Free When She Said I Do by Celeste Bradley

gently around her erect nipples. He tenderly squeezed. She inhaled sharply. Her back arched. He softly twisted. Her hands fisted on the rolled copper edge of the tub. He plucked delicately, pulling the sweet pink tips longer and harder yet. Then he combined all three motions until her breath came fast and her thighs began to scissor together beneath the surface of the water.
    It seemed it had not solely been a drunken delusion that first night. In defiance of her serene performance the night before, it seemed his pretty virginal wife did enjoy his touch.
    She let out a small, broken cry of pleasure. The pearl, forgotten, slipped from her hand to sink to the bottom of the tub. When her head dropped back to roll upon his thigh, her eyes closed and her pink lips parted in quick, panting breaths. Ren could see the flush of arousal on her cheeks and down her throat and chest. His own aching lust rose like a dormant volcano kept too long beneath the fractured earth.
    His want was sudden, as fierce and molten as lava breaking free. His mouth went dry and his head pounded with a rhythm matching the throbbing in his groin. To take her, to plunge hard into her sweet wet heat, to drive himself deep while he ravaged her mouth with his, swallowing her cries—
    It was only with the most powerful restraint he had ever forced upon himself that he kept from stripping off his clothes and joining her there in the bath, from slipping down beneath her, lifting her astride him to impale her beneath the water, to fucking her hard and fast until he burst inside her and the bathwater ran across the floor from the great waves he created with his lust.
    That would be a lovely way to treat a virgin. Rape her in the kitchen.
    His lust rose in argument. She was his wife. A man could do as he liked with his own wife.
    Sorry, mate. That is not how we conduct matters here. Be on your way.
    Ren’s lust retreated, sullenly and with many a threatening glare, but it retreated. He allowed his pretty wife’s luscious breasts to slip out of his shaking hands. Her confused, breathy sigh cut directly through him. Then, drawing deeply upon every last scrap of his gentlemanly restraint, he stood and turned his back on her.
    “Enjoy the remainder of your bath, Calliope. I shall see you tonight.”
    Her swallow was quite audible. “Tonight? But—”
    She clearly thought this interlude had bought her a reprieve. “Tonight.” No reprieve. It was all he could manage to wait that long to touch her again.
    Gentlemen did not assault their wives. They did not pull them naked and dripping from the bath to bend them over kitchen worktables and take them vigorously from behind.
    Bounder. Cad.
    Beast.
    God, how he wanted to take her vigorously from behind.
    *   *   *
    Callie slid down in the chilling water, covering her breasts with her hands and listening to Mr. Porter’s uneven stride fade away down the stone-paved hallway. Then, remembering, she scrabbled on the floor of the tub for the pearl.
    Tonight.
    He wanted more? More than having her naked and wet, writhing shamelessly for his pleasure?
    Of course he wants more. And so do you.
    Parts of her did. Parts of her yearned for a great deal more.
    Callie knew a little something about sexual congress. All the Worthington spawn did. They’d had open access to literature from around the world. She’d known the basic mechanics of intercourse since she’d turned twelve and her mother handed her a heavily bound medical text with an airy wave and a “Don’t mind the illustrations, darling. All those drawings were done from cadavers.”
    Callie had barely been able to look at the book after that. Still, her curiosity had compelled her to warily peek between the pages and glean enough facts to make her blush and shut the book with a gasp. Outrageous! Whose bright notion was that ridiculous scenario?
    Now, with her nipples tingling hot and hard from Mr. Porter’s … er, interference … the scenario seemed not quite