My Seductive Innocent (45 page)

“You did not marry me for love.”

“I never said I did.” Nathan stepped directly in front of her and raised his arms to either side of her shoulders before splaying his own hands against the wall. Now she was caged by him, as he had been by her. His gut wrenched at the weak thought. He had to do better. Her scent―a sweet, spicy concoction that was very different from how she had once smelled—surrounded him. She licked her lips and his groin hardened to an almost unbearable state. He forced himself not to shake as he reached out and caressed her cheek. The touch of his skin to hers sent a bolt of need through him so strong he fought not to wince. “
You
were the one supposedly in love with me.
Remember?
”

“Supposedly?”

Her voice throbbed with almost-believable emotion. It was a good thing he now knew what a superb actress she was. He nodded. “Come, we both know you never loved me.”

She inhaled a sharp breath before speaking. “I did love you! Right up until I found out you were a liar. Right up until I learned you told your aunt I was pathetic and that you had every intention of leaving me to waste away in the country after you wed me while you went back to London.”

He winced at that because he had said those things, but that had been before he’d spent much time with her. But he damn sure wasn’t going to explain himself to her. “You loved me so much that you mourned for me by bringing your lover into the home I left you. You have a very interesting way of mourning, my dear. The usual custom is to wear black and at least pretend you miss the person who has died. How many men did you bed in my home,
Sophia
?” He turned all his rage at himself for falling in love with her outward and let the burning, biting fury he felt flow from him.

S
ophia had been telling herself she would not lose her temper again, but the nasty look he gave her, his awful accusation, and the way her mind kept chanting in disbelief that he was alive made her snap. After all the heartbreak he’d caused her, her blasted heart still wrenched for him, longed for him, and wanted only him. She hated herself for it, and it made her want to hurt him as much as he had hurt her.

“Hundreds!” she spat. “A new lover every day! Why, I could hardly wait for my mourning period to be over, so I could invite the men in and spread my legs!” The last words made bile rise in her throat, but she would die before ever taking them back.

There was no mistaking the hatred that blazed in his eyes. His lips pressed into a cold, hard line, and he leaned in until his mouth almost touched hers. “Well, my dear, then I shall have to sample what skills you have acquired as a lover, because when last we were together, you had much to learn.”

The threat and insult blew over her like a freezing winter wind, but the unmistakable tingle of desire to feel his hands on her again swirled in her belly and tightened her loins. She gritted her teeth at the way her treacherous body still responded to him. Anger at herself for loving him so desperately for so long, and at him for rising from the dead and upending her life once more, settled in her gut and burrowed into her bones. She could practically feel the rage rolling off him in hot waves, and it made her all the more angry that he would dare be mad at her! After all the love she’d given him that he’d thrown back in her face and he stood there so sure that she’d allow him to bed her once again.

“I will never succumb to your touch again, so you can forget sampling my skills. You will have to amuse yourself with fantasies of me because I vow I do not want your hands on my body.”

An amused smile came to his lips, and he raised his eyebrows in a disbelieving manner that infuriated her. “We shall see about that.”

The fact that he’d dropped his voice to a low, silky tone was not lost on her. He thought to seduce her! He thought she was that gullible and weak. She lifted her chin in defiance. “Don’t you dare put your hands on me.”

A wolfish smile crossed his face, and then suddenly he leaned forward and his mouth claimed hers. His kiss seared her body and her mind. She weakly thought to protest, but as his lips massaged hers with a silent command to open her mouth and let him in, her thoughts of protest seemed impossible to retain. She parted her lips and his tongue slid inside her mouth to tease her, torment her, and tantalize her. He tasted of whiskey, and by heaven, he tasted salty, as if the sea had become part of him. Before she knew it, she was clinging to him, grasping him, and he, blast him, had yet to touch her with his hands. His mouth blazed a fiery trail across her neck and between the valley of her breasts displayed by her daring gown. He licked her and lavished her, and she groaned in desperate need. The sound of her yielding moans froze her, as if she’d plunged into the frozen river water by her childhood home.

She whipped her eyes open, foggily wondering when she’d closed them, and looked down at the top of his head of thick black hair. His mouth was on her chest but his hands were still pressed against the wall on either side of her. How weak she was! She barely held in her sob.

“Stop,” she choked out.

He stilled immediately and raised his gaze to hers. The desire burning in his dark eyes whispered to her soul.

“If you truly want me to stop, I will. I will move back, allow you to leave this room, and never touch you again.”

Her heart rebelled at the thought, but her mind told her it was the wisest course of action. Yet the need to feel his hands on her pounded through her. He was her husband, she thought ruthlessly. Why shouldn’t she enjoy his body? She’d use him as men had been using women for centuries. She could allow him to bed her without allowing love to be part of it ever again.

“I no longer love you.” The words felt terribly wrong but she’d get used to saying them. She had to.

He swept his gaze down the length of her body, lingering quite obviously on her breasts, and then slowly his eyes came back to her face. “I did not say this was about love. This is desire.”

“Yes,” she said, unable to make her voice less throaty. She ached painfully with need. “Desire.
Only
desire.”

Before she knew what was happening, he swooped an arm under her legs and she found herself pressed against his hard, unrelenting chest as he strode toward his study door, reared back, and kicked it open. The doorframe rattled behind them as Nathan stomped through it, and she clung to him, her hands flat against his beating, very-much-alive heart. The moment was a dream come true, yet it would not have a happy ending.

As his footsteps pounded through the corridor toward the stairs, they passed the butler, whose eyes bugged at their approach before he immediately turned and headed the other way.

She knew she should feel ashamed that she’d relented to desire, but it was hard to feel anything beyond the swirling heat inside her body. Nathan took the steps two at a time and, to her horror, took her to the bedchamber he’d discovered her in last night. He glanced between her and the bed where she’d been lying half-naked last night, and his face took on the look of granite as he stared at the bed.

“Try not to judge my performance today too harshly. Remember, I’ve been chained to one spot on a slave ship for fourteen months where I ate, drank, slept, defecated, urinated, and rowed unless I volunteered to fight, and then I would sometimes kill a man or simply beat him before he tried to do the same to me.”

Tears filled her eyes at the horror of what he was telling her, even though she already overheard it, and at the emotionless way he was revealing it. The compassionate man she had glimpsed, the one who’d saved her from Moses and her father, and rescued her brother from near death was gone. Or maybe she had made him up in her head. But she didn’t make up the gifts he had bought her. Or the way he had decorated his home for her. Or the tenderness with which he had made love to her. She struggled to get her confusing emotions in order as he carried her across the room and laid her on the bed.

As he stared down at her, his eyes narrowed. “Is this where you took all your lovers, Sophia? Right here, in this bed?”

“Yes,” she lied, her pride refusing to let her admit to him that she had not even kissed another man but him.
Ever.
The closest she had come to being intimate with another man was when Mr. Frazier had put his hands on her breasts and that had made her feel ill.

“How many?” he demanded.

She jutted her chin out. “I told you. Hundreds.”

“I want an exact number.”

She despised the way he thought to command her. “One hundred and one.” The very idea was ridiculous. Surely he knew that.

“Then I will be one hundred and two,” he growled, reached his hands up and behind his back, and yanked off his shirt.

Her gaze riveted to the scars zigzagging across his rippling abdomen. Her mind recoiled, and her heart cried out at the evidence of the pain he had endured. And suddenly the anger burning in her chest was gone. No wonder he was so cold now. Becoming this emotionless, hate-filled person had been the only way to survive. It did not obliterate the past, but it changed how she felt now. She didn’t want to hate him anymore. Tears spilled down her face as he threw off his pants and the bed dipped with his weight.

“What’s this?” he mocked. “Do you want me to believe you’re crying tears for me?”

She bit her lip to keep from responding and saying anything more that would fuel the anger between them. Whatever else had happened, whatever ways he had hurt her and betrayed her, he had given her and her brother a new chance in life and every advantage money could offer, and in this moment, she wanted to offer him the tenderness she thought he needed.

“Your scars,” she whispered, reaching a shaking hand out to trace a finger over one that looked as if a whip had cut him from shoulder to hip.

He smiled without humor. “Ah, yes. Ravensdale and the other men who held me captive did so love to beat me. They wanted obedience and submission, you see.”

So much emotion clogged her throat she could barely talk, but she forced words out. “And did you give it to them?”

His eyes, so dark, glassy, and unforgiving they could have been chiseled from obsidian, locked on her. “I do not give pieces of myself to anyone. Surely you know that.”

She nodded, because she did know it and the pain was excruciating. She had foolishly thought she had captured his heart, but she now knew it had never been so. And her own heart stung with the knowledge and throbbed with the loss of hope.

He reached out and clasped a hand around the back of her neck to tug her close. His mouth came down over hers in a devastating kiss that stole her breath and her thoughts. Even if she had wanted to deny him, which she knew she did not, she could not have done so. Her body responded to his touch, whether her heart and mind wanted her to or not. Soon, she was ravaging his mouth with as much fervor and intensity as he was hers.

His kiss punished her lips in a way that sent sparks of aching need to her core. She moaned, and his lips softened while his tongue darted out to lick her and trace the seams of her mouth. She twined her hands through his thick hair and ran her nails across his scalp, feeling his muscles jump at her touch. She reveled in the fact that she could make him react to her. She may not have his heart, but in this moment, he desired her, and the bulging hardness of his shaft showed her he did not think her an object to be pitied anymore. Yet, she needed to hear him say it.

She pulled her mouth from his and leaned back so she could see his eyes. “What do you think of me? I know you must see I have changed?” She didn’t give a whit that she was practically begging for a compliment.

He smiled like a wolf about to pounce on prey. He tugged the bodice of her dress, along with her undergarments, down until both her breasts spilled out. “I think you are the most exquisite creature I have ever beheld. You are making me mad with desire. I want to do this.” He licked her right nipple and she hissed, which caused him to grin. “And I want to do this.” He took her left nipple in his mouth and suckled until she screamed, which he silenced with a long, drugging kiss. When he finally broke the contact, she felt boneless and barely able to move. She
was drugged
with need and desire.

He seemed to know her predicament because he pulled her up, scooped her off the bed, and made waste of her gown within moments. Then he turned her until her back was to his chest, and he moved them forward until she was inches from the wall. “Put your hands against the wall,” he commanded.

She didn’t hesitate to comply.

He slid one hand down between her legs and parted the secret folds of her body while his other hand found her nipple and circled it, pinched it, and teased it, making her moan from the dual pleasure he brought her. His fingers increased the pressure between her legs until she demanded he take her.

And he did. In one motion, both his hands disappeared and landed on her hips, and she was tugged backward as he thrust into her and filled her with his hot staff. He rode her hard and fast and with abandon, in a way he never had before, but she loved it and screamed her pleasure repeatedly, until a wave of ecstasy seized her and robbed her of the ability to scream. As she tensed and her body pulsed and sucked him in deeper, his mouth came to her neck and his arm across her chest to hold her in place as warmth poured into her and his fierce cry of release joined hers.