Her Reformed Rake (Wicked Husbands #3)(24)

He was beautiful, her husband.

Sebastian, he had insisted, though it still seemed odd to think of him in intimate terms. To be standing in such proximity to him that his scent, hints of pine and musk, washed over her. To be alone with him in a bedchamber—her bedchamber.

Odd and somehow intoxicating. Her every sense was heightened, her body awash with anticipation. She could feel his stare like a caress, from her hardened nipples to the ache between her thighs. She wanted him, but he didn’t want her. His blood sullying the sheets, the cut on his thumb, the hard set of his jaw, all bespoke antipathy. And she couldn’t blame him. He was a man whose hand had been forced, who’d been saddled with a sudden, unwanted burden.

Except that he wasn’t staring at her now with the same rigid expression he’d worn since crossing the threshold. No, indeed. He was looking at her rather in the same fashion she imagined a mountain lion appeared just before clamping its jaws around its prey.

He was looking at her like he wanted to consume her.

“You want me to help you disrobe?” he asked, his voice a low, gruff rumble that sent a thrill skittering through her.

“Yes,” she blurted. Dear Lord, she was only making things worse. “That is, of course I will require assistance. If you want the servants to believe we’ve… consummated the marriage, then you cannot propose to leave me standing alone in my chamber, with my toilette intact. I’m afraid I can’t undress myself, given the construction of this gown. Therefore, it stands to reason that you’ll need to aid me.”

More than anything else, she didn’t wish to give her father any reason to attempt to prove the marriage invalid. She hardly knew what he’d do when he realized that she’d not only ruined herself but disobeyed him, dashing any chances for his much-desired connection with Lord Breckly. No one defied her father without suffering deeply for their daring.

The memory of the last time she’d done so cut through her with the precision of a blade and every bit as much pain before she chased it from her mind. She wouldn’t think of Padraig now or ever again if she could help it. He was her past, and the man standing before her was her future. They couldn’t have been more different.

She couldn’t afford to allow one questioning maidservant who noticed Daisy was still perfectly, impeccably dressed—bloodied sheets or no—to open the door for her father. She would not return to live beneath his roof. Nor would she suffer one more of his rages.

“Very well.” Sebastian closed the distance between them in two long strides. “I assume this bloody frock has buttons on it somewhere?”

Her breath caught as his fingers traced the front panel of her bodice, beginning just beneath her breasts and then down over her ribs. Through her stiff corset and layers of undergarments, she could still feel the heat of him. She watched his large, capable hands tracing downward, over her waist. The buttons were hidden on her back, and some wicked part of her longed to hold her tongue, to make him continue his fruitless search just for the delicious slide of his fingers over her body.

“On the back.” Her gaze traveled from his hands to his mouth. What would it be like to have those sensual lips angling over hers again, this time with no one to interrupt and no encumbrances?

He seized her waist and spun her about so abruptly that she lost her balance and fell into him. A distinct ridge prodded the small of her back, and she fought and lost the urge to rub herself against him like a cat. His fingers bit into her waist, pulling her back and anchoring her to him completely. A dark, carnal sound tore from him. His mouth was on her in the next breath, kissing the same sensitive skin behind her ear that he had brought to life that night in the moonlight.

His lips grazed the shell of her ear, then skimmed lower, trailing a series of decadent kisses down her throat. When he stopped to lick and nibble there, a pang of something new started from her core and radiated throughout her entire body. The heady, magic spell that had descended on her at the Darlington ball returned.

She yearned for something she didn’t entirely comprehend. All she knew was that she ached with a need that only he could slake. Sebastian. Her husband. Self-preservation was the last thing on her mind as she writhed against his powerful frame, wanting more of his mouth, more of his kisses, more of his touch.

Daisy felt pins being plucked from her hair, the heaviness of her braids loosening and opening. One of his hands had migrated from her waist, and was buried in her half-unbound locks, fisting in it, angling her head back so that he could feast on her neck.

“Christ, you smell so bloody good,” he growled against her throat.

So did he, and she would have told him as much if she could have managed to utter a single, coherent word. But he had robbed her of the ability to conduct intelligent conversation. To think of anything that wasn’t him, his wicked lips, his knowing touch.

She inhaled deeply, her fingers reaching back to sink into his dark hair. Perhaps they didn’t need pretense. Some wild impulse within her imagined him stripping her gown away, covering her body with his on the bed. Consummating their union. It was such a tepid phrase, a bloodless way of describing the intense pleasure he gave her. What would it be like to give herself to him? To become his wife in deed as well as name? Her pulse pounded.

But just as curiosity mingled with desire, he tore his mouth from her neck and set her away from him. “Jesus,” he muttered, sounding as shaken as she felt. His fingers skated over her spine. “Where are the goddamn buttons, Daisy?”