Chapter Nineteen

Thane stopped at his wife’s bedroom door, his hand raised. He hadn’t seen her in days. Not for meals, not in passing. God, he’d made a mess of things. The guilt struck him like the lash from a whip. Following his explosion of temper, the shame of his actions had kept him closeted in his study, focused on work. The good thing was that his estates were in pristine order. His marriage, however, was another matter entirely.

Thane scrubbed a hand through his hair and knocked.

“Enter.”

He pushed open the door, and his wife’s guarded eyes met his.

“May we speak?”

Astrid was freshly scrubbed from her bath, her damp hair curling around her face. She wore a clean nightgown and a loosely tied robe over it. Her lips parted on a guarded sigh. “If you insist.” She tightened her arms about herself in a protective gesture that made him ache. “Though I’m still recovering from our last conversation.”

Wincing, Thane stepped into her chamber and shut the door behind him, the fresh scent of her filling his nostrils. They stared at each other in silence, so many things between them needing to be said. He knew that he’d hurt her unconscionably. He cleared his throat, forging ahead before he could change his mind.

“Astrid, I want to apologize for what I said the other night…about children. That wasn’t fair.” He hesitated, seeing the instant tightening of her lips. “I… You took me by surprise.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

He searched for the right words to make her understand. “What happened with you and me and then talk of children. It was too much, too fast.” He fumbled with his words, his heart clenching and unclenching in painful lurches. “You’re passionate and courageous and beautiful and everything any man could want. The thing is, I’m not worthy of you, and one day, you’ll come to your senses, and you’ll want more. And I won’t be able to give it to you.”

“So you’re pushing me away, is that it?”

He shook his head, hands reaching for her and then falling away. “I’m protecting you, Astrid.”

“From what?”

“From me, damn it. Look at me! Who in their right mind would want to be saddled with this? I’m a beast on the inside, too. I lash out at people. Hurt them.”

Gutted, he blew out his breath, his heart pounding like a hurricane against his rib cage. His throat ached, his brain ached, his fucking useless heart ached. Never had Thane wanted to hide so badly. He wanted to run back to Beswick Park and shut the world out. Shut her out. Forget how it felt to feel, how much it hurt to let anyone in. Because now he was paying the piper for not leaving well enough alone.

For not staying in the darkness where he belonged.

“I am looking,” she said gently. “I’m not blind, Thane. I see you very well. And you’d never hurt me.”

“Not intentionally,” he murmured. Those eyes of hers were slaying him…stripping him bare until he couldn’t hide. He wanted to lash out. “Don’t pity me, Astrid.”

“You think what I feel is pity?” Her voice rose, her eyes flashing blue fire as they narrowed on him. The look on her face could only be described as incredulous, and for the barest of seconds, Thane felt like he’d entered a minefield wearing a blindfold. “Do you think what happened in the garden was a joke? That it meant nothing to me? Do you think I gave myself to you on our wedding night because I was afraid of you or felt sorry for you?”

He flinched, the sentiments hitting too close to home. He sealed his lips together from admitting those very truths, from baring his soul. “Then, why did you?”

She held his gaze. “It was because I wanted you, you daft, oblivious man.”

“What about the future?”

“What of it?” She shrugged.

“What if—?”

His wife placed a finger on his lips, silencing him. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that what-ifs are dangerous, nasty little beasts.”

“But—”

“But nothing.” She pushed to her toes and kissed him softly, her voice dropping to a velvety whisper. “I’m here now. You’re here now. Thank you for your apology. I’m yours for the taking, my lord duke. So what are you going to do about it?”

…

Everything froze, her husband’s arrested gaze meeting hers.

Astrid’s face was on fire. Never in her life had she been so bold, so shameless in her demands. He wasn’t unaffected from her nearness, she saw. His hands shook, fisted at his sides as they were, as if it took everything in his power to keep from touching her. She didn’t have to look down to see the prominent ridge in his trousers.

“I want you,” she said simply. His eyes lit with desire, and she reached for boldness, knowing he liked it. She did, too. “If you wish me to be more explicit, Your Grace, I want coitus. Sexual congress.”

“Astrid,” he warned, those gorgeous golden eyes dilating with lust. A muscle flexed in his scarred jaw.

“Coupling. Tupping. Sex. Fucking,” she went on, face aflame and licking her lower lip with what she hoped was a sultry look.

He scooped her up so fast that her breath caught. “You have a dirty mouth, Lady Beswick.”

“Then give it something to do.”

She bit at the tendon on his shoulder, making him growl. The carnal, lust-filled sound made her body hum with arousal. Astrid yanked up her night rail and hitched her legs around his waist, her wrapper falling open, the heart of her abrading deliciously against his clothing and rock-hard abdominal muscles. Desire pulsed through her as he squeezed her rear and hoisted her higher. She gasped at the scrape of his waistcoat.

Groaning, he bit her lobe. “Your bed or mine?”

“Yours. I want to be surrounded by you.”

In his bedchamber, Fletcher had left one candle burning, which Thane extinguished on his way to the massive bed. It made her heart twinge, but Astrid didn’t mind the darkness. There was safety in it. She understood why Thane needed it with his scarring. And the truth was, she was too afraid of what would be written all over her, what he would be able to see in her eyes.

He wanted to hide his body. She needed to hide her heart.

Scooting to the middle of the enormous bed, Astrid heard the rustle as he shucked out of his clothing. Buckets of desire sluiced down her spine, her anticipation heightening with every sound. Without sight, her other senses were amplified a hundredfold. The mattress dipped as Thane joined her. Warm hands caressed her soles, sending shivery bolts of heat up her entire body.

He licked at her breasts, drawing one nipple into his mouth and sucking. Her entire body shuddered with arousal as he paid patient, decadent homage to the other. “As are you, Your Grace.” She smiled in the darkness. “I’m constantly confounded by the fact that your mouth is so…gifted.”

She felt his answering grin. “This is only the beginning, darling.”

“Confident, too.”

“I am a duke,” he rumbled. “We are an impressive bunch; ask any one of us.”

Astrid wanted to laugh but gasped instead as he pressed that very impressive male part against her sensitive sex in response and circled his lean hips in a slow, teasing motion. Her hands, which hadn’t been able to explore before, grasped his shoulders, dragging him down to her for a hot, open-mouthed kiss. She gloried in the feel of his body as he draped himself over her. His chest hair abraded her breasts with delightful friction, and she arched her spine, rubbing her hard nipples against him.

“You feel so good,” he groaned.

“As do you.”

Curious, her fingers wandered over his ruined back and side, and though she felt every rise and bump of his tortured skin, Astrid was careful not to pause. Sorrow and pity surged through her. She wished she could kiss every scar and heal him from the inside out, but she settled for palming every bare inch of him. She marveled at the expanse of his shoulders, savored the long channel of his spine, and delighted in the two wicked indents above his taut buttocks.

Grinning to herself, she grasped his rear at the same time that she brought her knees up to grip his hips. They both gasped at the intimate position.

“Fill me,” she ordered in a hoarse voice.

And he did.

…

His darling wife was going to kill him.

The smart, beautiful, hot-mouthed little harpy who had upended his world and boldly challenged him on every level. Astrid’s natural passion astounded him. Humbled him. And she held nothing back, giving herself wholly and unconditionally, a gift in itself.

The velvet cling of her was exquisite torture, the scent and taste of her combining to make him nonsensical. He’d been in a constant state of arousal from the moment he’d seen her fresh and rosy from her bath. Thankfully, she had wanted him as much as he wanted her.

And now, the feel of her warm, luscious, willing form conspired against years of discipline and experience. Lodged deep, his cock throbbed. Slowly, he inched backward, feeling the soft hug of her passage as she unwillingly relinquished him. Thane swallowed hard, every muscle coiled with tension as he eased back in with a groan.

“I love how you feel inside me,” she whispered. “You’re my missing piece.”

He almost came then. Her words had the power to do that to him, he was discovering. “And you’re mine.”

His frenzied heart echoed his thoughts: Mine. Mine. Mine.

Thane withdrew and plunged forward again, his rhythm gathering speed. He could feel her knees gripping his hips, her hands digging into his shoulders as she met him thrust for thrust. She sought his lips, and he gave them to her, delighting in the hot plunge of her tongue and the assertive way it twined about his. Her movements grew jerkier as she neared her peak.

“Yes, sweetheart, come for me.”

“Thane,” she cried out, her head falling back as she was gripped in orgasm.

Driving deep, he was quick to follow as her inner muscles clamped down and pulsed around his cock. His ballocks tightened, and pleasure spiked through him as he yanked backward, pulling himself from her sheath at the last minute before his brain went blank. His seed spurted against her belly, and with a guttural shout, he collapsed against her, breathing hard.

Not wanting to crush her, Thane shifted them both to the side, holding her damp body close. His replete senses slowly came back to reality. Thane gave his wife a gentle kiss on the lips, his mouth unerringly finding hers in the darkness. Astrid didn’t say anything, but he could feel her mind turning at his withdrawal. He didn’t want to spoil what they’d just shared.

After a moment, he rose naked and walked to the bathing chamber to retrieve a pitcher of lukewarm water and a cloth. Thane didn’t need a candle to light his way—he was accustomed to moving around in the darkness. His eyes had adjusted enough to make out Astrid’s lean shape on the bed. Gently, he washed the stickiness from her belly and her thighs.

“Do you wish to stay here or return to your chamber?” he asked when he was finished seeing to himself.

“Here,” she said after several heartbeats.

Inside, Thane was strangely glad. Strange, because in the past after sex, he never wanted to linger. Either he or the women left, depending on location. It was a physical release at best. But with Astrid, everything was different. He climbed back into bed and pulled the sheets over them. Thane gathered her close, pulling the back of her body into the front of his. She fit him perfectly, her rounded bottom nestling sweetly into the cradle of his hips.

After a beat, Astrid turned in his arms to face him. Though they could only see silhouettes in the shadows, Thane still tensed. As if she could sense his discomfort, she soothed him with a few caresses of her palm along the roughened skin of his right shoulder blade, and Thane was astounded at her discernment and care. After what she’d been through, she was comforting him. His chest tightened painfully.

This rare, clever, passionate, brave woman.

She was everything.

Thane stilled, his heart stuttering and then resuming its steady cadence with startling clarity. The realization was a lightning shock to his system, as if he’d been dead and was suddenly, brilliantly brought back to life. He curved himself around her, enfolding her with all his strength, telling her with his body what he could not say with his mouth.

What he could never say.