Trial by Desire (Carhart #2)(46)

Her husband was not only naked; he was erect. And his hand was clasped around his member.

Luckily, she did not say the first idiotic thing that popped into her mind. Unluckily for her, she did say the second. “Ned. It’s really cold in here.”

“Ah.” His voice seemed casually companionable, in sharp juxtaposition to the muscled rigor of his body. “Kate. This is not the most convenient time to talk.”

No? Her mouth went completely dry, and she was bereft of speech. He was touching himself—there—and oh, God, they’d had marital relations before, but so long ago, and always in the dark. She’d never even seen him. She just had the memory of her hands, her flesh; the feel of him inside her; the flash of his skin illuminated in moonlight. That feeling of want, never quite satisfied, and hidden behind the necessity of procreation.

On those long-ago nights, he’d never even lit a candle.

What a crying shame that had been. She stepped inside his room and pulled the door shut behind her. It was even colder than she’d believed. One hard swallow, and she banished the dryness in her throat. “On the contrary.” She was unable to take her eyes off him. “This is very convenient. I didn’t come here to talk.”

He let out a shaky breath, a puff of white in the chilled room. His eyes slipped down her form. “Oh? I—I suppose I can see that.”

That—and by the way his eyes lingered, a great deal else. Marriage wasn’t a matter of love, but of bringing together families and estates and producing children. Intercourse could be enjoyable, just as it was enjoyable when she touched herself. But it was not a matter for easy discourse. Despite whispered conversations with the other married ladies, all of that practicality had left her damnably bereft of improper vocabulary. Her husband stared at her, frozen in the act of…the act of… Kate’s internal lexicon, built up of proper words used by proper women, deserted her on this point. Even among married women, lurid discussions were composed of circumspect euphemism. One offered comfort to one’s husband, or perhaps one engaged in intercourse. Their discourse ranged to washing women and carrots precisely because proper ladies didn’t use those other words.

Whatever those other words might have been.

It seemed simply criminal to Kate that she’d learned one hundred words to describe the weather in French, and not one that would encompass the stroke of a man’s hand down his own penis.

But she didn’t need a dictionary to instinctively grasp the import of what he’d been doing. She certainly didn’t need a primer to comprehend that jealous desire that rose up inside her. Whatever the word for it, she had caught him in the act of doing to himself every improper thing Kate longed to do to him. She swallowed back hysterical, inappropriate laughter.

“Didn’t you think to build a fire before…um…before?”

“Before I what?”

“You know.” Kate gestured helplessly, her hands inscribing a wide circle.

Perhaps her circle was too wide—or perhaps he wanted to make her uneasy—because he simply shrugged. “You’ll have to be more specific.”

She shook her head in embarrassment.

“Before I took off my clothing?”

She nodded. “Yes. And took… Took the matter…”

“Before I took the matter in hand?” he finished with a wry smile.

“Yes. That.”

“To answer your question, tonight I needed it cold. If not, I would have wallowed in the luxury of this too completely. Cold sharpens the senses. Heat dulls them.”

“Oh.” Her eyes fell on his body—her husband’s body—naked, spread out before her. He was hard; his body was so clearly willing to oblige her in this particular point of their marriage. She had a thousand questions. Does that feel good? Does the cold help with your release?

Could we build a fire now?

What she settled on was, “Can you do that to me?”

He shook his head. “Pardon?”

She stepped forward into the lamplight. “You’re my husband.” Her gaze fell again to that thick, rigid rod between his legs. Maybe he hadn’t wanted her. Maybe he’d just wanted the privacy of…of the thing. He reached for a silk banyan that lay across the bed linens.

“Oh, no,” she said quietly. “Please don’t cover yourself.”

He looked up at her, his hand clenching on the cloth. “Kate, I have no right to make demands of you.”

“Why not? You’re my husband. Men who don’t exercise their marital rights become irrational.”

He frowned at that.

“Or feverish, or they have headaches or some such. I never did find out. But I have some idea how these things work.”

“You do, do you?” His lips twitched.

“I am only thinking of your health,” she said piously. But her gaze strayed again to impious territory, and she bit back a sigh.

“Why? I left you. I have not been as good to you as you deserve. I—”

“You,” Kate said quietly, “are an idiot. If you have need of me, do you suppose I would flinch away? Do you think me so weak that you cannot lean on me on occasion? Don’t you understand—you aren’t the only one who can make demands. I’m your wife, and I wish to God you would treat me like one. In every way.”