Her next kiss dropped onto his lips.
“I killed James Ryburn,” he said flatly. “I became Jack Hawk, and I swore I would never return.”
“Until your throat was cut.”
“Yes.” He looked at her and hesitated, the truth on the tip of his tongue. But she wasn’t ready yet. “When I survived against all probability, I realized that I wanted to come home. Of course, by then Griffin and I were very successful privateers. I do have a pirate’s treasure in the attic, and even more in various banks around the world. But I wanted to come back to England and not be in danger every single day.”
“To sum up your career at sea,” Thea said, smiling at him, “the British government is more likely to knight you for services to the empire than they are to arrest you for piracy.”
“Yes.” A great peacefulness was descending onto James’s heart.
“You could have been killed rescuing slaves,” Theo told him, her face taking on that queer seriousness that came so easily to her. “I’m proud to be your wife.”
He preferred her dimple, so he pulled her head down and gave her a hard kiss. It wasn’t until they were both gasping that he said, “Daisy, making love needn’t include the parts that you don’t like. Because there are parts that you do like.”
She bit her lip.
“You liked it when I touched you in the bath,” he pointed out, gentling his voice.
Surprisingly, she grinned at him. “Only an idiot would dislike that.”
“And you like kissing—”
“May I say again, I’m no idiot?”
“I would never again ask you to walk around the house without drawers.”
“Why did you ask that?” She looked genuinely curious.
“I was mad with lust for you. And I was drunk on the fact that you were responding. I had some sort of inchoate idea that I would make love to you everywhere in our house, on the stairs, in the butler’s pantry, on the window seats, and that it would be easier without drawers because I could simply pull up your skirts. It was stupid. But it was the kind of thing a young man dreams about.”
Her finger was tracing his tattoo again. He liked it. But at the same time he was starting to feel unhinged. Her soft body against his was driving him around the bend. He tried again to rein in his lust. If he gave her the faintest idea of how it was raging through him, she’d be out the door.
Instead, he carefully put on the sleepy, amused expression that covered up everything else.
“I suppose,” she said. But there was discontent in her tone.
“And I wanted to kiss you in your sweet spot,” he said, succumbing to the truth. “Hell, I wanted to kiss Bella there, but she never permitted it. I love that part of a woman, especially yours. You’re all soft and pink and you taste so good, Daisy.”
“Theo.” But her voice was gentle.
“You must remember that I was only nineteen. I had no idea what married couples did or didn’t do until my father blurted it out. Men don’t talk about that sort of thing. And I wasn’t the sort to form close friendships with other boys.”
She nodded.
“I always had you.” He watched her closely, cataloguing her every blink. “I would never have asked for something you might feel demeaned by. When you offered to kiss me in the library, it was the most sensual thing that had ever happened to me. It never occurred to me to say no. I would have stripped myself in Kensington Square if you had asked me to. I was in love with you, but I was also overwhelmed by love of your body and fascinating with making love to you.”
“So it was all new and raw to you as well?”
He nodded. “Bella had been my mistress for around a month, I believe. She would allow me to have some time with each breast, and then it was time to do what I paid her for. And that was that.”
“Dear me.”
“I didn’t even like her breasts; they made me feel as if I might drown in all that flesh, whereas yours . . . You know how I feel about your breasts.”
He liked the smile in her eyes. He liked it so much that he would spend his whole life just trying to get her to smile at him like that. But there was one thing that was bothering him, and he knew he had to confess before they could make love.
“I must tell you something you won’t like.”
“Oh?” The bleakness in her eyes replaced her smile as fast as summer lightning.
“I bet Griffin that I could get my wife into bed before he got his wife into bed.”
She pushed away from him, tumbling onto her knees. “What?”
“I bet Griffin—”
“I heard you. Why on earth would you do such a thing?”
She looked down at him, eyes sharp and disapproving. But not horrified. He saw that. Not horrified.
“Because I’m an idiot. I made up a reason to woo you. But the truth is that I just wanted you back, Daisy. I came home for you.”
It was all so complicated. James said he wanted her, but then he placed bets about whether she would let him into her bed. Theo wrapped her arms around her knees, realizing with a shock that the sheet had slipped, and she had been naked for some time without even noticing.
The actions that had seemed utterly demeaning and horrible a day ago didn’t feel that way now. Of course, she knew what had happened. She had fallen as stupidly and helplessly back into love as any mouse into a trap.
James was still talking. “I can help run the estate now, you’ll be glad to know. I managed all Griffin’s and my finances.”
“Those bank accounts?”
“Gold,” he said, sitting up and leaning back the headboard. “Jewels. Five bank accounts in various countries. A scepter. That sort of thing.”
Theo uncurled her legs and climbed down from the bed. “This is a mess,” she said, surveying the remains of their picnic, hands on the curve of her waist.
It wasn’t possible for James to be any harder, but he managed it just looking at her.
“Are you still hungry?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said, not really listening.
“For food,” she clarified.
“No.”
“Good.” She reached over, collected the plates, and put them neatly on her dressing table. She then collected the wine bottle and glasses, the napkins, and the little cakes they hadn’t touched, and added all of it to the pile on the table. “You need to move,” she informed him.
James rolled off the bed, telling himself that he was probably going to spend a good deal of his life being told what to do. And making beds. It didn’t matter. He wouldn’t trade one of her commands for a moment of piratical freedom.
“Now we’re going to tidy this sheet,” she announced.
He eyed her. “I think we should go to that island we own and live in a hut with no well, only one stream, and no sheets at all.”
“I think not,” she said. “If you stand on that side, we can get this nice and tidy again.”
He obeyed. “And then?”
“And then we will put the coverlet back as well.”
“And?”
She looked up at him, and the expression in her eyes sent a bolt of heat straight to his groin. “Then we’re going to make love the way respectable married couples do.”