“Not true.” He rarely allowed her the lead, preferring to remain in control.
“I came in here with the express purpose of taking a nap. You instigated everything I must now do to you to slake my craving enough to catch some sleep.”
The backs of her thighs hit the high bed, and he lifted and tossed her upon the turned-down mattress. Then he shed his robe and crawled over her.
Staring up at him, she found herself smitten with his smile, with the gleam in his eyes, with the dark silky hair that fell over his brow. How different he was from the brooding, gloomy man who had stood in her drawing room so recently. Had she wrought this change? Did she hold that much sway over him?
Her eyes drifted lower.
“That look,” he said dryly, “is the reason we spend so much time in this position.”
“What look?” Isabel batted her lashes mischievously, enjoying the renewed teasing banter she’d missed. There always seemed to be so much tension between them. Its absence was a pleasure.
Gray dipped his head and licked the tip of her nose, then pressed his mouth to hers. “It says, Fuck me, Gerard. Spread my thighs, mount me, make me hoarse and limp from pleasure.”
“Good heavens,” she purred. “It’s a wonder I manage a word in edgewise with such chatty eyes.”
“Hmmm…” His voice lowered to the tone she recognized as the immediate herald to troublemaking. “I certainly cannot manage speech when you look at me like that. Drives me insane.”
“Perhaps you shouldn’t look at me, then,” she suggested, her hands coming up to stroke his lean hips.
“You would never allow me to ignore you, Pel. You foster my infatuation at every turn.”
Infatuation. She shivered. Could he care for her? Did she want him to? “Why would I do such a thing?”
“Because you don’t want my attention to wander.” He kissed her before she could digest what he said.
Isabel lay still, her mouth ravished by a kiss that curled her toes, Gray’s tongue licking across hers, gliding under it, drinking from her as if she were some delicacy. All the while in her mind, she considered what he had said. Was she attempting to bind him to her with sexual extortion?
When Gray lifted his head, his breathing was as disturbed as hers. “You do not afford me even half a moment to think of another woman.” His eyelids lowered, shuttering his thoughts. “You take me to your bed at every opportunity. You exhaust me—”
“Ha. Your appetite is inexhaustible.” But the rejoinder that was meant to be dismissing, was instead shaky and inflected with a question. Had she gone from wanting him to stray, to wanting to keep him all to herself?
In one graceful, fluid movement, he rolled and brought her over him. “I require as much sleep as any other human.” He pressed his fingers over her mouth to silence a coming protest. “I am not so young as to forgo sleep altogether, so discard any attempt to use that excuse again. You are not too old for me. I am not too young for you.”
Catching his wrist, she tugged his hand away. “You could always sleep apart from me.”
“Don’t be daft. You mistake my observation for a complaint, which it is not.” Gray stroked the curve of her spine, applying pressure so that her breasts connected more fully to his chest. “Perhaps once or twice it has crossed my mind that I should manage my cock, instead of allowing it to lead me. But then I remember the feel of your cunt in orgasm, the way it clutches me, the way you arch up and cry out my name. And I tell my brain to cease prattling and leave me alone.”
Dropping her forehead to his chest, Isabel laughed.
He tucked her into his side. “If you require a physical display of my affections at this moment, I am more than prepared to oblige you. We can’t have you worried about waning interest and all that. Whatever you need, Pel, to make it possible to believe in me, I will do it. I suppose I should have stated that bluntly earlier so there would be no doubt. I am not Pelham.”
The look in his eyes was fond, with banked lust—the look of a man who was just as content to hold her as he was to ride her.
Her throat tightened, her eyes stung.
“Where did you find these sudden insights into my behavior?” she asked softly. The Grayson she’d married had never looked far enough beyond himself to see such things.
“I told you, you have my undivided attention.” His fingers plunged into her hair, loosening and then pulling out the pins that held it up, before tossing them to the floor. “There is no other person I would wish to be with more than you, female or otherwise. You make me laugh, you always have. You never allow me to become too full of myself. You see all of my faults and find most of them charming. I’ve no need of any other companions. In fact, you and I will remain in our rooms this evening.”
“Now who’s daft? Everyone will think we are up here having sex if we skip dinner.”
“And they will not be wrong,” he murmured, his lips to her forehead. “We are honeymooners, they should expect nothing less from us.”
Honeymoon. Just that one word brought back the dreams she’d once had of a passionate, monogamous marriage. How hopeful she had been then. How naïve. She should be too old to experience that kind of eager anticipation for the future.
Should be. But was finding the opposite was true.
“But we shall also take our meal together up here,” he continued, “and play chess. I will tell you of my—”
“You hate chess,” she reminded, pulling back to look at him.
“Actually, I have learned to enjoy it. And I am quite good. Be prepared to suffer defeat.”
Isabel stared up at him. So many times, she felt as if a stranger had returned to her. A man who looked very much like the man she married, but wasn’t. How much had he changed? He was so mercurial. Even now he seemed different from the man who had left her room just an hour before.
“Who are you?” she breathed, her hand reaching up to touch his face, to trace the arch of his brow. So much the same. So very different.
His smile faded. “I am your husband, Isabel.”
“No, you are not.” She pressed him back, sliding over him again. The texture of his hard body was so wonderful to her—the hard ridges and planes, the dusting of hair over his sun-darkened skin.
“How can you say that?” he asked, his voice turning husky as she moved upon him. “You stood next to me at the altar. You said the vows, and heard mine.”
Lowering her head, she took his mouth in a lush kiss, suddenly wanting him. Not because she was physically unable to resist the temptation he presented, but because she saw something in him she had failed to see before—commitment. He was committed to her, to learning about her and understanding her. The knowledge made her shiver, made her sink into his embrace, made her relish the feel of his strong arms encircling her back.
He turned his head, evading her questing mouth. Panting, he said, “Don’t do this.”
“Do what?” She caressed the length of his torso, cupped his hip, shifted so she could reach between his legs.
“Don’t tell me I am not your husband and then silence me with sex. We will have this out, Pel. No more of this nonsense about mistresses and the like.”