He saw no reason why the two of them could not satisfy each other’s physical desires!
Cat had never been spoken to with such—such—
Stark and brutal sexual honesty, she acknowledged weakly. Both in regard to Andrew’s words and her own physical response to them.
She had changed out of the damp gown from earlier and now wore another high-waisted gown of deep rose. The quick rise and fall of the tops of her breasts above the low neckline clearly revealed her agitation.
Or something else…
Because her nipples were hard beneath the silk material, and the slickness between her thighs had increased, and no doubt her female scent along with it.
Still, people didn’t talk like this to each other on a few hours’ acquaintance. In her experience, they didn’t talk to each other like this at all! Not in Cat’s polite and protected world, in any case.
Andrew Belgrade does.
And he had done so with that same lack of emotion with which he spoke of everything else.
Cat willed her ragged breathing to even out before attempting to answer him. “Flattered as I am—”
“You are no more flattered by the bluntness of my comments, than I am pleased at having to acknowledge this unexpected desire I have felt for you since the moment I first looked at you,” he said harshly.
Revealing how much that desire angered him?
No doubt it did, Cat acknowledged. She was sure that before he came to Scotland, Andrew had never even considered the possibility that he might feel desire for his sister’s own sister-in-law.
“Now I’m really not flattered,” she said dryly.
He raised dark brows. “Would you have me lie to you with flowery declarations of eternal love and romance?”
Cat glared. “I would rather you had not spoken at all!”
“I only state the truth as I see it.” One of his large hands reached across the table to grasp one of her much smaller ones. “I accept I am probably fifteen or so years older than you, but I do not see why that should detract from the desire we obviously feel for each other. You are a widow, I have never been married, nor am I committed to another. Therefore, there should be no impediment to us becoming lovers.”
Cat’s whole evening, her very reality as she knew it, felt as if it were being shaken to its foundations.
Because Andrew was correct in his summation?
Because she did feel an inexplicable desire for him, one her responses told her she felt more deeply than for any other man. Including Ewan, who had been her best friend before he became her husband. This awareness of Andrew was visceral, primal, and nothing like the easy joy she and Ewan had found in each other’s company.
But that didn’t mean she and Essex had to take that mutual desire to its natural conclusion. Something inside Cat knew instinctively that if she once gave in to these uncomfortable feelings she had for Andrew Belgrade, she would never be the same.
There was a darkness to him, a well of emotions buried deep inside him, a sensuality that, if he ever unleashed it, would either conquer or destroy everything in its path.
She knew Elena had believed her brother to be a good man at heart, despite his wanting nothing more to do with her after she had eloped with Hugh. Elena had described that behavior as being due to “the curse of Andrew’s propriety.”
Cat had seen some of that propriety, in that until now he had been excessively polite to her. She couldn’t fault his manner toward Malcolm either. Despite the prank of the two of them having tried to waylay him on the road earlier today. His behavior toward the household servants had also been impeccable.
But whether she returned Andrew’s desire or not, she must never forget that he now had as much of a say in Malcolm’s future as she did. Essex’s conversation with her great-uncle, whether it took place tomorrow or the day after, would confirm that Hugh’s will named the two of them as joint guardians.
But no judge, her Uncle Simon had explained to Cat, Scottish or English, would refuse to allow a man as prestigious and wealthy as Andrew Belgrade, the Duke of Essex, to take his nephew back to London with him, if only for a visit.
That possibility was enough of a deterrent to the heated desire Cat now felt coursing through her veins.
She turned away from the fierceness of his gaze. “Except the impediment of decency and good sense,” she answered him abruptly. “Two things which currently seem to have deserted you.”
Andrew wished he could claim otherwise. He truly did. But this desire he felt toward Catriona had been growing steadily stronger throughout the evening.
Minute by minute.
Second by second.
Until she had become all he could think about.
Her beauty.
That flawless milky-white skin.
Her deep auburn hair.
The tempting swell of her breasts.
The slender elegance of her body.
Andrew had become obsessed with those thoughts. So much so that, after bathing and changing for dinner, rather than remaining in his bedchamber looking out over the loch, he’d instead felt compelled to seek out Catriona where he knew she would be putting Malcolm to bed.
He had remained in the doorway, watching her unobserved for several minutes. She’d looked beautifully flushed and disheveled. Much like Andrew imagined she would look after her body had been plundered by his lips, hands, and cock.
The way in which she had so pointedly looked at him as she announced to Malcolm she was going to read Beauty and the Beast as his bedtime story had caused Andrew’s palms to itch with a need to spank her deliciously rounded bottom before any
