Page 66 of The Traitor
He should have asked for her kisses. Of all the questions he knew how to find answers to, that question—“Will you kiss me?”—he could not ask. The best he could do was to nuzzle her jaw, the way her cat might have importuned her for attention—both playfulness and determination in his flirting.
“We’re to eat first,” she said, angling her chin away. “My husband has turned up moody, and I would not impose on him.”
“You should make me beg,” he said, running his tongue over the rim of her ear. “Your husband is an idiot who hasn’t sense enough to be grateful for the blessings that fall into his very lap. I am given to unhappy moods, and I do apologize. I would not burden our wedding day with them further. I shall make love with you, Wife. I will probably do little else for the next week, at least. You may consider that another one of my famous priorities.”
The allusion had the desired effect of tipping up the corners of her mouth. “Some of your priorities are laudable, Sebastian. Will you open the wine?”
She was being coy, for which he adored her. The breeze stirred a lock of her hair across her mouth just as he leaned in to kiss her, so he ended up kissing silky strands as well as her lips.
“Hang the wine.”
He muttered the words against her mouth. She drew back enough to extricate her hair from between their lips. “You might need the fortification.”
Yes, he might. Later.
“Kiss me, Baroness. Today is your wedding day, and you’re fretting over the menu.”
He made a menu of her, kissing her to her back, where she clearly had wanted to be, then feasting on her shoulders, her collarbone, her jaw, the few inches of skin revealed above her neckline. Everywhere, she was warm and fragrant andhis.
And yet, a man—a husband—ought not to presume. He crouched over her on all fours, as winded as if they’d been wrestling, not kissing.
“Shall we consummate our vows here, Milly? Is this the memory you want of your wedding day?” Because whatever memory she sought, he’d try his utmost to give it to her.
She cupped his jaw then stroked a hand down over his chest. “Yes. Here. Now. Right now.”
Sebastian felt those words, felt the shape of them as Milly’s mouth moved, and something inside him broke free. His life was a shambles, but this moment, these sentiments of tenderness and desire between him and his wife, they were real, pure, and good.
His hand had gone to the falls of his breeches when the first cold, wet drop slapped the back of his neck. Several more raindrops pelted him before reality penetrated his incredulity: the elements were not in agreement with Milly’s wishes—or his own.
“Grab the blankets, Wife. If we’re quick, we can move our feast before we’re soaked to the skin.”
He snatched up the hamper, and they dashed for the mill as the shower intensified. While they weren’t soaked to the skin, the moment, at least for Sebastian, had lost its bloom with damnable predictability.
***
Milly laid out two thick blankets on the threshing floor. Ancient oak was not the softest bed upon which to consummate a marriage, but neither was it any more solid than her determination.
“A passing shower,” she said, taking a place on the blankets. “Get down here, Sebastian, and make yourself useful.”
Her husband apparently recognized a tone of command and left off scouting the mill’s interior. “Useful?”
“I did not bring a shawl, this place is drafty, and you give off warmth.” He gave off sadness, too, and an exasperating sense of resignation. “You never did open the wine.”
Hangthewine, he’d said. Milly had no doubt it was a fine vintage, which would be handy if she could ever retrieve her husband from the memories, doubts, and guilts that had also apparently found their way into the mill’s gloomy interior.
“You are cold?” he asked, prowling away from the enormous grinding stone at the center of the building.
“I will soon take a chill. Sebastian, how is it you were called upon to torture English officers?”
From his arrested expression, Milly surmised that she could not have captured his attention any more effectively had she torn off her clothes.
“An interrogation is my penance for not making love to you in the pouring rain?”
She patted the blanket, and he came down beside her as she lied through her teeth. “We were merely kissing. Has no one asked you this question?”
She gathered from the set of his jaw that no one had been presuming enough—or stupid enough—to ask him, and yet, of all people to entrust with tormenting British officers, a former English schoolboy was not a logical choice.
“I was good at it.” He fitted himself around Milly’s back, so his knees were hiked on either side of her. Of course, she could not see his face as she curled against his chest.
