He sounded cranky. He couldn’t help it. Four weeks ago, his life had been exactly as he wished. He’d been poised on the brink of a brilliant career. He’d been as free as a bird, and as happy as a spring lamb at Glen Lyon.
Since then, he’d endured a month of putting a good face on an engagement he didn’t want. He’d borne Emily’s barely hidden disdain, the snickering of his friends and colleagues, the prospect of professional ruin. And all without a tip-top swiving of his new bride to look forward to as compensation for his trouble.
Good God, a saint would be disgruntled.
"But I left you downstairs, saying I didn’t want to see you."
What was new? She never wanted to see him. "People can change their mind."
"Only a lunatic could undergo such a change in mere hours."
"Is that so?" he asked on a rising intonation.
He would not lose his temper. He wouldn’t. His pestilential temper never helped matters. Look at the disaster he’d sparked the last time he got angry. But his good intentions grew shakier by the minute.
"Yes, it is."
She squirmed again, which given the circumstances wasn’t wise. He closed his eyes and did long division in his head as her supple body slid and shifted around his. It turned out even long division couldn’t distract him from what he burned to do to his wife.
"You’re turning me into a lunatic," he muttered.
Wisely she didn’t respond to that. "For pity’s sake, will you get off? You’re crushing me."
"With pleasure," he bit out, although disentangling himself from yards of flannel and piles of winter bedding proved more of a task than he’d like.
All this wriggling around wasn’t conducive to sticking to the straight and narrow. Although one part of him was very straight indeed. The rest of him might be vastly displeased with his bride, but his dick liked her very much and had ambitions to get much closer.
He rolled off her, which didn’t put him nearly far enough away from temptation. So he left the bed and marched into the middle of the room. Behind him, he heard rustling bedclothes. Such an evocative sound. After a few seconds, light flickered.
He swallowed a groan and closed his eyes. His jaw ached from all the gritting of teeth. "No, don’t light the candle…"
It was too late.
Sitting propped up against the pile of pillows, Emily stared at him wide-eyed. "Dear heaven."
Her appalled gaze roamed every inch of his body. His bare and massively aroused body.
If his presence was a genuine mistake, he couldn’t blame her for her reaction. Even decently clad, he was a huge bugger. In a virginal lady’s bedroom in the middle of the night, he must seem as unnatural and terrifying as a naked giant.
In the uncertain light, he saw her turn as red as a beetroot. He blushed, too, when her gaze inevitably dropped to where his cock rose in brazen demand. "That’s not what they look like on the statues in the British Museum."
"For pity’s sake…" With fumbling hands, he grabbed for the bedcover and hauled it around his waist.
Still she stared at him…there. He suffered the horrid sensation that those clever hazel eyes pierced the rumpled swathe of material to where he was hard and heavy and ready. After far too long, she raised her gaze to his.
With a shock, he realized she no longer looked appalled. Instead she looked curious. The expression was familiar. This was how she looked when a new scientific theory caught her attention. He wasn’t sure whether he preferred this clinical interest to having his wife despise him as a ravisher of innocent maidens.
"I didn’t think you were interested," she said in wonder.
Battling for control, he ground his teeth together. "Well, it’s bloody obvious that I am."
When she licked her lips, his cock twitched. He smothered another groan.
"That’s so like you, Hamish. Just because you can’t have me, you want me."
"You do me an injustice. I’ve wanted you for years," he snapped. The night had been a trial for his already limited tolerance. He’d give her the truth, whether it disgusted her or not. "I might be stupid, but I’m not shallow."
With an alarmed squeak, she pressed back against the bedhead. It was the reaction he should have expected, but it still stung.