She saw the gleam in his beautiful green eyes and felt her heart quicken despite her principles. “All right,” she said, and arched upward to kiss him and press her breasts against his furred chest.
Hawk wasn’t feeling particularly urgent now, and took his time. He wanted the woman, his mistress, back, not the person. When his mouth caressed her belly, and his fingers found her and stroked her so expertly, so completely, Amalie sighed.
Then she said abruptly, “You should do that to your wife.”
His tongue became as still as his mind. He lifted his head to look up the length of her body to her face. “My God, I haven’t even kissed my wife! I told you that. One doesn’t do this to a wife, for God’s sake!” He dropped a quick kiss on her damp curls. “She would faint, she would have galloping hysterics, she would expire of lacerated sensibilities on the spot!”
“Bosh,” said Amalie. “What a ridiculous notion you men have of women. Is your wife fashioned differently from me?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Hawk said acidly. “I haven’t seen her body.”
“So it is your gentleman’s belief that a wife, a lady born and bred, hates the thought of coupling?”
“Your English is improving by leaps and bounds,” he said in the most sarcastic voice he could muster. His desire was as dead as three-day-old ashes in the grate.
“Of course, I told you I am not ignorant. Listen, mon faucon, how can you be so stupid?”
“I am not being stupid, thank you! I have treated her with the utmost respect, I have—”
“Stupid,” Amalie repeated firmly, warming to her subject. “You are not an ugly man. You have skill in giving a woman pleasure. And that should include a wife.”
“She is ugly, however,” he said. “She—”
“Is fat?”
“No, quite slender as a matter of fact. But her spectacles, her hair, her clothing—”
“So, mon cher, the fact is that you don’t wish to pleasure her as you do me? You are repelled by her, thus you hide behind this ridiculous notion that ladies are to be protected from gentlemen’s baser needs.”
“A damned philosopher,” he growled at her. “I don’t need you to preach at me, Amalie.”
“Spectacles can be removed,” she said gently, “and clothing can be removed as well.”
“But her hair—she looks like a nun, with her ridiculous ugly caps—”
“Stupid. Quite stupid, as I said. Caps, as well as everything else, can be removed.”
Hawk heard himself saying, most inappropriately, “I have wondered about her breasts ... Oh God, look at what you’ve brought me to! Just shut up. I wish to tend this particular garden, if you don’t mind.” He cupped his palm over the curls between her white thighs.
He brought both of them to pleasure again, but Amalie knew that he was abstracted.
A mistress taking a husband to task. She wished she could laugh. It would feel so good. But of course it would enrage him. Men were such sensitive creatures. Still ...
“Hawk,” she said softly, knowing he wasn’t yet asleep, “you shouldn’t treat her like this nun you speak about, you—”
“Amalie,” he said, impatient now, “I don’t wish to talk of her. She dislikes me heartily. She wouldn’t want me to touch her, even if I could bring myself to.”
“That sounds not right, mon cher. You can, when you wish, charm even that fat man, that Regent, n‘est-ce pas? And you have told me about that Brummell person and how you made him smile at one of your jests. You do not wish to spend your life with one who dislikes you. A wife—”
“Enough!” he roared, rolling off her. “It is your duty, Amalie, to see to my pleasure, to make me happy, not carry on like some sort of fishwi ... mistress!” He rose, hands on his lean hips, and stared down at her. Suddenly his eyes narrowed thoughtfully on her face.
“Why, Amalie?”
Amalie eased herself up, pulling the light coverlet over her body. “It is not right,” she said finally, not meeting his eyes.
He could only stare at her. “I think,” he said slowly, weariness overtaking him, “that I shall leave you now.”
She watched him dress, watched the firelight cast intriguing shadows on his golden body, playing over his smooth man’s flesh, the planes and angles of chest and belly. She sighed softly to herself. He said nothing more until he was fully clothed. He walked to the bed, bent down and kissed her, then straightened.