Winter’s Wallflower Read online

  “Floating hell,” he grumbled into the darkness of the night.

  “Is something amiss?”

  Her husky question startled him. From the soft, even breaths she had been taking, he had been convinced she was asleep.

  “Go to sleep, Duchess.”

  “Do you have an aversion to questions, Mr. Winter?”

  Fancy words from the fancy lady he had married. He clenched his jaw. That ought to have made his cockstand die a hasty death, the reminder she was of the quality and yet another question, coupled with her insistence on calling him Mr. Winter.

  If anything, it only made him harder. As did the knowledge she was awake.

  “Do you have an aversion to calling me Dom?” he countered softly.

  Part of him knew he should just flop on his belly and go the hell to sleep. Part of him could not resist her. She was dangerous, this woman. He wanted her far too much.

  Far more than he should.

  Far more than was safe.

  “Why do you have a predilection for answering one question with another?” came her voice through the inkiness of the cool night.

  Soft and seductive, that dulcet tone. It did things to him. Made him long for things he could never have. Happiness. Love. Arms to hold him, a heart which could be his.

  But no. These were the foolish longings of the lad he had once been. Life had taught him those fantasies belonged in the ashes of a fire rather than meandering through his restless mind.

  He turned his thoughts back to the question she had asked. “Mayhap you ask questions I have no wish to answer, Duchess.”

  “We can spend all evening turning in circles, or you can give me what I want.”

  Her words curled around him, like a siren’s song. Luring him to the death. His entire body was a conflagration, on fire with want. Desire for her overwhelmed him. Consumed him.

  He rolled to his side so he faced her instead of the wall. “And what is it you want?”

  Her swift inhalation cut through the silence. “I did not mean that the way it sounded.”

  Too tempting, his wife. He envisioned her cheeks, emblazoned with pretty color. Imagined her curves, hidden by nothing save the thin night rail he had managed a glimpse of before politely turning his back. It had been too long since he’d had a woman. The last time had been with her. Because ever since she had found her way into his life and his bed, she was the only woman who owned his thoughts. The only woman he wanted.

  Curse her.

  “How did you mean it then, Duchess?”

  “Would you cease calling me that?”

  She was right. Angel had suited her better. Until she had disappeared and he had uncovered her deception.

  “What would you have me call you instead?”

  “My sisters call me Addie,” she ventured.

  He growled. “If you have yet to notice, I am hardly your sister.”

  “I am more than aware of that.”

  He did not miss the breathlessness in her tone. The urge to touch her was sudden and insistent. So he did. Slowly, tentatively. He was aiming for her shoulder. What his fingers sank into instead was the lush, silken skeins of her hair.

  Fucking hell, she must have pulled the pins from it and let down her hair after he had blown out the candles. He had to tamp down a groan. He was an ardent admirer of all aspects of Lady Adele’s beauty, but her hair was utterly bloody gorgeous. He had fantasized about running his fingers through it, about spreading the dark curls over his pillow. About burying his face in the fragrant mass and inhaling, of holding a handful as he buried himself deep inside her beautiful body.

  “I love your hair.”

  The admission rumbled from him before he could banish it. Entirely unwanted. Ridiculous, in fact. He was not the sort of man who issued such compliments. Who worried about a woman’s hair. Who gently stroked it in the darkness, following its cascade over her pillow.

  Damn it, yes he was. Because he was doing all that now. How much ale had he consumed? Perhaps it was the combination of brother dearest’s poisoned wine and the ale which had done him in.

  “You can call me Adele if you like,” she whispered.

  “Adele.” He found the sweet warmth of her cheek then, cupping it. “May I kiss you?”

  Someone ought to beat him. If the Suttons could see him now—the mighty Dominic Winter, asking his wife’s permission to kiss her—they would laugh first and pull out a shiv and bury it between his ribs next.

  But none of that mattered because one word flitted to him, and all other thoughts fled his mind.

  “Yes.”

  Thank Christ. He slid himself nearer, so their bodies were aligned. Through the shadows, he found her lips. She opened for him on a sigh. He wasted no time in deepening the kiss, his tongue slipping past the seam of her mouth to tangle with hers. She tasted sweet and rich. Hunger roared through him. He told himself to proceed slowly, to avoid overwhelming her.

  But he had been starving for her ever since he had first laid eyes on her. Having her once had not sated him. It had only made him desire her more. She was an infection, a fever in his blood. He was helpless to do anything but surrender.

  Her arms twined around his neck and she sidled nearer, until they were pressed fully against each other, nothing but the barrier of cloth between them. She kissed him back with a fierceness that took him by surprise.

  Adele’s response undid him.

  Any attempts at restraint were impossible as her fingernails raked over his shoulders, scoring his flesh through the thin fabric of his shirt. He sucked on her lower lip, then trailed a path of kisses along her jaw. Lower. Down the softness of her throat. He kissed her ear, nibbled the cord of her neck. She smelled like spring and sunshine and everything that was good.

  He wanted to keep her in his arms forever.

  Dom rolled her to her back and settled between her thighs, leveraging himself on his forearms to keep from crushing her beneath the weight of his body. Her night rail did nothing to hide the fullness of her breasts or the hardness of her nipples. He knew instinctively that if he skimmed a hand up her inner thigh to her center, he would find her wet and ready for him.

  But their garments were an encumbrance he was determined to shed this time around. When he made love to her tonight, now that she was his wife, he wanted no barriers between them. He wanted only her skin on his. He wanted her burning into him, her curves searing his flesh, marked forever upon him.

  “I want you, Adele,” he murmured against her cloth-covered breast.

  His mouth discovered her nipple, and he sucked.

  She moaned, arching up to meet him, her response more pronounced than he had recalled. Dom moved to the other breast, suckling that one as well. Her fingers traveled to his hair, caressing a path of fire over his scalp.

  The way she touched him, so tenderly, made him wild.

  “Please,” she said.

  He knew what she wanted. Understood the raw need underscoring her sweet voice. She was every bit as desperate for their joining as he was. He rose on his knees, and tore his shirt over his head. The scars that marred his flesh could not shock her beneath the cloak of darkness.

  But then her hands were on him, curious and tentative at first, sweeping up his abdomen. Arrows of pure fire shot through him. Her fingertips were softer than silk. As pleasurable as he found her touch upon his bare skin, however, he was not ready for her to feel the ugly puckers and slashes, remnants and reminders of his past. Too ugly for this night, this woman.

  He caught her hands in his and lifted them to his lips. “Patience, love.”

  “Do you not like it when I touch you?”

  Her hesitant query cut through him. How did she sense so much, know so much?

  “I have scars,” he shocked himself by revealing. “They are not fit for a lady’s touch.”

  In the darkness, he could discern her silhouette as she rose to a sitting position. She tugged her hands from his. “I do not care if you have scars. I want t
o feel you, to know you. If you will allow it.”

  She was asking his permission. He ought to tell her no. Ought to tug her night rail over her head, toss it to the floor, and make her his. Yet, the part of him he could not begin to understand longed for that touch. Desperately. He placed her hands on his chest.

  “Do your worst, Duchess,” he rasped.

  “Adele.” Her fingertips moved tentatively. “Call me Adele, and I shall call you Dom.”

  The barriers he needed between them were gone. The literal, the figurative. Her touch glided over him, investigating the slash marks, the puckered wound on his shoulder from the pistol ball that had grazed him in a street fight.

  “Adele,” he repeated, allowing her this victory as her name emerged from him, half groan and half croak.

  “Your scars do not frighten me.” She completely undid him by pressing her mouth over the old, healed wounds. She kissed him everywhere, missing not a bare expanse of skin.

  And he remained still beneath the tender onslaught of her ministrations. Allowing her to touch and kiss him wherever she would. He told himself he was enabling her this liberty because the fading glow of the firelight left him blanketed in enough shadows to obscure the hideousness of his scars from her. But deep within, he knew it for a lie.

  It was because she was Adele.

  Because she was dipped in sunlight, and he wanted to steal some of that brightness for his own. He wanted to savor it, to savor her, forever.

  When she reached the jagged scar on his abdomen that ended beneath his breeches, just over his hip, she paused. “What happened to you, Dom? Who hurt you like this?”

  The anguish in her voice should have revolted him. Instead, it seeped inside him, filling all the cracks and fissures like warm honey.

  “Enemies. Do not fret over me, love. These wounds are long since healed.”

  Her lips traced the scar. “Has anyone tried to hurt you recently?”

  What was this? Concern for him?

  More honey, filling in the places he had believed no longer existed. More sweetness he should not long for.

  “I have Devil and Blade to protect me, along with dozens of others. You need not worry for me.” He could not wait another moment to get her naked. His hands grasped the diaphanous fabric of her night rail. “I want this off you.”

  She helped him, hauling the gown over her head without a single hesitation. Then her fingers settled on the fastening of his breeches. Getting himself free of them took far more time than he preferred, and in the end, he had to tear them from his limbs. If he’d had an inkling that his wife wanted him every bit as much as he wanted her before they had settled into bed for the night, he damn well would have divested himself of every bleeding stitch.

  At last, the breeches were gone, and there were no barriers left between them. Dom took her lips, kissing her as he guided her back to the bed linens. Her arms went around him like a benediction. It almost shamed him, how easily she welcomed him, how trusting she was. He did not deserve this woman.

  But he was going to keep her anyway.

  Dom dragged his lips from hers, pressing his mouth to her velvety skin. She was smooth and sleek. And warm. So bloody warm. He kissed to the peaks of her breasts, sucking hard on her nipples as his fingers dipped between her legs. Responsive, too.

  She let out a breathy moan as he parted her folds to find her slick and swollen, ready for him. He circled her pearl, stroking her with quick, firm movements that had her body jerking from the bed to meet him.

  Although he was desperate to be inside her, nothing could keep him from kissing lower, down the curve of her belly. All the way to her mound. He teased her slick lips with his thumb, opening her. The shadows did nothing to deter his enjoyment. He knew how pink and glistening she was.

  He licked her.

  As before, she tasted musky and delicious. And the husky mewl of pleasure that emerged from her—fuck, it made Dom wild. Wilder than he already was. He sank a finger inside her sheath. She was tight, gripping him with her heat. It was like coming home.

  A reunion he had been awaiting three long months.

  Yes, said the wicked voice inside him. More.

  He drew her bud into his mouth, devouring her.

  Mine, said the voice.

  “Dom,” keened his wife.

  He nipped her, softly, tenderly. Enough to incite pleasure rather than pain. He would not hurt this woman for the world. He, Dominic Winter, who had bloodied his fists in the street, who had fought with blade and bullet, who had never given a damn about anyone save his sister and brothers, would give his life for her.

  She was his family now. Cleaved to him. Joined with him. His.

  He licked down her seam, replacing his finger with his tongue. Diving deep into her slippery channel. Her hips bucked. As he worked her pearl and thrust his tongue into her, she came, shuddering beneath him, the most decadent sounds of surrender he’d ever heard shattering the night.

  He could not wait another moment.

  He was upon her in an instant, rigid cock in hand, guiding himself to her center.

  “Tell me what you want,” he growled, needing her affirmation.

  They were about to consummate their union. Later, he would worry about what was to come. How a duke’s daughter could exist in his world, especially after she discovered the truth. Now, all he knew was that he needed her.

  Needed her more than his next breath.

  “I want you, Dom,” she whispered.

  He moved. One quick thrust, and he was inside her. She tightened on him, drawing him deeper into her silken warmth. She was as tight as he remembered, and the constriction of her cunny on his cock sent sparks through him. His ballocks tightened.

  Sealing their mouths once more, he kissed her as he rocked inside her. Their tongues tangled, the taste of her lacing their frantic meeting of lips. Though he tried to control himself, she felt too good around him, bathing him in the wetness of her spend. His thrusts were faster. More frenzied.

  But she did not mind. If anything, his bewitching wife spurred him on, wrapping her leg around his waist, using a foot planted on the mattress to meet his driving rhythm. He was already reaching the end of his limit, and far faster than he had intended, when she clenched on him, coming all over his cock.

  He broke their kiss and threw back his head, pumping into her a few more times before he lost all semblance of control. There was a roaring in his ears, flames licking up his spine, as he poured himself into his wife, filling her with his seed.

  Mindless, boneless, and spent, he collapsed to the bed at her side. His last coherent thought was that mayhap she would have his child. The notion did not terrify him nearly as much as it ought. For the second time in his life, Dominic Winter fell into a deep, dreamless sleep next to the woman in his bed.

  Adele woke to the familiar chill of a winter’s morning, the fire having died sometime during the night. She had slept so soundly. She stretched beneath the covers, feeling sated and sore in strange places. As her eyes fluttered open to meet the light pouring through the gaps in the window dressing, she expected to find herself in the gold bedchamber at Abingdon Hall, where she had spent the last few weeks.

  The sight greeting her instead was that of a decidedly uninspiring room. Spare and well-used, outfitted with a fireplace and a scarred table with two chairs, along with a chaise longue and a worn carpet, this room and its somewhat dingy walls bore no comparison to the intricate plasterwork and luxurious appointments of her former lodgings.

  Remembrance washed over her.

  The room was not the only difference, waking up this morning. There was a big, masculine body in the bed with her, an arm slung about her waist, hot breath fanning her nape, a long leg tangled with hers. Dominic Winter was in the bed with her.

  Her husband.

  The memory of the night before, his tenderness and the pleasure he had wrung from her body once more, filled her with warmth despite the cold of the chamber. He was a complicate
d man, but she felt certain, after last night, there was hope for them. He had allowed her to know a side of him she suspected he did not readily share.

  His scars were many and vicious, some more so than others. His poor body had been ravaged by wounds. And yet, he had allowed her to touch him. He had held still for her shocked examination.

  At her side, he made a low, sleepy sound.

  She turned toward him, wanting to see how he looked in slumber. So often, he was harsh and forbidding. A man feared by many. A man who had suffered much, she suspected.

  Protectiveness for him surged. His handsome countenance was soft, almost boyish. His dark hair was a charming slash falling over his brow, his full, sensual lips parted. A thin stubble of whiskers darkened his unshaven jaw.

  Adele could not contain the urge to feel its prickle upon her palm.

  Tentatively, she reached for him. But she had scarcely run her hand along the prominent slant when a manacle grip clamped on her wrist and she found herself suddenly rolled to her back, a heavy weight pinning her body to the mattress.

  Her arms were wrenched over her head, held to the bed, and the face hovering over hers did not resemble the man she had been quietly admiring at all. His lip curled in a snarl, his eyes flashed with darkness, and his entire body seemed poised to strike.

  Terror leapt into her throat, her heart pounding in her breast. “Dom!”

  He blinked. The fight fled him. His body relaxed, his expression shifting. Softening once more, this time with regret rather than boyish charm. “Adele? Fuck, I am so sorry, love. Have I done you injury?”

  As he asked the question, he released her wrists and removed his body from hers. Her wrists throbbed with the sudden force he had shown, and his unexpected response still had her pulse racing, but she was otherwise unaffected.

  What had happened in Dominic Winter’s life to make him suspect someone was attempting to harm him in his sleep?

  “I am fine,” she told him, rubbing her wrists, frowning. “But what of you, Dom? Did you think I was going to harm you?”

  “Not you.” He gritted a low curse, passing his hand over his face. “Floating hell, love. I am sorry. I ought to have slept on the floor.”