Seven Wicked Nights (Turner #1.5)

THAT NIGHT, CAT EYED HER BED distastefully. It was a lovely contraption, covered in lavender silk shot through with silver. But it seemed torturous to consider another night spent tossing and turning within its confines.

She glared at the door connecting her room with Jamie’s. Twice now, she’d thought she heard his footsteps crossing toward the door. Twice now, she’d waited in trembling anticipation for…nothing.

A big, bewildering, disappointing nothing.

She would never be able to sleep.

Not after she had felt his hands on her earlier that day. Not after he’d almost kissed her. And certainly not after the naughty thoughts that had punctuated her evening.

Cat tightened her dressing robe. Really, she ought to just knock on the door herself. She and Jamie had much they needed to discuss. This business of him requiring an heir did not supersede the reason he had abandoned her in the first place.

They must settle this thing between them once and for all.

Cat marched across her room and rapped her knuckles on the door.

“Enter.” She couldn’t tell if Jamie sounded surprised. Could wood absorb such a thing?

She opened the door and stepped into her husband’s bedchamber.

Jamie was relaxed back on his bed dressed in nothing but loose trousers. Her gaze immediately landed on the tanned skin of his chest. Elegant, thick muscles rounded and corded across his shoulders and abdomen.

My goodness.

She couldn’t recall for a startling moment why she’d entered his room. Her eyes trailed downward, over his sculpted abdomen to the top of his trousers.

Jamie cleared his throat. “Good evening, Cat.”

She blinked, trying to clear the hard, lean sight of him from her mind. But she tumbled through memories. The hot silk of his skin. The tang of salt as she pressed her tongue to his muscle. The way he filled her, rode her, pleasured her.

Jamie’s chest expanded on a long inhalation. Cat’s body followed.

She dragged her gaze up all that hard beauty into his eyes. “What are you planning to do, Jamie?”

He lifted his brows. “Planning to do?”

“Are you going to visit my rooms?”

His mouth curved up at the edges. “I’d thought to give you some time. If you are ready now—”

She stepped back. “And what then? Will you stay here at Forster Abbey, or will you leave again?” She did not like the nervousness in her voice.

The bed creaked as he pushed himself up and onto to his feet. His trousers fell low across his abdomen, revealing curious dips and hollows. “This could not wait for morning?”

“No.” No, this could not wait for morning. She could not wait.

Jamie scrubbed his hand through his dark hair, leaving it standing on end. “The answer is yes, I plan to stay at Forster Abbey.”

Cat dipped her chin in a sharp nod. The creation of a child did not require love. It did not even require forgiveness. But a marriage did. And she did not want to bring an innocent baby into an unhappy family.

The ultimate question remained. Would he ever forgive her?

She looked up and met his eyes. Her palms began to sweat. “We need to talk about what happened.”

He scrubbed his hand through his hair again. “To what do you refer, exactly?”

“The affair. Or the non-affair, as it were. You do believe me, don’t you?”

“Yes, I believe you. I always did.”

Cat felt her shoulders drop. Thank God he understood. As well he should have. He had known for weeks that Simpson was trying to seduce Lady Allysandra, not her. Indeed, Simpson was a notorious rake known for his conquests of tall brunettes. Cat was neither tall nor a brunette. She took a few tentative steps toward Jamie. “It was terrible luck that I was discovered with Sim—”

“It was not an act of luck, Cat.” Jamie leaned one shoulder against his bedpost and crossed his arms.

She stopped her approach, rooted by his frustrated tone and the hard expression on his face. He was still angry, even these five years later.

Tight lines bracketed his mouth. “You went out onto the balcony willingly and on purpose.”

Yes, to warn her friend, stubborn man. “She was engaged to a duke.”

“She was a bloody fool.” And so were you. He did not say the words, but they hung in the air regardless.

“Everything happened so quickly.” What a nightmare that evening had been. Cat had never intended for people to believe she was the one having the affair. “I was just trying to protect Ally. She would have been absolutely ruined.”

“And what about me, dear wife?” Jamie’s voice was quiet and barely stirred the air in the room. “Were you so worried what others would think of me?”

Truthfully, she hadn’t been thinking of him. She’d been thinking of her exciting friendship with a soon-to-be-duchess. She’d been thinking of flirtations and intrigues and the entertainment of her first London Season. Not her new husband. She looked down at the floor.