Page 48 of Rules for Heiresses
His vixen of a wife yanked on his palm, pushed herself to tiptoes, and pressed a cheeky kiss to his mouth before veering off into the depths of the conservatory. Frozen, he stood there for a moment, forgetting to breathe, before touching a finger to his burning lips. Desire burst through him in like a tropical downpour.
Checking that the door to the conservatory was secured from the inside, he made to follow his wife. He knew every inch of the glasshouse like the back of his hand, but she wouldn’t, which meant he had the advantage. At least, so he thought until he came upon something that did not belong in a such a place. An elegant, beaded dancing slipper.
He chuckled. Had she lost her shoe?Again?
Courtland gathered it up, mesmerized by its delicate shape. He smiled as he circled past an ornate trellis that boasted climbing wisteria and miniature roses rising above a multihued flower bed. Thereafter, he discovered a second slipper. Scooping it up, he studied the match to the first. One could be considered lost; two could not be a coincidence.
Unless she’d kicked them off in a hurry to aid in her flight.
It was only when he spotted the next item a few feet away on the ornate paving stones that his throat went properly dry: a lady’s stocking…Ravenna’sstocking. The slippers had been no error, and stockings could not simply come loose on their own, which meant one thing.Shehad removed them. Purposefully. His devious wife was undressing in the middle of his conservatory. Courtland’s heart hitched, while blood rushed elsewhere.
To his groin, to be precise.
“Ravenna, where are you?” It was a miracle he could even speak.
“Come find me, Duke” came the reply, followed by hushed, decadent laughter. “I seem to have lost my undergarments.”
Arousal spiked, making him grunt.
Devil take it, he now had to be sporting the most obnoxious cockstand in existence. Doubling his speed and attempting not to hobble, he came upon the second silken stocking near a sundial, and then a pair of flimsy petticoats resting on a decorative urn. The overlay of her skirts followed, and at the next turn, the rest of the gown itself.
The discovery of each garment made his breath shorten and his chest tighten. And by the time he discovered the last item—an unlaced lady’s corset—he was so fucking hard it hurt. Because he knew that when he caught her, she would be wearing only a chemise.
The thought demolished him.
Though when he finally came upon her sitting at the edge of the ornate fountain at the far end of the conservatory, her fingers wading in the still waters, Courtland could only stare in captivated silence. He’d thought her a fairy queen before, clad in all her finery, but wearing only her shift, his wife was an otherworldly creature.
Her hair was unpinned, her feet bare. Moonlight danced across the water and limned her shapely form in silver. He could see the outline of one round, luscious breast and the decadent curve of a hip beneath the near transparent lawn. Courtland’s mouth went unspeakably dry.
Her face turned, in profile. “Have you ever seen anything so magical?”
“Not until now,” he replied softly.
She smiled up at him. “You’re only trying to make me feel better as I’ve lost all my clothing.”
“Good thing I’ve found them,” he said, lifting the pile of garments.
“Good thing it’s also rather warm in here.”
“Special heating for the more sensitive plants,” he said. Setting the bundle down on a nearby bench, Courtland approached his nearly naked wife, each step unsure as though she might be easily spooked. “What are we doing here, Ravenna?” he asked quietly, sitting beside her and trying not to react to her distracting state of undress.
“Forgetting. Remembering.”
His brows gathered. “Those are two different things.”
“I want to forget who we are while we’re here and remember who we were on our wedding day on the island.” A pair of beautiful glimmering eyes met his, the honesty in them almost taking him to his knees. “I know how things happened…wasn’t perfect, but well, here we are. Married. You have a wife, and I have a husband.”
“Ravenna.” He sighed.
She reached out to push a curling lock of hair off his brow. “Courtland, can’t we just take this moment for us? Regardless of what the future holds, I want a wedding night. I want the man I married foronenight, even if we have to go back to pretending to being strangers.”
He couldn’t move a muscle at her soft touch, though inside every nerve ending came violently alive. He wanted that, too. But he was also afraid of what taking that step meant for both of them. Things would never be the same, no matter their intentions. Intimacy had a way of changing everything, and deep down, Courtland already knew that once he touched her, once would never be enough. Not for either of them.
He rolled his lips between his teeth, his face giving away nothing when she dragged her finger over his cheekbone to cup his jaw, her thumb feathering across his hidden bottom lip. “Let’s pretend that we met each other here in this magical space,” she whispered, pupils wide with pure desire. “No pasts and no futures. A man and a woman. In the now.”
Her words were intoxicating, casting a spell about him, and for once, logic fell to feeling. He didn’t stop to think that they were in a conservatory with a crowded ballroom a few corridors away, and even with a locked door, they could be discovered at any moment.
His wife pulled lightly down on his lip, releasing it from the hold between his teeth and skating over its tingling contours, eyes locked onto the movement of her finger as though she were bewitched, too. Courtland could hardly think, the soft press of her thumb maddening. He wanted to touch his tongue to it, suck it into his mouth, and feast on her flesh.
