“Just… not now.” Through her misery and exhaustion, anger stirred as she recalled him asking her to be his mistress. He’d obviously spent the last weeks convinced
that he traveled with a woman who rivaled Jezebel for wickedness.
While nothing had matched the pleasure she’d found in his kisses and caresses, she hadn’t absolutely hated the act. She wished desperately she knew more about what men and women did together. After all those racy conversations in Continental salons, she’d considered herself worldly. None of those sly, witty exchanges had hinted at the raw, earthy reality of a man’s body pushing into a tight female passage.
She stared up at the tester. She’d never see the Rothermere unicorns without remembering how Cam had thundered into her. Given she’d just signed up to a lifetime as the Duchess of Sedgemoor, those unicorns would remind her over and over.
“You should go back to your room.” She rose against the pillows and dragged the sheet up. Lying naked beside him, she felt too much like a ritual sacrifice. She winced. Changing her position launched a barrage of new twinges. Between her legs, she felt sore and sticky.
He’d flung one arm over his eyes, so she had no idea whether he’d drifted off or whether he merely avoided his dissatisfied bride. Except the dissatisfied bride couldn’t help stealing this opportunity to study the superb masculine form beside her. Long, lean, powerful. Intriguingly hairy on his chest and… down there.
Surreptitious interest stirred in places that she thought could never react again. The heaviness between her legs turned hot and insistent, instead of purely uncomfortable.
One question beat at her over and over. Was the act always like that?
“Do you really want to be alone?” Cam sounded weary and reasonable, a different man from the passionate seducer. “I’ll go if you like, but I need to make amends and I can’t manage that from behind a closed door.”
“As long as we don’t have to do it again,” she said stiffly, sidling toward the edge of the bed.
“You’re safe,” he said grimly. Without taking his arm from his eyes, he caught her wrist with his other hand.
She tensed, but as his hold was loose enough to break, she didn’t shake him off. “I don’t feel safe.”
His expressive mouth, visible beneath his forearm, thinned. “You used to.”
“That was… before.”
Sighing, he lowered his arm and released her. She’d seen his expression after he’d taken her. He’d looked ready to slit his throat to save the world the trouble of shooting him. He still looked like he’d forsaken his last hope for happiness. Her heart twisted with a stupid female need to assuage his cares.
She battered down the impulse to take him in her arms. What comfort had he offered when he’d so ruthlessly used her? Then left her incomplete at the end.
“I can apologize again, Pen,” he said bleakly.
She avoided his desolate jade gaze and stared down to where her fingers folded and unfolded the sheet with idiot compulsion. “Don’t.”
A silence fell, then she felt the mattress move as he rolled away. She should be glad he went, but something in her was disappointed that he didn’t stay to persuade her. Not into doing… that. But she’d appreciate him making an effort.
Oh, devil take her, she was a complete mess. She wanted this. She wanted that. None of it made any sense. After what Cam had done, she shouldn’t want to see him again. However impractical that might be, given today’s marriage ceremony.
She was almost as annoyed with herself as she was with Cam.
Which didn’t prevent her watching as he walked away. The back view was just as spectacular as the front. The proud set of the head, even now when his pride smarted because he’d failed to satisfy his bride. The wide powerful shoulders. The straight, well-muscled back. The firm globes of his buttocks.
Like her, he still bore the shipwreck’s marks. Healing bruises and abrasions, including a slash of dark purple across his ribs. Anger ebbed out of reach, although disappointment remained. Whatever tonight’s disaster, he’d nearly died saving her.
She waited for him to enter the duke’s apartments, but instead he veered off into the luxurious bathing room. Disgruntled, Pen straightened against the pillows. If he wanted to wash, couldn’t he do it in his own rooms?
He emerged carrying a bowl and towel, and with another towel slung low around his narrow hips. He set a small mahogany table beside the bed and placed the bowl upon it. He turned and with one hand, hooked up the heavy red robe, covering himself.
“Lie down,” he said softly.
“Why?” she asked suspiciously.
“I’m going to make you feel better.”
She bit back a sniping response that his absence would achieve that most effectively. Anyway, it wasn’t true. As her discomfort faded, she felt lonely and teary and desperately in need of kindness. Even if the kindness came from the man who had hurt her.
Very gently he pried the covers from her clinging hands and drew them down, revealing her nakedness. Tonight she’d cursed her stupidity more than once. She cursed it again when she realized that she should have gone in search of a fresh nightdress while he was in the other room.