you are a good man. And the Duke of Dammerton said you have a good heart. And Mr. Newell said—”
“Mercy. The naivety! Do you think I became rich by being nice? Do you think those fancy friends of yours court me because I’m polite?” He laughed, a bitter, mirthless sound. “Most of them cannot stand me, but they cannot stay away from me and that, my darling, has nothing to do with being nice. So forget any silly notion that I might ever be nice to you and, for mercy’s sake, don’t get any romantic ideas.”
She gaped at him. “Are you so vain as to think I might fall in love with you?”
“You wanted me to kiss you just now.”
“I did not!” she lied, cheeks burning. “You arrogant, insufferable fiend! I want nothing from you. You can go back to your…women and get them to do…that thing.”
“Maybe I will. Because they never expect me to be nice, and when it’s over—” His voice was tense and rising in volume with each word. “—I leave them and they leave me, and they bloody well don’t nag me to behave or colonize my house or disrupt my life!”
“Well, you are disrupting my life.” She borrowed a trick from Arabella: She raised her chin and looked into the distance. “You may leave now.”
“Oh, I may leave, may I?”
“Don’t let me keep you.”
Of course, insufferable contrary beast that he was, he stepped closer. “I know that one,” he growled. “That’s polite-speak for ‘Go away’.”
“You must hear it a lot.”
“So say it. Tell me to go away.” He cradled her face, and she cursed his deceitful hands, for his touch was divine though he was a loathsome beast. “If I do kiss you, will you tell me to go away?”
He brushed a thumb over her lips, sending a frisson of pleasure down her spine. She fancied she saw his eyes darken. He would laugh at her again. He was not wrong; she was at risk of forming foolish notions, if only because she looked at couples like Arabella and Lord Hardbury, and Harry and Lady Bolderwood, and felt a terrible, futile yearning for what she could never have.
With a tentative hand, she grazed his hair, curled her fingers into it. It was ridiculously soft and she should never have touched him. But somewhere under that irascibility, that wild animation, that rudeness, hid a gentle, caring man.
“You are still so angry,” she whispered.
His head jerked back, out of her reach. “I what?”
“With your father, with me, with all of us.”
“What utter nonsense.” He leaped back and paced about, waving his hands. “I don’t care enough to be angry.”
“Deep down angry.”
“Stop telling me what I feel.”
“It’s all right. I understand.”
“No. You do not understand.” He advanced, loomed over her. “You do not understand a bloody thing.”
“Joshua…”
She reached for him, to soothe him, comfort him, as she longed for someone to do for her, and she almost had a hold on him when he whirled away, fast and furious, and her hand snagged on his robe. He kept moving under the force of his own momentum, and she could not release her hand, and the ties came undone. The whirlwind stopped. He froze, facing toward her, his robe hanging open.
He was, as he had warned, completely naked underneath.
Oh, Saint Sebastian!
Cassandra stared, helpless to look away: that chest, flat nipples, ribs, lean waist, a trail of hair, and his…
His…what did she even call it?…manhood. It stood upright against his belly, darker than his skin, as big and angry and demanding as he. Through the pounding of her heart, she was aware of dark hair, lean hips, muscular thighs, and warmth, warmth flooding through her, robbing her of air, as her eyes sent an urgent message to her body and her body throbbed with a newly discovered need.
“Seen enough?” His voice seemed to come from far away, and she could not tell if he was angry or amused or something else altogether. “If you wanted to ogle my cock, wife, you should have just asked.”
She shut her eyes, folded both hands over them. The darkness did not help: She could still see him, still feel him. After a year, a decade, a century, he muttered, “And I’m not angry, curse you,” and the air moved and the door slammed and she was alone again.
Slowly, Cassandra lowered her hands and curled them into the bedclothes, resisting the sinful urge to touch those parts of her body that still clamored for the