Her Reformed Rake (Wicked Husbands #3)(80)

She nipped at his thumb, tasting him—salt and warmth and man—and he removed it, allowing her to speak. “I did nothing with the Earl of Bolton. Nothing with any other man, for that matter.”

“You expect me to believe you?” His tone was frigid. His touch was anything but. It was hot, demanding, seeking. Urgent.

His fingers trailed down her throat, lingering at the diamond necklace she still wore, a weighty reminder of her former life. The caress sent sparks skittering over her skin, need throbbing deep within.

“It’s the truth,” she whispered.

“The truth. How rich.” A bleak smile curved his sensual lips. It was grim, harsh. There was no hint of the dimple she’d once longed to kiss. Not a trace of humor remained within him, it seemed. It was as if a stranger had taken his place. A bitter, broken, angry stranger. Where had he been for the past three months and what had he done? Perhaps, more importantly, what had been done to him?

But she held firm. Stoic. “Yes, the truth. I would never betray our vows, Sebastian.”

“You don’t think I believe a word that slips past your pretty lips, do you, sweet? Not when you’ve been carrying on as you have. Wild fêtes, a string of lovers, wearing trousers, for Christ’s sake. Were you so foolish to believe that word would not reach me? That I wouldn’t learn of your antics and your debauchery?”

She should be frightened. But she was not. Though his language was coarse and his touch lacked the skillful play of slow seduction she’d become accustomed to from him, he would not hurt her. She knew it instinctively.

“How did word reach you?” she asked instead. “Did you get my letters?” One letter in particular. The one in which she revealed the impending birth of their child. The one good that had risen from the ashes of their turbulent union.

“I daresay word has even reached America by now. You made no attempt to hide your lechery.” He sneered. “You couldn’t even bother to wait until you’d provided me an heir before bedding the Earl of Bolton.”

That answered her question, then. He hadn’t read a single one of her letters.

Disappointment bloomed as his fingers traveled lower, stopping at the ribbon-trimmed edge of her décolletage. She swallowed against a fresh wave of need. His cruelty should have diminished her body’s response to him, but it seemed that nothing could. Her nipples longed for his touch, his mouth. The rake of his teeth. He cupped her breast, and it was a possessive clamp of ownership, nothing sweet about it. Through her corset, undergarments, and silk, his fingers bit into her skin with just enough pressure to arch her back.

She wanted more, and her reaction frightened her. She had not known that darkness and anger could form such a powerful web of seduction. Still, he owed her every bit as much as she owed him, if not more. He was the one who had left. She had been right here, waiting for him, all along.

“Tell me where you’ve been,” she challenged impetuously. “Tell me the truth.”

Care for me enough to give me that, if nothing else.

“The truth is that even though you’ve been bedding other lovers, you still want me, don’t you, buttercup?” He stilled, his eyes intense and glittering, sparking with unadulterated sexual fire as they burned into hers. “Your pretty pink lips might lie, but your body doesn’t.”

Damn him. “The truth,” she demanded again. “Where were you? Why did you go?”

“Ah, I see the way of it.” He smiled without mirth, his tone bitter. “You think you can tempt me with your body, and I’ll confess all. But I won’t give you the gratification of fucking you, Daisy. You’d like it too much.”

The wickedness and arrogance of his words should have repulsed her. He was being a beast, but it somehow made her long for him all the more. Her breasts tingled. The flesh between her thighs hungered for him, for his touch, his claiming. At last, her body seemed to say even if her mind couldn’t form the acknowledgment, at last.

Daisy pressed herself closer to him, her breasts crushing into his hand, into his chest. Their lips were a scant inch apart. His breath ghosted over her mouth, hot and promising. Their legs tangled, free of the encumbrance of skirts, and she felt his arousal, rigid and undeniable, cutting into her belly.

He wanted her, no matter what he said. In that moment, she had infinite power over him, and she knew it.

And she liked it.

She rocked forward, gliding her body along his hard length. Her lower lip brushed his once, twice. “Do you know what I think, Sebastian?” She paused, a wicked urge to shock him rising within, to goad him, push him off the precipice to which he clung. “I think you’re lying to me. Lying to yourself. You don’t want to fuck me because you’re afraid you’d like it too much.”

There.

One word, raw and vulgar and wrong. His word. Fuck. Used upon him as a weapon. But it had the desired effect, and she didn’t feel a drop of shame as he growled deep in his throat and forced her backward, guiding her with hands on her waist and long strides. Taking her to the big bed where she’d lain awake so many nights wondering where he was and whether or not he would ever return. Where she’d imagined him joining her, taking his time, kissing her and stripping her bare, learning every bit of her flesh before joining them as one.

But this wasn’t going to be anything like her silly fancies, or even like their previous couplings, and she knew it by the harshness in his expression, the wildness of his touch. The backs of her knees bumped into the bed’s softness. He didn’t throw her on it as she thought he might. Instead, he stopped, stared down at her.