Page 15 of Bride of the Fae Duke

The duke’s hands began bunching up her skirt, and she obeyed his unspoken command without thought, moving along as he pulled the dress over her head. In only her shift, even the summer air seemed suddenly cool. When she kicked off her shoes and turned, Locke had just sunken down onto the edge of his bed, still fully clothed but for those sculpted bare forearms.

He did not look in a particular hurry to get rid of his breeches, either.

‘May I assume,’ he said, one blue eyebrow raised inquisitively, ‘that you know … let us say, the basic mechanics of the act?’

Nellie managed a nod, feeling more naked than if he’d just torn her shift off her.

‘Wonderful.’ He gave a brisk jerk of his head. ‘Come here.’

‘Shouldn’t you … undress?’ she risked asking as she tiptoed towards him, well-aware she was not the expert in the room but quite confident all the same that one did not bring forth children by remaining all buttoned-up and covered. ‘Or at least … partly?’

‘Later.’ His left hand landed on her hip as she came within reach, and she barely managed not to jerk away again – far, far too intimate a touch for a man with such an icy hardness to him. ‘I want to prepare you first, to make sure it doesn’t hurt when I enter you. There’s no need to make this more unpleasant than it needs to be.’

She blinked. ‘What?’

‘Prepare you,’ he repeated, voice still so inhumanly impassive – as if he was talking about travel arrangements or midsummer festivals. As if he wasn’t talking aboutbodies. ‘Once you’ve reached a climax once or twice, the rest will be far less likely to cause you any pain. Which seems helpful, especially for a first time.’

Helpful?

Was she going mad? What in the world did her hurt matter to him, when he’d just hired her to do a job that she was perfectly willing to do regardless? Why in the world did he think she would behelpedby him dragging out this business however long his preparations would take, when they could just get to work and be done in fifteen minutes at most?

‘There … there is really no need for any of that,’ she managed, hoping her chuckle sounded breezily amused rather than like he’d lost his mind – because even if the latter was perfectly accurate, the man wasstilla duke. ‘I would prefer to just getthings over with as soon as possible. I don’t care if it hurts a bit or—’

His eyebrows shot up. ‘I do.’

‘You’re the one who wanted to minimise contact,’ she sputtered, willing her legs to move, to step away from his solid, muscular form. They did not; the warm pressure of his hand on her hip did not abate, heating the muscle below. ‘Wouldn’t it be much healthier for me if you didn’t have to spend that much time with me every night?’

Was that a small twitch of his fingers on her hip? But his marble-carved face did not stir, and his voice did not betray any hint of emotion. ‘I was not planning to fall head over heels in love with you over a daily hour of nothing but physicality, Eleanor.’

Right.

Because she was still a graceless housemaid, and this man moved among the highest circles of the city; thathadbeen a preposterous objection from her side, if she was honest. And yet …

Yet her muscles resisted giving in, a defiance as instinctive, as reflexive, as the beat of her heart. She wasn’t even surewhyshe was arguing – why his thoughtfulness was worse, somehow, than the cold disregard for which she’d braced herself. Just that this was not how things were supposed to be. Just that this had to be a misunderstanding,somehow, a trick she was failing to see through, and—

Locke rose.

A single, graceful motion, and suddenly he towered over her again, his hand sliding from her hip to her waist to keep her in place. Divines help her, there was somuchof him – a wall of corded muscle in all directions, his blue hair cascading down his white shirt like a veil of midnight silk. His grey eyes bore into hers with an intensity that made her want to crawl away and takecover, something about him that seemed, more than ever before, decidedly inhuman.

‘Eleanor.’ That, she knew instinctively, was his duke’s voice. All noblemen had a voice like that. They usually employed it when firing servants. ‘What exactly is the matter?’

‘Why do you even care?’ she squeaked.

‘You’re mywife.’ He pronounced the word as if it meant something. ‘Sham or no, I still took responsibility for you the moment I married you. Which means I’m not going to hurt you if I can at all avoid it, I’m not going to treat you like some bloody harlot, and there’s no negotiating on that. Is that clear?’

No.

No, that wasn’t clear at all.

The defiance won, that little streak of stubbornness even Mrs. Radcliffe’s strict training had not erased from her bones entirely. Her scoff left her lips before she could stop herself. ‘I accepted your money to step into your bed, Your Grace. I think you’d be perfectly within your rights to treat me like some bloody harlot.’

‘Oh, comeon.’ She thought for a moment he would shake her. ‘Do youwantto get hurt?’

‘No!’ Her breath rushed from her lungs in a bewildered chuckle. ‘No, but this is not supposed to befun, is it? It’s work. I accepted it as work. If it hurts a little – well, then it’s still much better than scrubbing floors until my hands and knees are bleeding, which is what you’ve saved me from for the rest of my life. So you could stop fussing and just … just …’

‘Assault you?’ he suggested, and although his eyes remained dull like a grey winter’s sky, there was a bite in his voice that made her swallow the rest of her words.

‘It’s not assault if you have my permission,’ she muttered instead, forcing herself to hold his gaze.

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