Chapter 35
Damien hurried Emily through the common room of the next inn on their journey. Travelers drank and diced while barmaids and waiters bustled about to satisfy the usual clientele. Smoke and the scent of meat roasting over a spit thickened the air. Emily kept her attention on the stairs at the end of the hall. Damien used his body as a barrier against the stares that she drew from the customers dining in the public area.
“Did a flame jump the fireplace, gentlemen?” one youth asked, craning his neck to watch Emily’s progress. “I swear it has suddenly become a bonfire in here.”
One of his friends, appraising Damien in a glance, cuffed the youth on the head and urged him back against his chair.
“All my life,” Emily muttered, dragging Damien by the hand, “I have been an object of controversy because of my hair. One would think that the young gent had never seen a red-haired woman in his life.”
Damien hesitated, as if he were debating whether to acknowledge the affront to Emily or not. “One would think that the sapskull had a desire to see the end of his life. I ought to teach him some manners.”
Emily half turned, realizing when she looked up at his stony face that he was serious. “We are not to draw notice to ourselves,” she said, tugging harder at his hand. “Perhaps I should wear a hat with a veil in future.”
“Perhaps.” He divided his attention between her and the room below as they climbed the staircase.
Soon all she could hear was the occasional laugh or clunk of a mug.
“I thought you had to go to desperate measures to attract notice from other men.”
“I did.” She halted on the first landing, feeling his eyes cut through her. “You, of all people, bore witness to my desperation.”
He turned, his hand grasping hers. “Have you ever traveled outside Hatherwood before?”
“No.”
He took the lead, drawing her from the landing to the next flight of stairs. The tumult below receded as they climbed. She saw the innkeeper open a door at the end of the hall. A moment later she was pulled into a candlelit room redolent of beeswax and rosemary. She took a breath.
Damien bolted the door and led her across the room as if he owned it. Perhaps he did. Who else in the world commanded the best chamber that an inn had to offer? Only a prince or nobleman. She would have thought she was dreaming, except for the soft thud of their two bodies on a bed whose solid rosewood frame absorbed the impact.
“You are worse than wicked,” she murmured between kisses and awkward pauses when he unfastened one or another part of her traveling dress. He pulled the bed curtains closed as an afterthought. She rescued the tapes of her skirt from his impatient tugs.
“You are never to attract the attention of another man in my presence.” He kissed and tenderly bit a trail down her throat to her swollen breasts. “Or outside my presence, either.”
She managed to answer between the gasps she would have preferred to quell. His hands caressed the curves of her hips. She closed her eyes to concentrate on maintaining a modicum of control. But when he parted her thighs, spreading her sex lips wide, she surrendered her dignity and wound her fingers through his hair. “I’ve never had a comment made like that about me before—only in jest.”
He laid his face against her bare thigh. She heard him inhale. The lulling pitch of his voice liquefied her bones. “In jest? No. An offer rudely made, yes. But you do understand that you’re a beautiful woman?”
“You can’t expect me to honestly believe that.”
She lifted her head to look at his face. The serious expression in his eyes made her feel dissolute. He knew how to entice a woman when he wanted pleasure, but even so his words pleased her. No one had ever told her she was beautiful before. Not even Iris or Lucy—or had they? Had she refused to believe them? If she had the ability to move from this bed, she might have gone to the mirror to see whether she had undergone a remarkable change.
Then again, what did a mirror’s reflection matter? She felt beautiful in his eyes. A woman could live in bliss when a man as magnetic as Damien found her desirable.
“I expect you to believe everything I tell you, Emily,” he said. “I’m not known to waste words.”
Nor time and opportunity. He had been stroking the bud of her cleft with an absorption that brought her to the edge twice before he pulled off his trousers and pressed himself inside her. Aching and damp, her body accepted his slow invasion; then she moved against him before she could curb the impulse. She couldn’t take enough of him inside her. Her muscles tensed but she still needed more of him.
His soft laughter resounded in the silence that enclosed them. “You have an appetite for passion. You’ll learn to like everything I do to you.”
“How do you know?” she whispered, breathless, waiting for him to keep his promise.
He angled his head to hers and licked slowly at her mouth. “Your body tells me.”
Infuriating man. He raised his hips and withdrew from her as if to show her what the punishment for resistance would be. “Darling,” he added. “It’s useless. Enjoy yourself. Let me enjoy you. I’ve played enough love games that I should know.”
“But I caught you without even trying,” she whispered, her voice wicked and victorious even if she was shocked to hear herself admit what she hadn’t realized until this moment.
His eyes locked with hers, and he went so still that she could only hold her breath and await his next move. His smile warned her, heightening the suspense until she shifted slightly, to end the anticipation or perhaps to provoke him.
“Is that a confession?” he asked softly.
“I have little experience to confess compared to yours.” He pressed inside her and began to move again. He filled her with a sharp pleasure that she felt to her spine. Her hips moved in the ritual that he had taught her. “You’re playing a game with me.”
“Yes.”
“That isn’t fair.”
“Fair doesn’t matter. You belong to me.” He bent his head and kissed her so deeply that she forgot what she had just said. She raised her hand to his wrist and slid her fingers up his arm to his shoulder, his neck. When he ended the kiss she was desperate, tempted to tell him that he had proved he could control her if he chose. He thrust faster now, deeper. He thrust until the echo of his mocking voice faded in her mind.
Fair doesn’t matter. You belong to me.
They had only three days together before they reached the castle. So far on this journey Emily had learned a new lesson from her husband every night. At this rate she would soon be able to apply her knowledge to show him what she decided was fair. As long as they remained safe. He had been afraid for her today. Their honeymoon would have been bliss if not for the menace that shadowed their every move.