Her Reformed Rake (Wicked Husbands #3)(48)

She was his, by God.

He moved the wet towel over her, cleaning her. First her thigh, then her pretty pink flesh, washing her, worshipping her. She didn’t attempt to close herself to him or push him away, simply remained still and silent, allowing him to complete this torturous task he’d assigned for himself.

Two sets of bloodied sheets in two nights. He hadn’t an inkling what the servants would think, but it was too damn late to worry about such trivial repercussions now. The most damning consequences of all would follow if Carlisle ever got wind of it.

“I hurt you,” he said again, because he still recalled the way she’d gone rigid beneath him when he’d torn past the barrier of her innocence, and because he hated himself for giving her any sort of pain at all, for deceiving her even now.

He dried her with the other towel and kissed her inner thighs. Would have continued, kissing all the way to her cunny, tasting her where he longed to taste her the most, but her hands flitted to his shoulders like twin butterflies, urging him upward. He allowed her to move him where she would. He wouldn’t dream of pushing her too far, and he’d already taken far more than he had a right to take.

“It was nothing.” She gripped his elbows and drew him toward her.

But it wasn’t nothing. He hadn’t liked hurting her. Hated that he was hurting her still with every action, each small deception. He would make up for it the only way he knew how.

As though it was the most natural thing in the world, his mouth connected with hers. The kiss was long and slow and deep. Leading once more to the path of ruin. With great reluctance, he tore his mouth from hers and returned the towel to the bowl.

He had never before spent an entire night in bed with a woman, but he had also never deflowered an innocent before either. It was bloody peculiar, but he didn’t want to leave her. Before giving his rational mind the chance to confuse matters for him, he turned down the lights and shucked his dressing gown. With her help, he made short work of Daisy’s as well.

She didn’t protest when he drew her body against his and pulled the bedclothes atop them both. They were joined from ankle to shoulder, his arm banded over her waist in a possessive grip he couldn’t restrain. Soft, womanly heat burned him alive. The scent of bergamot and vanilla and ambergris blended into one heady note. Christ, but everything about her drove him to distraction.

“I’m sorry for hurting you,” he said into the darkness and the silence that had fallen between them. He meant that in every way possible, so much feeling and emotion packed into that sentence it could have been a bloody ocean-faring merchant ship loaded from bow to stern and it still would not have contained more.

Her hand found his where it tightened over the curve of her waist, their fingers tangling. “I’ve promised to call you Sebastian and you’ve promised to cease all apologies for tonight. If you mean to go back on your word, I’ll have to refer to you as Your Grace forever. That could prove a lengthy sentence indeed, Your Grace.”

He detected the smile in her words and realized he was grinning back into the night, like some besotted fool. Staying in her chamber had been another mistake in a series of grievous errors. But he hadn’t the willpower to move from her side now, and what was one more sin in a catalog of so many?

“Touché, buttercup.” He paused, his smile fading as he thought again of her earlier words. I’ve been hurt far worse in my lifetime. Part of him probed her now because he knew he must, and part of him probed her because he was the man who had taken her innocence, and he cared for her regardless of the glaring fact that he should not make such a neophyte mistake. “You said you’ve been hurt worse. Your father… what did he do to you?”

He heard her swallow, the steady, even pace of her breathing increasing in increments. Without light to illuminate her face, he read her on tells and body language alone. The fingers tangled in his tightened. She didn’t answer.

“Daisy,” he tried again, careful to keep his tone gentle. “I’m your husband. Won’t you tell me?”

“Why would you want to know?” she asked at last, her voice small, marked by some indefinable emotion. Shame, perhaps?

Why, indeed?

Because he needed to know.

Because he needed to believe her, to understand her story, where she’d come from and who she was.

And also, because he needed to know just how badly he’d have to hurt her son-of-a-bitch of a father in reprisal.

“I want to know what he did to you, Daisy, because I’m going to do each one of those things to him in return, only with ten times more depravity.” It was as honest a reply as he could manage.

“You mustn’t say that.” There was her voice again, lilting and haunting in the night’s inky stillness.

“Tell me, buttercup,” he urged, pulling her tighter to his side, as though he could somehow absorb her, take on any pain she’d ever experienced just to lessen her burden, and keep her forever safe from harm. He would have gladly done so had it been possible. All the disgust he’d felt at betraying his duty had somehow faltered in the blinding brilliance of the feeling of her trusting form next to his.

She was silent for an indeterminate space of time. No sound but busy London outside, clacking hooves, her steady breathing, vehicles traveling, so many people all around them, and yet, there they were. Two naked bodies pressed against each other. Connecting in a way he’d never before imagined possible, a way that transcended the physicality of a mere joining. He’d bedded his fair share of women. But he didn’t lie to himself that any of those occasions could compare to this.