Page 69 of A Wicked Kind of Husband

He wiped the stem dry on his clothes, then tilted the rosebud toward her, enjoying her confusion. He was a devil for teasing her, but how he loved this part too.

“I shall touch you without touching you,” he said. “Aren’t I clever?”

He brushed the rose over her parted lips, his eyes not leaving hers. Beyond the flower’s fragrance lay another scent, headier, more potent: the scent of her. He trailed the rose up over her cheek, back to her lips, over her chin, over her jaw. She arched her neck, offering her throat, and he accepted her invitation, dragging the petals down over her rapid pulse, the dip of her collarbone, down, down to one hard nipple. He sketched a circle around it, then brushed back and forth, his attention torn between the sight of her body and the sight of her face, and he wondered if he had gone mad.

She made a little whimper and covered her eyes again, and a new thrill of pleasure shot through him.

Yes, he had gone mad.

“Here, hold this,” he said, briskly.

She opened her eyes, blinked at him dazedly, then took the rose. Trying to ignore her nudity and his own arousal, Joshua lit a second candle and plucked a freshly laundered kerchief from his pocket. He smoothed it open on the bedcovers beside her and began to fold it again, with uncommonly clumsy hands.

“A blindfold?” Her confusion was palpable. “That’s how we fold them for blindman’s buff.”

“You said it: If you can’t see me, I can’t see you. You will have no need to be shy.”

She laughed breathily and said, “You’re as silly as I am,” but she did not resist as he tied the lemon-scented linen over her eyes, knotting it behind her head. When he gently tipped her onto her back, she fell easily and lay with her legs outstretched.

There: He had touched her again, and the world still had not collapsed.

“Are you all right?” he asked, his eyes trying to take in all of her at once, laid out for him, her skin warm in the candlelight, her body soft with trust.

“I think so.” She fumbled for him, caught the edge of his robe. “This is very…”

“Depraved? Do say depraved. I adore the way you say depraved.”

“Perhaps. But we are married,” she added, as if to reassure herself. “So this must be all quite proper.”

“Proper!”

He climbed onto the bed, knelt beside her hips, and plucked the rose from her trembling hands. She fumbled for him again, found his knee, spread her fingers over his thigh. Her searing touch streaked through him, but he ignored it. He feasted his eyes on her, and lowered the rose to her lips.

“I will strip away your proper,” he promised darkly. “I will strip away your nice and polite. I will strip away everything until you are nothing but raw, savage, aching need.”

* * *

Cassandra did feel depraved,and she had never dreamed that depravity could feel so good, that anticipation could make her quiver. How wickedly delicious it was to lie naked before him like a sacrifice, enclosed in a dark, secret world of promise. And how fierce this craving to pull him on top of her and revel in his weight and strength. She could hardly believe this was her, and was relieved he had taken control.

She did not understand his game but, to her own shock, she enjoyed playing it and basked in his teasing. If he could make her feel like this, she would do whatever he asked.

The soft, fragrant petals tickled her lips, tracing their shape, and she was breathing in rose and, beyond that, him.

“The petals are not quite the color of your lips.” His voice smoldered like hot jagged coals. “But ah, your cheeks…Your blush, here, where you blush for me.”

The feathery touch trailed up over her cheek, circled lazily, then slid down and grazed her jaw. She tilted back her head in a silent command. He obeyed, and the rose quivered over the sensitive skin of her throat.

“There is just enough light for me to see your pulse, racing in your throat,” he murmured.

Yes, it raced, and her blood did too, rushing madly through her like a river in a storm. She tried to breathe, tried to stop breathing. She dug her fingers into his thigh. Her world narrowed down to the sensations: his hard muscles under her fingers, the mattress heating her back, the silk of his robe tickling her, and that rose, tormenting her with lazy zigzags over her chest. Fluttering between her breasts, circling first one and then the other. She arched her back, in another demand; the obedient petals grazed her nipple, oh, so pleasurable, but not enough, oh heavens, never enough. A mewling sound escaped her lips and he answered with a rough, breathy groan. He swept the rose across the valley between her breasts to continue his torment on the other side. How was it that he touched her in only one place and she felt it everywhere?

“Your nipples are darker than the rosebud,” he whispered. “And I bet they have a sweeter taste.”

She caught herself rolling her hips and forced herself to stop. One hand still anchored her to his iron-hard thigh, and she realized that her other hand was on her own thigh, tracing shapes in her own skin, and she tried to make herself stop that too.

“I bet your skin right here is as soft as these rose petals.” Those rose petals caressed the underside of her breasts. “What a shame you won’t let me touch you.”

She tried to tell him that he could touch her, she never said he couldn’t, he was the one who had made that silly rule, so of course he could, and he should, please, he should, but he did not want to hear, he had his game, and she had no breath to speak and craved so much more.

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