She was grinding her teeth, which made him grin. Marriage to Mia would never be boring.
He settled his arm more firmly around her waist, drawing her closer. “I want to change the terms of our arrangement. Of our marriage.”
“I see no reason for that,” she replied, not looking at him, but somewhere around his right ear. “Four nights a year is more than enough to produce an heir. If four nights prove insufficient for that purpose, we might reconsider after a year has passed.” She tried to leave, but he reeled her back against his chest as easily as a dappled trout caught in summertime.
“I want you,” he said again, his voice dark with lust. He nipped her ear. She jerked, but she didn’t struggle free, and he felt her pulse quickening against his arm.
“So let me tell you how this shall be,” he said, when she remained silent. “We shall consummate our marriage tonight, because that’s what newly married couples do. They go to bed together and they don’t stand upright again for hours.”
“We do not have a normal marriage,” she tried.
Her voice was tight, which Vander didn’t like. “Turn your head so I can kiss you,” he said against her sweet-smelling hair.
She shook her head. “This is inadvisable.” His wife was stubborn. Hell, if he looked up the word in a dictionary, he’d probably find the name Mia printed there. “We’re not really married,” she insisted.
“Yes, we are. You’re my wife, and you’re staying my wife. And if you think we’re not going to sleep together, after you kissed me like that, you are wrong.”
“Kissed you . . .” She cleared her throat and turned her head just enough to frown at him. “You kissed me, not the other way around.”
“No.”
“Yes!”
Desire boiled in his gut, urging him to topple her backward again. But he’d already pushed his wife enough. If he pressed open those strawberry lips, he could seduce her.
But that wasn’t enough. He suspected that bedding Mia would be like learning the art of making love all over again.
You can’t do that alone.
“That kiss was a long, slow ride into oblivion, and it took two of us,” he whispered, his lips brushing her cheek. “You opened that sweet little mouth of yours, and tangled tongues with me as if you wanted me just as much as I wanted you.”
Chapter Twenty
NOTES ON CHURCH & JILTING
~ Shocked gasps from the assembled audience. guests in the cathedral. Westminster Abbey (only for royalty?) St. Paul’s.
~ ancient priest pats Flora’s shaking hand.
~ Chin high, she picks up the hem of her wedding gown.
~ Is she blinded by tears? “Slubbered with tears, she—” Don’t know about “slubbered.” Not sure what it means.
~ She runs out the (side door—Nave?) unable to meet the curious eyes/Frederic’s parents? All the way from Germany?
~ Bursts through the back door of church into a sunlit day. Veil floats behind.
~ Runs like wounded animal: only idea to hide.
~ kindly man on cart takes her as far as . . . (somewhere outside London) and drops her off with two a crust of bread.
Mia could feel red patches breaking out on her neck from pure embarrassment. Her husband had hardly glanced at her, and the walls she’d built up to hide her love had cracked open. “I did not kiss you,” she said stoutly.
The laughter in Vander’s eyes made her at once irritated and aroused.
“The man whom you kiss would forget he’s ever been kissed by another woman,” he said, cupping her face in his hands and tilting her head until he had her just where he wanted her.