The Convenient Felstone Marriage (Whitby Weddings 1)

‘Nobody else offered.’

‘You were irresponsible!’

‘Well, I’m sorry if I wasn’t sensible or respectable enough for you, but I wanted to save your life!’

She tried to push past him, but he grabbed her arm, hauling her back again.

‘You scared me, Ianthe.’

She froze at once. His voice sounded different again now, huskier somehow, sending a quivering sensation all through her body.

‘Do you think I wasn’t scared when you were out on the lifeboat?’

‘You don’t understand.’ He closed his eyes briefly, his anger seeming to abate all of a sudden. ‘I’m not just angry because you went off on your own. I’m angry because of how much it scared me. I couldn’t bear the thought of losing you.’ He raised a hand to her cheek, brushing the backs of his fingers against it before moving them around to cup the back of her neck.

She closed her eyes, tilting her head back into his hand. There was only her nightgown between them, only a thin slip of material between their two bodies, so close that she could feel his heartbeat thudding almost as quickly as hers. He cared for her. He hadn’t said so exactly, but the implication was there in his words. He cared for her in the same way she cared for him. Not because she was part of a business deal, but because of who she was...who she was pretending to be anyway. The thought made her stiffen at once.

‘Promise me you won’t do anything like that again.’ Robert seemed not to notice, his lips grazing her throat, pressing kisses in a line along her jaw.

‘I promise.’ She didn’t know what else to say.

‘I need you, Ianthe.’

His voice was almost a growl, making her knees almost give way beneath her. She raised her hands to his chest, trying to summon the strength to push away and finding her hands curling their way around his neck instead. He couldn’t mean that! It wasn’t part of their agreement. She was supposed to be sensible and respectable. While he...he clearly wasn’t thinking straight. He was exhausted. So was she, for that matter, even if the last thing she wanted was to go back to sleep.

She opened her lips, but there were no words. His lips on her skin felt so good that she didn’t want him to stop. She felt as though something in her body were loosening, as if all the fear and anxiety of the previous evening were oozing away beneath his touch. She wanted more of him, not less. Even if it were wrong, even if he thought she was a different woman, she couldn’t stop, not unless he stopped first.

‘Ianthe?’ His mouth hovered over hers, making her name into a question.

‘Yes,’ she answered even before she had a chance to consider what the question might be, lifting her lips to his with a gasp of surrender.

For the space of heartbeat, they stayed that way, held together in a tender, almost poignant embrace, before a surge of feeling seemed to overtake them both at the same moment. Then hands and lips were everywhere, touching and caressing, exploring each other in a frenzy of anticipation.

Eagerly she ran her hands over his chest, revelling in the sensation of corded muscle beneath her fingertips. His skin was warm and yet delectably soft, like a pillow she wanted to rest her head against. In return, his fingers trailed over the curve of her back and down to her bottom, cupping her cheeks in both hands as his tongue delved deeper into her mouth, becoming fiercer and more insistent as if he wanted to taste every part of her. Instinctively, she pushed towards him, nipples tightening beneath her thin covering as if her body itself were straining to escape.

As if he could sense it, he reached down and grabbed the ends of her nightgown, pulling the whole garment up and over her head before she realised what he was doing.

‘Wait!’ She tried to grab it back, but it was already in a heap on the floor.

‘Wait?’ His face looked guarded suddenly.

She lifted her arms, covering her swollen breasts with embarrassment, and he gave a slow smile of understanding.

‘You’re right, it isn’t fair that only one of us is naked.’

‘Oh.’ Her mouth was so dry that she could hardly speak. Not that she could look away either, her gaze drawn irresistibly downwards as he unlaced the ties of his trousers and let them fall to the floor, the evidence of his desire presenting itself to her stunned eyes.

She opened her mouth and then closed it again soundlessly, cheeks flushing scarlet as she looked back at his face in amazement.

‘I want you, Ianthe,’ he repeated, his gaze sweeping over her so heatedly that every part of her body seemed to contract. ‘But if you don’t...’ his voice cracked slightly as if he were forcing the words out ‘...tell me now.’

‘I...’ She hesitated, hardly able to hear herself think over the sound of her own pounding heartbeat. Of course she wanted him, she wanted to scream. She wanted him so badly it almost hurt. But not as the new Ianthe he’d married. As the old her—the real her, she now realised—the woman who was pounding so violently against the door of her prison that she could feel every wall, every barrier she’d built up over the last year, start to crumble.

But if she surrendered to him now then it would be as good as admitting the truth—that she was as bad as Albert’s mother had said she was. If she succumbed to desire then she wouldn’t be able to hide or deny her true nature any longer, not from him or from herself either. He’d know who she really was, not the sensible and respectable bride he thought he’d married, but a shameless, brazen wanton. There’d be no way back for them. It was probably too late already. She could feel the last bolt on the prison door sliding open and her old self breaking free...

‘Tell me, Ianthe,’ he almost groaned.

She couldn’t restrain herself any longer. She was in his arms before he’d finished speaking, abandoning herself to the surge of desire coursing through every vein. Even if it was just for one night—one night before he woke up and realised what kind of woman he’d married—she wanted to be as close to him as she could be, to share herself and discover everything there was to know about love before it was too late.