“I have never dishonored our vows.”
Her steps faltered, and her fingers dug into his arm. “Thank you, Oscar,” she said softly.
Instead of the knot around his chest loosening, it tightened even further. He felt like a damn bounder. It was evident she had thought him an unfaithful cad for all the years he had ignored her. It also gutted him she would believe him to be a man of such rank dishonor that he would betray vows made before God and his wife.
I cannot blame my wife for not knowing me.
And at that moment, he wished their marriage would never revert to the polite and frequently cold civility of the past. Oscar couldn’t bear the thought after experiencing the warmth of her smile, the beauty of her sparkling eyes, or the pleasure of her laugh.
Several minutes later, he assisted his countess into the parked carriage. She settled on the seat opposite him with a gusty sigh. Tipping her head back against the swabs pushed her breasts out and bared the arch of her lovely neck.
For a wild moment, he wondered if his wife was trying to entice him. She had stormed into his room a few nights back and kissed him. Though it had been a brief caress, which aroused his senses, he had felt the anger in it.
After months of frustrated longing, maybe a kiss or two was what they needed to explore their compatibility as man and wife.
“Prue?”
She shifted her gaze to his. “Husband?”
“A few nights ago, you opened that connecting door between us for the first time in years.”
Her eyes suddenly sparked with a brilliant light. “That I did.”
“Why?”
“I wanted to be a wife in more than name,” she said huskily.
His heart started to beat a swift tempo. “You are certain of this desire?”
“Yes.”
He did not understand it, and while the change in her enticed him, it also perplexed Oscar. What was responsible for his wife transforming from a shy miss who stuttered and could not meet his eyes, who would faint at the thought of bedding him, to this daring creature who held his stare without blushing or lowering her lashes?
“I am a man of varied sexual experience,” he said, folding his arms across his chest and watching her from beneath lowered lashes. “Since you fainted on our wedding night, I determined I would wait until you were…more mature before I considered bedding you. Your shyness and anxiety were the reasons I stayed from your bed, countess. I realized you were simply too young for the demands I would make on your body.”
A slight frown drew her brows together, but she made no reply.
“I promise you countess…they are explicit and strenuous demands which would be shocking to a lady of your profoundly delicate sensibilities.”
“How exhilaratingly phrased,” she murmured with provocative humor glinting in her dark-green eyes.
Perhaps I need not wait anymore to consummate our marriage. The thought slid darkly tempting against his senses.
“You are very different than the girl I married.”
That girl had been unable to look at him without blushing.
“The woman before me seems as if she yearns for adventure…passion…there is nothing at all shy about her.”I like it a lot.
To Oscar’s undying shock, she lifted a foot and slowly rested it beside his right thigh, the motion dragging the skirts of her gown up to her shin. Then she lifted the other foot and placed it beside his left thigh. The fragrant scent of her surrounded him, seducing Oscar.
Bloody hell. He blinked, but the scintillating and provocative vision did not dissipate. He was perfectly positioned between her spread legs with her dress ridden up to reveal silken stockings. If he were to grip her ankles, tug them at the same time he bore down on her, his cock would fit perfectly against her quim. “Prudence—”
He had to stop speaking, for his voice was a damn croak.
“Do I seem shy and stuttering to you now, husband?”
“No.”