep his impulses in check, yet his wife provoked emotions far beyond anything he’d experienced before.

She was all soft curves and welcoming woman in his arms. His senses were attuned to her arousal, the headiness of it like an opium addict who has abstained from his drug for far too long. He longed to make love to her, to take her as his own, to plunge years of need into her lush, accommodating body. For a moment, he thought to let her have her way with him because it was what he wanted, what his body ached for.

Sensing the awakening of her body, how roused with need she was, caused lust to shoot through him. He clutched the chair arms to his sides, not trusting himself not to lose complete control and ravage her like the beast in him clamored to do. “You are not yourself.”

She pulled his shirt from his breeches and over his head. He was not so righteous that he did not lift his arms to assist her efforts. “Wrong, I am finally being myself. You have no idea how wicked I can be.”

He couldn’t wait to find out.

“So strong,” she murmured fanning her pale hands across the breadth of his bare chest. Her tapered fingers appeared even more delicate against the crude expanse of his bronzed skin dusted with dark curls. She bent her head to taste him there and he almost jumped out of his skin.

“You have to stop or I will lose all control.”

She paused and gazed at him, eyes bright with sensual agitation. “Sebastian Stanhope, losing all control?” She reached for his breeches and brushed her hand intently against his hardened male flesh. “I should like to see that.”

He was so aroused he almost came right when she touched his vitals. Clenching his teeth, he gripped her hand. “Duchess, be careful of what you ask for.”

Her untutored fingers worked at unfastening his breeches. “Duchess, hmm? As the daughter of a duke, I am accustomed to being accommodated. And, at present, I want you. Immediately.”

He closed his eyes and groaned, slamming his head back against the soft leather of the chair, hoping to pound some sense into his addled brain, fighting for the control that had served him so well all of these years.

“Blast it! How is this done?”

He peeked one eye open to glimpse Bella’s flushed cheeks and how she bit her lower lip, a tiny frown of concentration on her forehead. He dared to peer down to her hands, where she appeared to have trouble opening his breeches.

The sight of her delicate hands so close to his arousal was too much. Any reservoir of restraint cascaded out of him. Surging out of the chair, his arms closed around her. Now that he had her, he would never let her go. Certain he wouldn’t be able to contain himself long enough to make it to the bedchamber, he went to the carpeted floor with Bella in his arms, her easy curves eager against his body. “This is not the way this should happen,” he uttered harshly, even as he swooped down to ravish her.

She was laid out on the carpet like an earthy sacrifice, cheeks blazing, her rapid breathing pushing the swells of her breasts against that God-awful spinster’s gown she’d squeezed her curves into. He flipped her over onto her stomach straddling her behind and made quick work of her dress. He spread it open, unveiling the pale smooth expanse of her nape and shoulders. He nipped the back of her neck, tasting the delicious blend of sweet femininity and salty earthiness.