touching you is that you have no idea where it leads.”
“I have some idea.” Her tone was dry beneath the breathiness. “Our wedding night, if you recall.”
“Which you did not enjoy.”
“I will do my—”
“If you mention your bloody wifely duty one more time…”
He trailed off. She needed to understand that playing with desire was like playing with fire. It wasn’t the only problem, it wasn’t the biggest problem, but it was still a problem.
“I should not touch you, but if I do not touch you, you will never understand.” He dragged his eyes off her, looking around. A vase of roses sat on the table by her bed. Three roses, pink and half-opened. “What a conundrum. It’s a good thing your husband is an inventive problem-solver.”
He eased a rosebud from the vase and turned back to her. With a yelp, she uncovered her eyes. Oops: Cold water had dripped down the stem and splashed onto her skin. A droplet of water, right there on the softest, roundest part of her thigh.
“My apologies,” he said.
“Now you find your manners?” she muttered. “Now?”
He couldn’t help grinning as he used the heel of his hand to wipe away the drop, taking longer than he needed. She gasped, and he mustered all his will to haul his hand off.
He wiped the stem dry on his clothes, then tilted the rosebud toward her, enjoying her confusion. He was a devil for teasing her, but how he loved this part too.
“I shall touch you without touching you,” he said. “Aren’t I clever?”
He brushed the rose over her parted lips, his eyes not leaving hers. Beyond the flower’s fragrance lay another scent, headier, more potent: the scent of her. He trailed the rose up over her cheek, back to her lips, over her chin, over her jaw. She arched her neck, offering her throat, and he accepted her invitation, dragging the petals down over her rapid pulse, the dip of her collarbone, down, down to one hard nipple. He sketched a circle around it, then brushed back and forth, his attention torn between the sight of her body and the sight of her face, and he wondered if he had gone mad.
She made a little whimper and covered her eyes again, and a new thrill of pleasure shot through him.
Yes, he had gone mad.
“Here, hold this,” he said, briskly.
She opened her eyes, blinked at him dazedly, then took the rose. Trying to ignore her nudity and his own arousal, Joshua lit a second candle and plucked a freshly laundered kerchief from his pocket. He smoothed it open on the bedcovers beside her and began to fold it again, with uncommonly clumsy hands.
“A blindfold?” Her confusion was palpable. “That’s how we fold them for blindman’s buff.”
“You said it: If you can’t see me, I can’t see you. You will have no need to be shy.”
She laughed breathily and said, “You’re as silly as I am,” but she did not resist as he tied the lemon-scented linen over her eyes, knotting it behind her head. When he gently tipped her onto her back, she fell easily and lay with her legs outstretched.
There: He had touched her again, and the world still had not collapsed.
“Are you all right?” he asked, his eyes trying to take in all of her at once, laid out for him, her skin warm in the candlelight, her body soft with trust.
“I think so.” She fumbled for him, caught the edge of his robe. “This is very…”
“Depraved? Do say depraved. I adore the way you say depraved.”
“Perhaps. But we are married,” she added, as if to reassure herself. “So this must be all quite proper.”
“Proper!”
He climbed onto the bed, knelt beside her hips, and plucked the rose from her trembling hands. She fumbled for him again, found his knee, spread her fingers over his thigh. Her searing touch streaked through him, but he ignored it. He feasted his eyes on her, and lowered the rose to her lips.
“I will strip away your proper,” he promised darkly. “I will strip away your nice and polite. I will strip away everything until you are nothing but raw, savage, aching need.”
Cassandra did feel depraved, and she had never dreamed that depravity could feel so good, that anticipation could make her quiver. How wickedly delicious it was to lie naked before him like a sacrifice, enclosed in a dark, secret world of promise. And how fierce this craving to pull him on top of her and revel in his weight