Free Wicked Desires (Wicked Affairs, Book One) by Eliza Lloyd Page B

been with another man. Were I the suspicious sort, I’d say you were trying to hide your own behavior.”
    “My behavior? I saw you kissing Martin DeLacy. Don’t tell me you’re the innocent in this.”
    “DeLacy? That was over a year ago! And he accosted me. I can assure you, sir, it wasn’t at my invitation.”
    “That’s not how it appeared to me.”
    Clarissa gasped and threw the blankets back, covering the same ground as Michael. She stood in front of him with her hands at her hips. “You saw, and you did nothing?”
    “What was I supposed to do? Call attention to your behavior? Have everyone at the ball know that I’d caught my wife in the embrace of another man? No, thank you. I’d prefer to keep my dignity intact.”
    “Dignity? He could have hurt me. As it was, the fool was drunk enough that a sturdy slap sent him into a flowerpot. And to this day, he still bothers me, yet you turn a blind eye until you find a convenient way to accuse me of improper behavior.”
    “I see everything. And he’s not the only one who pants after your flouncing skirts, ready to haul you into a darkened corner and fuck you. I see, Madam.”
    “And if I could only get my husband to do the same,” she snapped. “I’m going to bed. You may leave my room. This conversation is over.”
    She brushed past him to return to her bed. He clasped her upper arm, yanking her to his chest.
    “What? Do you not notice when they accidently brush an arm across your breast, or stare down the front of your dress, hoping for a glimpse of all your charms? How could you not? How many times have you slipped away with another? How many times have these lips caressed the sweetness from someone else’s cock?”
    Clarissa jerked away and then slapped his face with a resounding thwack . “You are drunk and uncouth. Please leave now.”
    Michael stormed away.
    At the connecting door he stopped, ready to fling more words.
    She beat him to it. “And you can be sure, I will not be returning to York anytime soon.”
    Michael heard Clarissa sobbing before the door shut behind him. He hardened his heart. Nothing she said explained her absence tonight. He should have married some whey-faced merchant’s daughter with broad hips and a big nose—then he would have no reason to fear her wandering.
    The drink he’d avoided earlier now seemed a necessity, and he bound down the stairs to the library to pour a healthy glass of brandy. The glass shook as he brought it to his lips.
    He could not take it any more. He’d lost his mind. A beautiful, desirable wife he panted after and yet he paid for whores. All of his guilt spilled out in his accusations against Clarissa.
    Touching the whore had been a huge mistake. He ran a hand over the back of his neck, rubbing at the tight ache of self-recrimination and guilt.
    The feel of her tits, the firmness of her ass. His cock squeezed in painful pleasure between their bodies. Fucking her would have been easy, enjoyable and wildly entertaining. In the state he’d been in, he wouldn’t have given Clarissa a second thought.
    Until the whore’s words cut through his heart.
    He’d passed an imaginary line tonight. He’d believed he had the willpower and the moral fortitude to resist much, much longer. And now that he’d touched her…
    Damn. Now that he’d touched her, now that Clarissa had defied him and taunted him, he’d give in. Sink himself into every pleasurable dissipation he could find as long as his cock didn’t give out.
    Five weeks, Clarissa said.
    He had five weeks to fuck himself to death with the French whore, and he intended to enjoy every minute of it. He palmed his cock, already aching with the need to pound into any available cunt.
    Clarissa’s especially. How he’d enjoy reminding her what they had. How he’d enjoy spreading her dewy thighs, her legs and arms bound while he pumped into her and then, before his climax, while he was rock-hard and horny, slide into that tight little ass, wait for