‘They did, I just thought...’ She stopped.
He lifted a brow. ‘You thought what?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’ She fussed with the material of her sarong, making a knot between her breasts. ‘I’m here anyway. As you ordered.’
He was tempted to push her on whatever it was that didn’t matter and why exactly she was so annoyed, but decided it could wait until dinner. Right now, he was here to inform her of his arrival, nothing more.
‘Indeed, you are,’ he murmured, his gaze dropping to where her hands fussed with the knot of her sarong, drawing attention to the shadowed valley between her breasts. He could imagine undoing that knot and tugging aside the cup of her bikini, letting one full breast spill into his palm...
No.Theos, this had to stop.
Ares had to consciously drag his gaze back to her face. Yet again, she must have noticed him looking, because another blush turned her cheeks a deep rose and her hands had dropped away from the knot.
Irritation with himself and his recalcitrant body coiled like a snake in his gut, though a distant part of him found it interesting that she was blushing instead of showing any fear. He’d thought it likely that she’d been manhandled back in the compound because she was beautiful and no doubt there had been men who’d viewed her as something they could take. The chances of her being untouched were remote and so he was expecting fear not embarrassment.
Yet he didn’t think it was fear that made her blush.
‘You will have to get used to me looking at you, little maid,’ he said, since there was no point denying he hadn’t been, and since if he was going to teach her exactly what she’d got herself into, he might as well start right now. ‘That is what a husband does with a wife. He also does more than look. Especially if he wants children.’ He watched her face for fear as he said it, or even trepidation. But there was none.
Instead, that small spark of temper glittered brighter in her eyes.
Three months earlier he’d noticed that spark, the flicker of a warrior spirit, and it seemed that the past three months of freedom had only fanned the flames.
Good. He liked that. It was better than the guardedness she’d displayed earlier and definitely better than fear.
You never wanted a doormat for a wife.
No. No, he did not.
‘Fine, then let’s get on with trying for them now,’ she said tartly. ‘Might as well get the first attempt over and done with.’
For a second, he almost laughed and then realised she wasn’t joking. She truly did not understand, did she?
‘Little maid,’ he said with some patience. ‘That is not what we agreed on. I told you that claiming my rights as a husband would only happen if and when you decide to stay married to me. And only after a year has passed.’ He gave her a direct look. ‘And if you decide to stay, there will be no “getting it over and done with” about any attempt at children. Do you understand me?’
She scowled. ‘It’s just sex. What do you care?’
Ares opened his mouth. Closed it again. Then pondered an appropriate response. She didn’t seem to be scared at the thought of sleeping with him. She could be pretending, of course, but he didn’t think she was. Had she managed to escape assault while in the compound? Or maybe she hadn’t. Maybe she’d become inured to it.
At that thought, the sullen anger he’d experienced in Ivan’s study that night flickered to life inside once again. At what might have happened to Rose and how helpless she would have been to stop it. Again, he did not appreciate the feeling.
Over the past three months he’d been steadily gathering information on Ivan and his business. He was still pondering the best course of action, but was erring on the side of armed men storming Ivan’s house and legalities be damned.
It was no less than what the man deserved.
‘That is something we can discuss later tonight,’ he said at last, deciding this was not the time to talk about it. ‘Over dinner.’
‘Dinner?’ She didn’t sound any less irritated by this. ‘That’s what you came here for? Dinner?’
‘I am here so we can get to know one another,’ he said mildly. ‘So, you have some idea about what being a wife means. And dinner is part of that. In fact, I have dinner planned every night—’
‘No,’ Rose interrupted flatly.
Ares blinked, completely nonplussed. ‘No? What do you mean no?’
‘You didn’t marry me to get to know me.’ She was looking distinctly angry now. ‘You married me because you wanted children. That’s what you said. So, let’s have sex and then I can leave, because I have other, more important things to do than hang around waiting for you.’
Rose stared angrily at her husband, totally forgetting that she’d decided to take a wary and watchful approach to him, and not to let her temper get the better of her.