“What the hell are you wearing?” he rasped, his fingers gripping the brass knob of the door so tight he briefly considered that he might break it.
Dani glanced down, briefly familiarising herself with her attire. “Oh, this old thing?”
Her voice, he noted, was trembling and he had to fight off the urge to grin. But this was hardly a time to find her amusing. As it was he was half mad with wanting her. He needed to be focused, assured of his convictions that he would not be responsible for hurting her anymore… damn that peignoir! “Danielle,” he began raggedly, intending to order her to burn the sodding thing, “take it off.”
“W-what?” she squeaked.
Damn. This was not going well. “What I meant-” He couldn’t finish what he had started to say because of the sudden look that come across her face- confident, determined- and the way her hand rose to little pink ribbon securing the peignoir closed between her breasts. Oh, God, she wasn’t about to do what he thought she was, was she? “Don’t!”
Those blue eyes lifted to his questioningly. “Are you sure?”
“Danielle, what are you doing?”
She cocked her head to the side adorably. “Isn’t it obvious?”
Rhys squeezed his eyes shut, hoping that by not looking at her he could endeavour to control the rampaging demands of his body. “You don’t know what you’re doing,” he told her hoarsely.
“Well,” she retorted indignantly and Rhys conjured a clear image of her standing before him, her hands on her hips as she glared up at him. He felt his lips twitching. “That may be so, but at least I am willing to learn.”
“Oh, God, Danielle, why?”
“Look at me, Rhys,” she commanded softly and Rhys, despite the protestations of his mind, obeyed. She seemed to take a deep breath before she next spoke. “I’m not asking for much. I’m asking for a chance. I love you, with all of my body and heart, and it wouldn’t be right to hold anything back-”
Her words were cut short when his control snapped like the brittle thread it was and he pulled her to him, crushing her soft body into his hard contours and seeking her lips with his own. She opened for him willingly, wonderfully, and Rhys could hardly deny the need raging through him, the blood pounding in his temples, the fervent heat searing his skin. He couldn’t deny her innocent seduction, he couldn’t deny her love, he couldn’t deny her anything.
And he wanted her.
Lord, how he wanted her.
She moaned incomprehensibly beneath him, the sound driving him wild. His arms tightened around her waist, his lips demanding more and when she returned his ardent kisses, he groaned, a shudder rippling through his body.
A bed. He needed to find a bed. Fast.
Growling inarticulately, he tore his lips away from hers, scooped her into his arms with effortless ease, and carried her to the bed in her chambers. She sat up on her elbows, her eyes imploringly beckoning him back to her as he stood at the edge, staring down at her, imprinting the image into his memory forever.
He admired the curve of her thigh, the shape of her legs as they peeked through the slits along the sides of the peignoir, all the while his body was pounding for immediate release, demanding it. With erratic, impatient movements, Rhys tore off his shirt, then his trousers and the rest of his attire. He watched as a blush stained her cheeks. He had to admire the way she refused to lower her gaze from his chest, to cast her eyes down demurely. Rather, she studied him boldly, openly admiring his form and physique and Rhys allowed her to. He briefly considered teasing her but thought better of it, too concerned with the urgency of his body and the desire to lose himself in the woman before him.
He joined her on the bed, lying on his side so that he faced her, enjoying the way her blush crept up her neck and over her cheeks. “Look at me,” he ordered huskily, mimicking the words she had spoken to him but moments before, and she did, her eyes so blue and wide and lovely and Rhys was lost. He crushed his mouth to hers, his fingers lacing through the hair at her nape, tilting her face to his. She tasted sweet and welcoming and the silken fabric of her peignoir shifted against his skin when he pressed her to him.
Despite all her preparations and thoughts about how the evening would progress, Dani had never imagined it would be quite like this. This was amazing. He was amazing, sensual, and the things he did to her… it was more than she could have ever hoped for and dreamed of. The little sounds of surprise and passion were completely involuntary, caused by an ardent shift of their bodies, the feel of his hand on her thigh, bunching the silk of the peignoir up to her waist or his palm closing around her breast. The heat, the need, was suffocating, and she found that she couldn’t get enough of him.
He was magnificent, powerful, and so very big. Her hands glided over the corrugated planes of his abdomen lovingly, revelling in the velvety warm feel of him, his hardness. She pressed her body into his, moulding herself to him and shivering in delight when her belly surged against that incredibly hot and hard part of him.
His hands scoured her limbs as if he couldn’t get enough of her, his mouth plundering hers and taking from her all that she could give him. Then his fingers worked deftly with the pink ribbon holding the peignoir together and he positioned her onto her back, spreading the material open as his eyes appraised her naked, flushed body. She forced herself not to hide from him, to let her shyness overwhelm her and cover her exposure, hoping that he would appreciate that this was all of her, everything she was, just for him.
Rhys moaned, his eyes squeezed shut as he dropped his head to her neck, his hot breath skittering along her fevered skin enticingly. “God,” he rasped, his lips brushing back and forth along her collarbone, “you’re so beautiful.” And his mouth was suddenly on her breast.
“Oh my God!”
His mouth, his teeth and his wicked tongue- it was too much. She was going to die. She writhed beneath him, her fingers flexing in the soft locks of his hair, uncontrollably holding him to her while his hand trailed tantalizingly up along her inner thigh until his fingers found a most secret of places between her legs.
“Rhys!”
A muffled, hungry growl was his response.
He positioned himself on top of her, supporting his weight on his forearms to either side of her head and nestled his hips against hers, cradled by her warmth. Dani noted a pained expression on his face, the dark locks of his hair falling forward to brush her face gently. “I’m sorry,” he said gravelly, brushing his lips against her mouth.
“For what?”
“I might hurt you.”
She smiled up at him, allowing all the love she held for him to surface in that smile, her hand rising to the side of his face where his scars marred his skin, tracing her fingers carefully along the whitened skin there. “I love-” She wasn’t allowed to finish the sentence. Rhys suddenly tensed, groaned, and dipped his head, cutting her words off abruptly while his mouth played havoc on her senses and he began to enter her, carefully at first and then with a sudden thrust-
She gasped. The pain was exquisite but it faded quickly to be replaced by such an inexplicably dire need she thought she would explode with it. He was moving, driving her towards something she could feel churning within her, fuelled by the force of her love for him and the sheer need for him, and when she reached it, her body trembled and tightened around him with the power of it, her fingers flexing into the muscles of his back as he stilled and buried his face against her neck, his body tense and taut and hard.
Spent.
They remained like that for several moments; the only sound in the chamber the mingling of their ragged breaths.
Not in her wildest imaginings had she believed something could be so wonderful, so beautiful.
Rhys rolled to his side, taking her with him, and loosely draped his arm against her hips. His eyes were squeezed shut, as if he was in a severe amount of pain, and Dani frowned. Tentatively, she touched his cheek and those golden eyes snapped open. She inwardly flinched at the guilt, the pain,
she beheld in them.
“I shouldn’t have done that,” he whispered coarsely.
“What?” Uncaring that she was as naked as the day she was born she sat up and glared down at him. “How can you say something like that?”
“I’m sorry.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “For what exactly? I’ll not have you apologise for what we just did.”
He didn’t say anything, just regarded her expressionlessly before swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. “Where are you going?” she demanded.
He ran a hand through his tousled hair and turned to face her. “I was a fool,” he said. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
“I didn’t deceive you,” she blurted, hurt that this could still be an issue between them after all they had been through. “Please, believe me. I didn’t trick you. I didn’t mean for Victoria to find us in the gallery that day. You must know that by now?”
A muscle in his jaw flexed. “Dani, I’ve hurt you,” he explained brokenly. “I can’t live with myself as it is. I don’t deserve you.”
“Well, you have me! I’m your wife. I’m not going anywhere and I don’t want to. I want you.”
He squeezed his eyes shut before turning his back to her, leaving the room and closing that damn adjoining door after him. “You STUPID man!” Dani yelled at his back, furiously throwing a pillow at the closed door.
Crossing her arms and forcing herself not to cry, she wondered what she was to do now. An angry husband she could deal with, but this? She couldn’t even pinpoint what precisely this was. Guilt? Perhaps. Well, at least he certainly wanted her.
Chapter 26
Rhys spent a sleepless night barricaded in his study after he left Dani’s chambers.
The picture of those forlorn blue eyes, bright with unshed tears, had been too much for him. So was the knowledge that she was right next door and wanting him.
But he knew he couldn’t have her. Already, he’d hurt her unbelievably and he’d been such a fool with those accusations. Dani was not deceitful and she had would not have deceived him into marriage. She may have wanted it, yes, but he was sure now that it had never been her intention to fool him. Her poignantly sweet declarations of her love were testament to that and he had been a fool to not have seen it for what it was. Remorse swept through him, pricking his heart with guilt and shame. He had been despicable, an utter cad.
He had watched as the sky lightened with a new day, dimmed by the cover of low clouds that were full with the promise of rain. A brisk wind carried a chill across the trees spread over the lawn of Falmouth and Rhys studied this all dispassionately, his only thought of the woman who could make him lose himself in her.
It was nearly mid-morning when Rhys witnessed his only carriage brought to the front of the castle drive and several footman laden it with trunks- Dani’s trunks.
She was leaving.
His heart ached.
Rhys couldn’t blame her. He knew why she was leaving, why she had chosen to do so. He wasn’t making life easy for her here at Falmouth, being married to a beast. It would be best for her to find some place to reside where she could be happy, where she could forget about him and continue with her life.
But, Rhys thought, after the previous evening there was the possibility that she could be with child- his child. Spasmodically, his hands clenched at the thought- his own son or daughter. It had never been a possibility up until now. A family, people he could love and who loved him in return.
He shook the thoughts from his head, too painful to consider or even imagine. Dani was right to leave him. If there was a child… well, he would have to make a decision about that later. There was every possibility that she wasn’t carrying his child, too.
At the soft knock at his door, Rhys unconsciously uttered the word, “Enter,” but his eyes were fastened on the carriage from his window.
He sensed her cross the threshold and felt the unease she brought into the study with her.
“I’ve come to inform you that I’m leaving,” Dani told him anxiously and Rhys turned to her, noting that she was twisting the ribbons of her bonnet between clinched fingers held in front of her.
His heart gave an agonizing lurch, yearning to hold her in his arms, to bury his face in the delicious strands of hair that smelt like honey and all things pure. But he resisted the urge and contented himself just with the sight of her looking demure and unsure and beautiful in the middle of his study in one of those dresses that just didn’t quite fit properly but looked endearing nonetheless.
When the silence drew itself out uncomfortably, Dani gave him a stern look and tilted her stubborn little chin up a notch. He longed to kiss it. “I see you’ve put the cloak back on,” she noted, annoyed.
“Yes.”
The bottom of her dress made a subtle and sudden movement and Rhys suspected that she had just stamped her foot in frustration, the impact muffled by the thick rug she was standing on. “Why are you being so ridiculous?” she hissed, throwing her hands in the air, the bonnet dangling wildly from her fingertips.
“I don’t blame you for leaving, Danielle,” he explained in a low voice.
“Why?” she demanded, giving him a dark look. “You should. You should be fighting to make this marriage work. Lord knows I have.”
“I’ll not hurt you again.”
She rolled her eyes. “Oh, that’s just ridiculous,” she muttered furiously and crossed her arms. “Fine, be like that. I’ll be staying with Victoria until you come to your senses.”
“It’s going to rain,” he pointed out, not sure why he did so but maybe just to keep her in his presence for a moment longer.
She gave him one of those disbelieving looks before turning on her heel and prancing out of the study. He didn’t deny himself the torture of watching her go and did not divert his gaze from studying her form as she climbed into the carriage aided by a footman, the strong wind blowing the bonnet from her neatly coiffured head and tautening the material of her gown across her thighs and midriff.
He sighed dismally and reached for the brandy.
“Well,” Grayson’s voice drawled from the threshold of the study, “you’ve certainly botched things up this time, my lord.”
“Shut up.”
Within five minutes of having departed Falmouth Castle, the heavens opened and fat, relentless droplets of rain began to pummel Dani’s carriage. Moodily, she also detected a leak. Trust the earl of Falmouth to own such a contraption. It hadn’t probably seen a single day of repair since its day of purchase.
Dani sullenly studied the passing landscape that was as bleak as she felt, desolate and comparatively gothic. A brooding romantic would find plentiful inspiration from the melancholic scenery shrouded in dark and the hovering clouds laden with threat. It had been a last resort to leave Rhys, but she felt that she had very little option left to her. By leaving him, she was letting him know that it was up to him to fix this, to make this marriage work. She had done all she could, given him all that she had. It was under his directive now and all Dani could do was wait it out and pray that he did indeed come to his senses.
Her back ached with protest, the hard uncomfortable seats of the Ashcroft carriage biting into her spine. She would be immobile later because of this, another blame to lie at his door. Silly man.
Dani had been through a lot in her young years. For goodness sake, she’d toppled from a horse and nearly broke her back; she’d nursed an ailing mother fighting with depression, and she had emerged from all those situations the better. With Rhys… well, the man was quickly becoming the most vexing thing she had ever dealt with before.
Harrumphing in a very unladylike manner, Dani pulled the book she had brought along to read and flipped it open in her lap just as the carriage gave a vicious lurch, tumbling her to the floor with a painful jolt.
Her back convulsed with agony, jarring awkwardly against the unrelenting wooden edge of the bench.
“I say,” she called, thumping on the w
all to get the driver’s attention, “is everything alright?”
The only answer that was forthcoming was a series of violent jerks before the coach veered sharply to the left and began to tilt. She was thrown against something hard, her back colliding against it with piercing agony, before blackness surrounded her and the pain abated.
It was late afternoon when Rhys received word that George Smith had called on him at Falmouth. Of foul-temperament and ill-disposition due to the increasing hours spent without Dani’s presence at the castle, Rhys hardly felt compelled to converse with the authoritative old man but he couldn’t very well refuse him an audience. After all, he was his wife’s uncle and one of her only living relatives.
Grayson, unbelievably, showed George to Rhys’s study and ushered the man inside. He ambled slowly towards the large, dark desk as he scrutinised all the various displays and shelves within the study with an experienced eye. When George finally reached Rhys’s desk, he sniffed the air thoughtfully before announcing, “You’re foxed.”
“You’re correct,” Rhys retorted, finding his tongue decidedly thick nestled within his mouth. Definitely needed some more brandy to loosen it up. He reached for the decanter and shook it in George’s direction. “May I offer?”
There was a look of stern disapproval on George’s countenance having been a man never to turn to an alcoholic vice in all his life. It was there but an imperceptible moment before it disappeared and he relented with a wave of his hand. “You’d best pour yourself a glass,” he told Rhys, “you’re going to need it when you hear what I’ve got to say.”
Rhys sloshed the amber liquid into the tumbler on his desk, missing much of the glass, before asking, “You’ve come to speak about Dani.”
“Yes,” George said slowly.
“You’ve come to tell me off.”
George gave him a dark glance. “We can save that for later,” he told him sharply. “Rhys, it is not your behaviour that brings me here today, which I am told has been quite deplorable and worthy of some form of reprimand. Regardless, that is not my reason for visiting.”
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