Page 21 of A Husband for Esyllt
“No, but in the wrong hands my domain might.”
“My hands are perfectly capable,” he snapped. “I thought you’d have realized that by now.”
Oh, oh. And now she had angered the beast, Esyllt thought with a sinking heart. In truth, she was not surprised, for, if shehad not exactly tried to rouse Connor’s ire, she’d been rather confrontational since he’d arrived.
“Land!” he spat. “Is that all that matters to you? Do you prefer a husband who treats you well or one who merely ensures that your land remains in Welsh hands? Are you saying that you are less valuable than an expanse of grass-covered mud?”
Esyllt blinked. This was not something she had ever wondered about. Did she really place the integrity of a piece of land above her own peace of mind and possible happiness?
No. But this would only be a relevant question if she were free to choose her husband. As she was not, she’d had to forget her peace of mind and happiness in favor of what could be guaranteed, namely the safety of the people relying on her. As to her husband treating her well, Connor was a hypocrite for even suggesting that her agreeing to marry Gwyn had been a bad decision.Hehad never played humiliating games with her, he’d only wanted to protect her.
“You need not make it sound as if you were a model of solicitude. Or have you forgotten what you did to me the night before our wedding?” He had enjoyed getting the upper hand and showing her who was master. That was not something to be proud of.
“Hardly.” The corner of his lip curled. “It was quite memorable.”
Esyllt forced herself to ignore the flash of heat that wicked smile provoked in her body. “So I have to assume this is your idea of good treatment? Proving that you are stronger than me and could have me under you in bed at any time? I cannot say I care for it!”
“I was only in your bed because you had brought me there yourself,” he retorted. “Had your men not brought me up to your room tied up like a sucking pig ready for roasting, I would never have behaved so crudely. It was never my intention to force youto reveal your true nature before our wedding but you forced my hand, not the other way around.”
“My true nature!” Esyllt almost choked on the words. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“You are a brazen, lustful woman. Do not think I have forgotten the way you came to straddle me on the chair or how you rubbed yourself against me once you had allowed me to lie on top of you in bed.” Connor gave a groan and she remembered her furious writhing. Indeed she had behaved like the veriest wanton. “I don’t think that a woman who provokes a man thus is new to it and she cannot pretend to be shocked when the man responds to her advances. I was lying between your spread legs, for Christ’s sake, and I was there with your full agreement. In taking you, I treated you exactly as you wanted to be treated.”
There was nothing she could answer to that. If he really thought she’d gotten what she’d wanted all along then there was no way to make him change his mind.
Still, Esyllt’s body combusted in hot shame, because he was wrong in at least one way. She was not a wanton, a brazen lustful woman who went around teasing men. She had been the first one surprised by her reaction. That night her senses had taken over, something that had never happened to her, and she had, for a wild moment, not been herself. The feel of Connor’s body over hers, of his manhood poised at her entrance, hard and ready to push in, had utterly undone her. It had been like nothing she had ever experienced, irresistible. It was as if her body had been made to welcome his and his to fill her, as if they fit together as perfectly as a walnut kernel fit inside its shell.
It had been delicious, beautiful even.
And he had spoilt it all by withdrawing from her in disgust. As if that was not enough, he was now using what had happened to insult her.
It was not to be borne.
Pain and shame overwhelmed her. She had wanted him to come to her that night? Perhaps, but now she wanted him gone.
“You can sleep here, my lord, and get the sleep you asked for. But you shall do it without me. I will not impose my true, brazen, lustful nature on you a moment longer,” she said, fighting back tears. Would that he had stayed in England if he’d only come back to make her feel so wretched! “Your bedchamber is empty. I will go there.”
“Wife.” Connor caught her by the arm before she could leave the room.
“My name is not ‘wife’,” she snapped, wondering what possessed her to provoke him so when he was already angry. Probably her own anger. She was almost suffocating with it. “It’s Esyllt. I suggest you start using it. And I am amazed that you would want to be reminded that you are bound to me, if you think me little more than a whore.” The word had difficulty passing her lips but she forced it through. Wasn’t that what he thought?
The green eyes flashed but she was past heeding his warning. “Wait, I never said that. Do not put words into my mouth,ever!”
“What should I put instead?”
He growled and, before she knew what was happening, Esyllt was flat on her back on the bed, pinned under him. Again. And the shift she was wearing did little to prevent her from feeling how hard he was. Again. She swallowed.
What would he do now?
Connor could barely breathe for anger and desire combined. His little wife wanted to provoke him as soon as he’d come back? That was a dangerous game to play while wearing nothing more than a thin shift. She was pushing him when he’d been trying his damndest not to impose his desire on her? She would soon see he had a snapping point, as patient as he liked to think himself.
And she wanted to know what she should put into his mouth? The answer was simple.
Her.
He would devour her, get his fill of her, until she screamed his name and was too weak to even think of provoking him further.
“Open your legs.”
