“You’re tired, Pen. No need to stir early tomorrow. When you’re up, I’ll show you around the house.”

She regarded him with palpable disbelief. “That’s it?”

He straightened his shoulders from their discouraged slump and struggled to smile. Frustration stung like acid in his veins. “I know you won’t believe it, but I’m very happy that you married me.”

To his surprise, the black eyes sparked for the first time today. He had a nasty feeling that this reprieve had lifted her spirits. Just as he had a nasty feeling that he’d spend his wedding night alone with an improving book and a bottle of brandy.

“You’re right, I don’t believe it, but I appreciate your gallantry.” Her jaw no longer looked likely to shatter if she spoke one untoward word.

“In time, you will. It’s been a devil of a ride since we met. We’re both at sixes and sevens.” He spoke what he prayed was the truth. “We’ll get there. Goodwill and kindness will take us a long way.”

Her expression changed, although he was too far away to read her fathomless eyes. Damn it, he didn’t want to skulk back to the ducal chambers. He particularly didn’t want to lie in the big, cold bed alone.

No, he wanted Pen in his arms. He wanted to scale the ladder to heaven that had beckoned since he’d found her again. He wanted to kiss her and touch her and ignite her passions. More than that, he wanted to slide inside her long, glorious body and forget everything except pleasure.

Tonight, want took him nowhere.

He turned toward the door.

“Cam?”

He didn’t turn, partly because he didn’t trust himself not to leap on her, whether she wanted him or not. “Sleep well, Pen.”

“Cam,” she said more urgently. “Wait.”

He frowned at the polished mahogany door before him. Did she know how near he was to breaking point? She played a dangerous game.

He heard a rustle behind him. The thick carpet in a pattern matching the delicate chinoiserie wallpaper muffled the soft pad of her feet.

Every hair on his skin rose at her approach. He deliberately hadn’t touched her since coming in, afraid that if he did, restraint would vanish. Also something about her watchfulness warned him that if he pushed too far too fast, he’d destroy all trust between them.

He’d cajoled her into marriage. For her sake. And for his. He couldn’t claim unselfishness. Now Pen, or malign fate, or demons from hell paid him out for his self-interest.

He clenched his fists at his sides and faced her. She stood a foot away. Every sense was alert to her. Her violet scent drifted toward him. “Do you need anything?”

As she inhaled, her breasts shifted against her transparent nightdress. Dear God, she tortured him.

“I think…” Another excruciating pause before her words tumbled out in a heated rush. “I think I need to sleep with my husband.”

Pen watched blazing excitement replace Cam’s resigned grimness. Despite her invitation, she was still nervous, but her heart gave a great swoop of anticipation as he swept her up against him. He swung her high and strode toward the bed.

“Are you sure?” She’d never heard that raw tone before, even in those fraught, incandescent moments on the Windhover.

Before she could answer, he bent his glossy dark head and kissed her hard and hungry, as if he starved. She kissed him back with despairing abandon. The rich flavor of brandy mixed with the even richer flavor of his mouth.

Cam had wanted her as a mistress, not as a wife. Cam desired her. Cam would never love her.

With his lips plundering hers and his arms lashing her close, she hardly remembered why any of that mattered. What mattered was that he touched her with mad desperation and he held her as if she was the only woman in creation.

She was doomed. But this was a doom of heated caresses and fevered moans and kisses that made her head swim with pleasure.

He’d kissed her like this on the Windhover before he’d broken her heart—yet again—with his insulting proposition. After those heady moments, the wild rush should feel familiar. It didn’t. She felt as if she’d never been kissed before.

The world dipped as he set her on the bed and lowered over her, shrugging off the crimson robe. She had a far too fleeting glimpse of his long, lean body before he caged her between his arms, his bare chest filling her view.

Dizzy with unprecedented, overwhelming excitement, she gasped as his weight descended. Automatically her legs parted to cradle his hips. She started up against him when she felt the insistent pressure against her belly. Huge. Demanding. Inescapable.

His mouth devoured hers, then nipped and licked her neck and shoulders. Roughly he shoved the frail batiste aside until he could kiss the ball of her shoulder and the line of her collarbone. He rushed her into a turbulent current of passion that permitted no pause. She flowed into his demands. She didn’t want to think. She just wanted to feel.

Her heart thundered so loudly that she hardly heard the sharp rip as he tore the nightdress away.

“Cam!” With her last modesty, she tried to cover her sex and her breasts. Everything happened so quickly. She hadn’t come to terms with one sensation before another crowded to replace it.

“Let me see you,” he groaned, staring down with glittering green eyes. “I’ve dreamed of seeing you.”

She knew his dreams had involved passionate possession and nothing more. But she had no defenses against his pleading. Shaking with nerves, she lifted her hands away and buried them in the rumpled sheets.

“You’re so beautiful,” he said, bending his head to her breasts.

When he suckled, she cried out at the heat rocketing through her. Arousal tightened and coiled, making her writhe. With unsteady hands, she grabbed his forearms, fingers digging into the taut muscles. Once before, he’d pushed her to the edge, but this time, her responses were stronger, deeper. She could hardly think. This was like living inside a furnace. He’d burn her to ashes. All the time he muttered words that she’d heard so often in her fantasies.

You’re so beautiful.

You’re like fire in my arms.

I’ve wanted you so long.

I want you. I want you. I want you.

He rocked against her stomach, setting her blood shifting like the tides. She edged closer to an exquisite pinnacle. The musky smell of aroused male overwhelmed her. The torrid intimacy astonished her, even if in her imagination, her body had thrilled to his hands and lips and voice ten thousand times.

Oh, what wicked things he did to her. Arching, she bit him on the shoulder, wanting him to know a fraction of this painful joy. He jolted under the rough caress and bit her nipple hard enough to make her shake like the dice in a gambler’s cup.

Like his kisses on the Windhover, this mating held little tenderness. She didn’t want tenderness. Tenderness would cut too close to her lonely soul.

He raised his head and gazed at her blindly. His pupils were so enlarged, his eyes were as black as her own. The skin across his face looked too tight to contain the hard, exquisite bones: so male, so strong, so noble.

Fleetingly her aroused trance receded and she stared lost into his face, knowing she’d remember this moment as long as she lived. The burning gaze. The powerful arms straining beneath her clutching hands. The weight against her belly. The vulnerability betrayed in the line of his mouth. A vulnerability that she knew he’d deny.

She saw something else too. Something that pierced her like a sword. For all Cam’s excitement, there was a distance behind those brilliant eyes. He might want her to yield unconditionally, but if he felt anything beyond physical urgency, it remained forever locked inside him.

As he tightened his hips and plunged into her, she released a broken sob of anguish.

Pen’s harsh cry pierced the air, but it was too late. As he seated himself full length, Cam felt the delicate membrane tear.

Appalled realization crashed down and he went utterly still. Beneath him, Pen lay stiff as a board. All the lithe looseness had vanished the moment he took her.

Incredulity and shame battled inside him.

Incredulity. Shame. And unforgivable pleasure.

Because lying here, the strongest sensation was pleasure.

“Pen?” he asked shakily. He loathed that he loved being inside her. He loathed that his deepest physical nature wanted him to stay. With clumsy tenderness, he brushed back the hair clinging to her damp face.

“Pen, I’m sorry.” His apology was thick with regret and raging arousal.

“Finish,” she forced out in a guttural voice that he didn’t recognize. “For God’s sake, finish.”

Every muscle in her body hardened against him as if her very skin rejected him. The hands that circled his arms were tight as manacles. She breathed in broken little gasps.

Damn, damn, damn.

“I’ll hurt you,” he said, frantic with remorse.

“You’re hurting me now,” she snarled, nails digging deep enough to draw blood. The sting was the least he deserved.

He’d been so tragically, fatally, criminally wrong. Why the devil had he listened to the vicious lies? Hell, if anyone knew not to credit spiteful tattle, he should.

Like a coward, he buried his head in the warm nook between her neck and shoulder. What he’d done was reprehensible. The result of arrogance, prejudice, stupidity, and selfish lust. Not to mention lacerating jealousy of her imaginary lovers.

But he’d wanted her so badly that he’d been blind to the signs of inexperience. Her skittishness on the journey. Her volatile reaction when he’d suggested an affair. Most of all, tonight’s crippling nervousness.