When a Rogue Meets His Match - Elizabeth Hoyt Page 0,14
sit on the bed.
“You certainly aren’t,” he muttered under his breath.
Messalina rolled her eyes. “Surely there are enough rooms in this house—”
“Yes, there are,” he said, cutting her off. He untied his neckcloth. “You can argue all you want, but you’ve forgotten something.”
She set her hands on her hips. “What is that?”
“I don’t want to make my bed in another room.” He threw the neckcloth toward the chair. It missed. He shrugged, then glanced up through his ridiculous eyelashes at her, his black eyes glittering in the candlelight. “You’ll just have to trust me.”
If he was attempting to look trustworthy, he was failing badly.
An incredulous laugh burst from her lips. “You must be bamming me.”
“I assure you I’m not. Despite any”—his gaze flickered to her barely covered bosom—“desire to consummate this marriage, I will not force you. That isn’t part of my plans. We’ve made a truce with benefits to both of us. Why would I want to destroy this détente? I’d be a fool to wrong you now. And before you say it, I am no fool.”
Messalina could feel the heat in her cheeks from that brief, searing glance. She bit her lip, undecided. What he said made sense, and his reasoning was oddly reassuring. Still…“Then tell me what you intend to do tonight.”
“I intend to sleep,” he said, flicking open the top button on his shirt. “I won’t touch you until the agreed-upon month is over, but I will share your bed. I don’t want this marriage contested.”
For a second her gaze strayed to his throat, revealed by his open shirt. The tanned skin gleamed in the candlelight. She had an awful urge to touch.
Her eyes snapped up to find him watching her with a smile playing about those wicked lips. She stiffened.
“Messalina,” he said, his voice a dark purr. “Come to bed.”
She almost stomped to the door. But if she gave in to trepidation—or temper—now she’d have trouble regaining her footing with him.
Besides. There was her pride.
“Humph.” Messalina went around to the other side of the bed and slowly got in, watching him all the while.
He ducked his head as if hiding one of his lopsided smiles, his fingers on the third button of his shirt.
She tried to look away, but really it was impossible to do so. Another inch of his corded throat was unveiled.
And then he stopped.
Messalina pursed her lips in irritation.
Hawthorne bent and removed his shoes and stockings. Something on a thin chain swung out from the top of his shirt.
“What is that?” she asked.
The object winked in the candlelight before he caught it in his hand and tucked it back inside his shirt.
“Nothing you need concern yourself about.” He pulled the tie from his hair, letting his heavy, curling locks fall to his shoulders.
He stared at her, looking like some pagan god—the kind that demanded human sacrifice.
Messalina swallowed, aware that there was some part of her, inside and hopefully hidden, that found his physical form very, very alluring.
He stood and deliberately pulled back the coverlet. He held her gaze as he got in.
She looked away.
The mattress dipped and shook and then was still.
She tensed, staring up at the ceiling. The bed was wide enough that they didn’t even touch. Still she was unnaturally aware of him, big and solid, only inches away. She’d never shared a bed before—at least not since she’d grown—and certainly not with a man.
He blew out the candle.
She could hear his breaths, even and deep, and she realized suddenly that she could smell him—not unpleasantly. He smelled like a man, she supposed. A man in her bed.
Her nipples tightened and she froze. She was afraid he would know somehow. That he might take her sudden awareness of him as an invitation.
Tiredness finally conquered her vigilance. Her breaths became deeper, and she began to drift.
The whispered male voice in the darkness sounded almost like part of a dream. “Good night, Wife.”
Chapter Three
Soon the tinker realized that he’d wandered from the road and that he was hopelessly lost in the dark wood.
“Oh!” he cried. “I’ll never see my sweet wife and darling children again.”
At that moment he saw a light shining up ahead.…
—From Bet and the Fox
Gideon woke the next morning to the scent of bergamot and a warm body flush against his side. For a lazy half second he imagined that he was a boy again, crowded against his brother on a thin pallet in some nameless room in St Giles.
Except the mattress was far too soft, and nothing had