Free A Wicked Lord at the Wedding by Jillian Hunter

his pleased scrutiny.
    “My goodness.” She stared down at her ruined costume, the cat’s tail curled in a little question mark at his feet. “Wasn’t that a subtle overture?”
    “Don’t you think we’ve waited long enough?”
    “I certainly have,” she said, looking up at him frankly.
    “Thank God for that.”
    His eyes riveted her to the spot. She lowered her hands to her sides.
    Unshielded now.
    Without disguise.
    His stare drained her of her will. While he undid his coat and cuffs, she studied the moonbeams on the carpet and wished she could appear as cool as he, as aloof, not anything to be captured. But she was human, hot-blooded, her emotions teetering on the edge. If he didn’t make a move soon, she would disgrace herself.
    He was the only man who’d ever turned her head, and she had silenced her needs for too long.
    How easily they fell into bed together.
    How effortlessly he inflamed her blood and made her forget that
he
had forgotten her.
    “You’re incredible,” he whispered, his hands everywhere at once. “I wish the light were better so that I could see you.”
    She laughed, cradling his face to return his kisses. “I like the dark.”
    “Then I do, too. I missed you.”
    “Prove it.”
    He laughed, kissing her face, her lips, the points of her breasts until the damp heat in her belly turned to steam. His head lifted, a challenge smoldering behind his slumberous smile. “What do you want?” he asked slowly.
    “I don’t know anymore.”
    “You’re still my wife,” he said, his hand sliding around her waist. “That hasn’t changed.”
    Man and wife. A license to love as well as to lust after each other. As for the rest of their vows, she had no idea whether he had kept them, or what they meant to him now. She would address that matter in due course.
    From the instant she had kissed him in the carriage, she’d realized she would have to come to a compromise with herself. She could make them both miserable by pretending she did not desire him. But how much better to show him what he had missed.
    She had missed him so much. Every hot male inch of him. His musky scent. His low-pitched voice. The deft hands that moved over her body with a magician’s power.
    “Elle,” he whispered, deep kissing her again as if this were their first sexual encounter. His long fingers combed through her hair. His body settled against hers, his place marked, her surrender assumed. “Do you think anyone in London will notice if we stay in bed for a week?”
    “You’ve been gone for—”
    “—three years, and that’s only if we don’t count the other three when I rarely saw you.” His honest stare discomposed her. “So you see—I’ll need more than a week alone with you to make up for my neglect.” He shaped her bottom with his large hands. “Perhaps if we start with what comes to us naturally, the rest will fall back in place.”
    No.
No
. Wait. She refused to grant him what remained of her heart as eagerly as she did her body. The first three years of their marriage had been utterly bereft. Seeing him at the odd interval only made her miss him more. And while she might not have found contentment during the three later years of his absence, she had found her balance. No hills. No deep valleys. A safe footpath in between.
    “Get on your back, Sebastien,” she said with a resolve that, judging by his expression, surprised him as much as it had her.
    He rolled onto one shoulder, lifting his hands in laughing surrender. “What do you have in mind?”
    “I haven’t decided.”
    “That sounds … promising. Spontaneous.”
    “It does, doesn’t it?”
    “Well, I’m yours.” He crossed his hands behindhis neck, regarding her in expectant silence until her throat closed, and she realized that she had to do something to give her threat credence.
    Still, for all she had hoped for this moment of passionate revenge, the Eleanor of her powerful fantasies possessed stronger nerves than she of the