He took a step toward the door. Then he stopped and turned back, as if he had remembered something. He had not, apparently, because he simply looked at her for a moment with an expression she could not read, opened his mouth, and closed it again.
“The curls,” he said finally.
She blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“They suit you,” he said. Then, as if alarmed by his own words, he turned and walked with great purpose toward the door.
She told herself her cheeks were not burning.
They were absolutely burning.
Tristan closed his study door and leaned against it hard enough that the latch clicked twice.
He needed a moment.
You are a grown man,he told himself.You have seduced several women. You cannot have been undone by a woman who got her finger caught in her own hair.
He pushed off the door and crossed to his desk, but standing behind it was not much better than standing at the door. He was uncomfortably, inconveniently, undeniably aroused, and his cock was not interested in the distinction between a polished seductress and a woman who had just spilled tea on herself while attempting to look alluring over a teapot.
This is ridiculous.
He tried to adjust his aching cock and dropped into his chair.
The lavender silk had been the first problem. He had walked through that door, and his brain had managed approximately half a coherent thought before his body had registered the neckline and simply stopped cooperating. He had known within seconds what she was attempting. The too-bright rouge, the curls, it had been clear to him that his wife was up to something.
However, this had not helped his lustful thoughts about her.
Knowing that she is doing it deliberately should make you immune to it.
He had been seduced by women who did it for a living. Women with perfected smiles and calculated glances who knew exactly which angle caught the light best. He had appreciated it and felt nothing that lasted past the next morning.
Cathy had tilted her neck and nearly given herself a medical complaint, and he had wanted to put his mouth there.
He shifted in his chair. The problem was that he could not stop replaying the moment she had leaned over the teapot. The neckline from that angle and how her breasts had almost spilled had the blood roaring in his veins. The way she had deliberately not looked away, holding his gaze right up until she misjudgedthe pour and soaked the doily, and said blast in her normal voice, had him enchanted.
He had nearly laughed. He had also nearly reached across the table. Oh, how he had longed to pin her on the couch, rip her corset in half, and bury his cock so deep inside her that she would only remember his name.
What is wrong with you?
He pressed his fist against his mouth and stared at the ceiling.
She had gotten her finger stuck in her hair, and he had wanted to pin her against the nearest flat surface. He was still not over the fact that she had grasped him so firmly after their accidental night together, but she had made it clear to him that she wanted nothing to do with him in that regard.
She had told him that she had felt nothing about him, so what was that guileless act of seduction about? Worse, why was it working so badly?
He stood up because sitting was not helping either. He paced to the window. The cold glass was somewhat soothing. He briefly pressed his forehead against it and thought about his options.
He could go back through that door, or he could remain in his study and release his pent-up frustration. He could also try going to the gardens and chopping wood again.
Of all his options, he knew he could not go back through that door, because if he went back through that door, he was going to do something about the fact that his wife had spent the last hour trying to seduce him, and she was not ready for what that looked like from his end. He had told her what he wanted. He was going to wait until she came to him without the borrowed gestures andthe rehearsed angles, until it was just her, and he was going to be patient about it.
Starting after you stop thinking about your wife’s breasts.
Chapter 16
Baxter Hall became a witness to a strange dance between the duke and the duchess over the next few days. Cathy was anxious about the possibility of her marriage being annulled or cast aside before she could provide an heir, and the fear of humiliation had become secondary. She realized she had to double her efforts.
What if I am simply not desirable to him? Especially after... all I said to him.