LITMIR.BIZ

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when he had carried her in his arms, the feel of his body and the strength of his hold. She bent to kiss Alice’s cheek and felt an answering pressure on the top of her head as if he had laid his cheek there for a moment, or pressed his lips to her hair in a kiss. Her heart fluttered, then she realised he must be acting for their guests.

      The smile was perfect on her lips when she straightened and she did not look back as she swept back into the centre of the room. She could act, too, be the loving stepmama who was still less to the child than Alice’s papa was. Someone made an observation and Laura nodded in agreement. ‘Indeed, Mrs Nicholson. Such a delightful child, so pretty and affectionate. So easy to love.’

      * * *

      Three hours later Laura sat bolt upright in the big bed with its froth of lace and net hangings and tried to decide what to do. Avery would be coming in soon, she had no doubt. He would insist on his marital rights until she was with child, of that she was certain.

      But she was equally certain he would not force her. She could say no, but that would be to break her word to be a good wife, and besides, she wanted him to make love to her.

      A somewhat humiliating realisation, that. But she loved him and she desired him and she knew he made love with toe-curling skill: she would have to be perverse indeed to recoil from him because he did not love her.

      She could do what ladies were supposed to do, or, at least, what some young ladies were told was proper: lie still and allow one’s husband to do what he wanted. Laura suspected that Avery, if he did not laugh himself sick at the sight of her apeing a virtuous lady, would treat that response as the equivalent of a refusal.

      A draught of air amidst the draperies was the only clue that the door leading from hers into Avery’s bedchamber had opened. Laura stiffened, unprepared and with no plan at all for what would happen next.

      Her husband appeared beside the bed clad in a vivid red-and-green banyan, a tight smile and, apparently, not a lot else. Laura swallowed.

      ‘Shall I put out the candles?’ He must have noticed the convulsive movement of her throat.

      It was a tiny kindness, but it made up her mind. ‘No, thank you. I want to see you.’

      Avery lifted one eyebrow, untied the sash, dropped it to the floor, shrugged out of the heavy silk and stood regarding her quizzically. Laura stared back, then let her gaze slide slowly down over the sculpted muscles of his chest, the flat belly, the dark hair, to the inescapable evidence that whatever else her new husband was feeling it was not rampant sexual desire for his wife.

      Laura closed her mouth and studied her interlaced fingers on top of the satin coverlet.

      ‘I have discovered,’ Avery said drily, ‘that it is one thing making statements in the heat of anger and another altogether to carry them out.’ He tugged on the banyan again and sat on the end of the bed, his back against one of the carved posts. ‘It occurred to me that you would be lying there expecting me to march in and... Hell, I can’t find a word that isn’t downright crude or—’

      ‘You certainly do not want to say, make love,’ Laura agreed.

      His mouth tightened at the sarcasm. ‘—have you, whether you want it or not. You wouldn’t be aroused, I would hurt you.’

      ‘Many, perhaps most, men would, without a second thought.’

      ‘I am not most men.’

      No, my love, you are not and that is why I love you, despite everything. ‘I cannot think of an unexceptional euphemism either. Would it help if I said I would like to have sex with you?’

      ‘You would?’ The unfastened banyan fell open as he shifted to look directly at her. He was not so very far from arousal after all, or perhaps her frankness was stimulating.

      ‘I think you would have noticed if you repelled me. Despite everything, I enjoyed lying with you before. You must have noticed that.’ Laura pulled the ribbon tie of her negligée open. Catlike Avery watched the moving silk. ‘Women do enjoy sex, you know. They don’t have to fool themselves by imagining they are in love, or have to be wanton and abandoned.’

      It was half the truth. She wanted him, badly, yet just as badly did not want the suspicion and hostility that lay between them like a hedge of thorns. She needed tenderness and affection and the slow slide of those long brown fingers across her flesh, the gentle torture of his mouth on her body.

      ‘Then let us, as you say, lie together and whatever follows from that.’ Avery flipped back the covers and shifted up the bed to prop himself on one elbow next to her. She could not imagine speaking so frankly with any other man under such circumstances. Somehow that very ease made her sadder. They could have so much, share so much if only they did not have this history between them.

      Bold, because she knew what she wanted and needed him to want it, too, Laura pushed the heavy silk from his shoulders and ran her fingers into his hair, pulling him down to kiss her. Avery obliged, his fingers deft in the ties of her negligée, the urgency in contrast to the slow, almost lazy sweep of his tongue between her lips.

      Avery disposed of her nightgown with an efficiency that made her smile against his mouth. One warm hand moved down her body, slid between her thighs. She was ready for him, embarrassingly so if she had a particle of shame left in her. Laura pressed against the questing fingers, arched into his palm to find it gone. He shifted his weight over her, nudged her thighs apart with his knee and entered her in one hard stroke.

      Surprised, yet excited, Laura curled her legs around his hips and looked up into his face. Avery’s eyes were closed, his face stark, the tendons of his throat taut. He thrust steadily without kissing her, his hands still on the pillow beside her head. Laura struggled to meet his rhythm, to pace her own pleasure. Then he stilled, groaned deep in his throat and thrust hard, hanging over her, his face contorted into a mask of effort. She felt the heat of his release deep inside her, braced herself for his body as he relaxed onto her and held him to her when he subsided, crushing her breasts against his chest.

      Her body was throbbing and tingling with unsatisfied desire, but part of her was flattered and titillated by his urgency. She rubbed her cheek against his hair as he lay, his face buried in her shoulder.

      Then, taking her by surprise, he rolled off her body, rose from the bed and pulled on his robe. ‘Thank you,’ Avery said politely, as though she had poured a cup of tea or hemmed a handkerchief for him. ‘Goodnight, Laura.’

       Chapter Eighteen

      The pattern continued for four days and four nights. Avery was unfailingly polite, mildly affectionate to her in front of Alice and the servants and consulted amicably about what changes she might wish to make to the house. In the evening he listened intently to Alice’s news, courteously to Laura’s description of how she had spent her day and made unexceptional small talk over the dinner table.

      At night he came to her bed, ensured she was adequately prepared for him, which, to her humiliation, was easy enough, and removed himself to his own chamber as soon as he had obtained his own release. Laura was furious and frustrated and had no idea what, short of chaining him to the bed, she could do about it. Easy though she had found it to speak frankly to Avery about desire, she found her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth when she tried to ask him to stay and actually make love to her.

      ‘You’re as cross as crabs,’ Mab observed on the fifth morning when Laura managed to upset her trinket bowl on the dressing table, sending ear bobs and silver chains flying. She knelt on the floor, muttering curses under her breath, and tried to gather them up while her maidservant nagged. ‘What’s the matter with you? You’ve got little Alice, you’ve got a lovely home and a fine husband who isn’t lacking in his attentions to you...’

      Laura sat up abruptly and banged her head on the underside of the table. ‘Ow!’ She crawled out and glared at Mab. ‘I will thank you not to refer to private matters of that sort. Nothing is wrong.’

      ‘Then

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