Not because he hated her – he didn’t. She would take his hatred – she would take any kind of emotion in preference to the coldness with which they treated one another.
Coldness, and disapproval. Yes, disapproval, because he disliked the necessity of this marriage as much as she. Because he’d thought he was getting a certain type of bride and instead he’d found himself married to a woman with her own ideas about where she wanted to live and what their lives would look like. They’d butted heads from day one, and that didn’t look like changing any time soon.
“You’re nervous.” The words were grim.
For a second, Chloe almost dropped her mask of unconcern. “Not at all,” she lied.
“You’re inexperienced.”
Chloe lifted a brow. “Employing euphemisms? For your comfort or mine?”
His eyes narrowed. “You’re a virgin,” he said simply.
Chloe refused to be intimidated. “I’ve never even been kissed,” she confirmed with apparent disregard. “Is that what you want to hear?”
Something like speculation grew in his eyes as he closed the distance between them, reaching for the glass in her hands.
He stared at her and despite her intentions to maintain her cool, his proximity and the promise of what was about to happen was over-charging her nerve endings. “You were twenty one when we married. You hadn’t dated?”
“No.” She tilted her head away, not wanting to be interrogated about her resolute commitment to being single.
“I find that hard to believe.”
That drew her attention back to his handsome face. “Believe it or not. That’s your choice.”
A muscle throbbed low in his jaw. “I know I should be gentle with you, and then you say things like that and I have to fight the urge to lift you over my shoulder and smack that delightful rear of yours.”
She drew in a gasp of surprise and stepped backwards, so that her hips jammed against the kitchen counter.
“You’d regret it,” she drawled, but the words were husky, the desire his words had sparked obvious in every syllable.
“Perhaps.” He closed the gap once more and she refused to be cowered, meeting his look without fear. “Did you marry me and believe we wouldn’t need to have an heir?”
“No. I always knew that one day we’d have to…” she couldn’t finish the sentence.
“I don’t want you to fear this, nor do I want you to feel forced.” A muscle jerked in his jaw. “You have choices here, Chloe.”
Her eyes met his, and a spark travelled from her to him, flaming the air. “I know that.”
His expression flashed with something like relief, for her words were the permission he sought.
“I will be gentle with you,” he promised, placing his hands on either side of her body, bracing his palms against the counter top and imprisoning her easily.
Chloe’s mouth was dry, her throat hoarse. She parted her lips to say something, but slammed them shut again when she realized she had been about to beg him, “Don’t be gentle.”
2
HIS LIPS CAME CRUSHING down on hers, as though with his mouth he could brand her and possess her, as though fearing that she might escape. That she might push him away and demand he never touch her again. That she might demand her freedom in the form of divorce.
Chloe could have done any of those things. She had married Raffa by choice, because she’d wanted to please her father, but she’d gone into it with her eyes wide open. And now, with eyes shut, she was still staring down the barrel of her choices, knowing that it went beyond duty to their families.
She wanted this. She wanted him.
A low, keening groan tipped from her mouth to his and he returned it, a thick curse charging the air as he lifted a hand to her hair and tangled his fingers in its length, drawing her head backwards to give him better access to her lips. His tongue warred with hers and his body pressed hard against her, so she felt the strength of his attraction, she felt the powerful firmness of his body and her own went weak in response.
Temptation was dragging her under, pulling her into a tide of responsiveness and need. But it was madness, and a madness of his making. With a super-human effort, she broke apart from him, shoving at his chest and spinning herself around, so she had some space. Only space was an illusion – he was everywhere! In the air she breathed deep into her lungs, in the black recesses of her eyes, in her mouth, right down to her toes.
“Don’t kiss me,” she said warningly, lifting a hand to her mouth and touching her lips as though she could wipe away what they’d just shared.
“We can do it without kissing,” he said with a lift of his shoulders, his tone mocking. “But it’s a lot less personal.”
She glared at him. “We aren’t doing it at all,” she denied hotly. “I’m not going to simply sleep with you because you’ve decided it’s time! That’s not how things work. We’re husband and wife. How and when we have children is our decision, not yours alone. I appreciate you’re used to ruling with supreme autonomy but I’m not your subject to command.”
“Actually, that’s exactly what you are,” he said with a hint of steel in his voice.
“So you’re going to order me into your bed even when it’s the last place on earth I want to be?”
He laughed softly. “I don’t think I’ll need to order you there.” He raked his gaze down her body, his attention lingering on the way her breasts were straining at her dress, two firm peaks of desire, echoed by her parted lips, flushed cheeks and huge pupils.
The room was filled with the sound of her breathing, hoarse and rushed. “Having children is not something I can just rush into.”
“You must see the importance of acting now.”
She turned
