Page 6 of Every Rogue Has His Charm

“I waited until it was dark.” He was looking not at her, but at the candle, as if mesmerized by its flickering light. “To spare you as much unpleasantness as I could.”

As if to confirm that he referred to his scars, a muscle ticked along his jaw and the mark on his cheek leaped into prominence.

“I’m not afraid,” she insisted, reaching for his hand.

He jerked away before she could touch him, rising to his feet. “I hope to God this show of bravery isn’t due to ignorance.” As he spoke, he stumped to the mantel and extinguished the candles there. “Perhaps no one has explained the rudiments of marital relations to you?”

Her cheeks burned brighter than the single taper that remained lit. “I know enough. You—your”—she circled her wrist in the air, hoping to grasp the proper words—“manly affair gets stiff and in order to p-plant your seed, you push it inside me, and I must bear up under the discomfort of it, because that is how heirs are made.”

He coughed—to disguise a laugh, she felt sure. “That is…rudimentary knowledge, indeed. But enough to be going on with, I suppose.” He shed his dressing gown, revealing the deep V of his open shirt, filled by a forest of dark, curling hair.

As he moved to snuff the wick of the last candle between his forefinger and thumb, she said, “Wait.”

His hand hovered there, barely out of reach of the flame.

“Mama also hinted…” Mortification flooded her veins, but she had to know. “Rumor has it your injuries are so extensive that you might not be able to perform your, um, husbandly duties.”

She had no word for the emotion that flared to life in the depths of his black eyes. “No such luck, I’m afraid.” And with a snap of his fingers, the room went dark.

“I’m glad,” she whispered into night. “Then Papa will not be able to have this marriage annulled.”

The bitter ghost of a laugh skated across her scalp. He’d stepped closer—how did he move so silently with that limp? “Let him try.”

She felt the coverlet lift away. “I want you bare, Caro. Every inch.”

“But you cannot see me,” she protested feebly, even as she reached for the hem of her nightgown to draw it off.

“I can touch you. Taste you. That must be enough.”

“Oh.” The nightgown whispered to the floor. “And will you be bare too?”

The answering silence was loud, broken only by the creak of the bed as the mattress sank a few inches beneath his weight. His featherlight touch along her arm made the fine hairs there rise, but when she turned toward him, he swiftly caught her wrists in one hand, the room’s darkness evidently no impediment to him. “The sight of my scars would repulse you; the sensation of you probing them would be agony to me.” Stretching her arms above her head, he pinned them there with inexorable, but not uncomfortable, pressure. “I will tie your hands to the bedpost if I must.”

“I—I won’t touch you. You have my word.”

But he did not release her, only set his lips unerringly to hers.

Everything was new and strange to her: the softness of his mouth, the flick of his tongue, the sandy scrape of his freshly shaven jaw against her cheek. She found a paradoxical freedom in being his prisoner, free to let the rest of her senses run wild.

From her mother’s scant description, she could not have expected that he would be slow about his business, or gentle. She could not have known how her skin would respond to his calloused fingertips as he traced the shell of her ear, the turn of her throat, the valley between her breasts, learning her body—every inch of it, as he’d vowed. And when his mouth followed his fingers down her neck to her breast, she could not disguise her whimper of need.

“Please, my lord,” she whispered against his hair, uncertain for what she begged.

“When I’m in your bed, you may call me Maxim.”

She’d spoken his name—a long string of names, some French, some English—in church, of course, though she’d been too nervous to commit them to memory. But she recalled now that Maximilien had been among them. “Maxim,” she repeated. She would not forget again.

His hand moved lower, to the joining of her thighs. This is it, she thought, steeling herself. But he continued his unhurried exploration, brushing softly over her crisp curls, stroking the delicate skin of her inner thighs, and finally circling his fingertip around a place so sensitive, she bit her lip to keep from crying out. When he discovered what she had done, he first chided her, then covered her mouth with his, greedily swallowing her moans as he ruthlessly built her pleasure, driving her toward something that sparkled and shone just out of reach.

The crisis, when it came, brought tears to her eyes, and rippling waves of delight that unspooled from deep within her. Hardly had she released a sigh of satisfaction when he began to kiss the tears away. “Again,” he murmured, his breath hot at her ear, his touch insistent—almost too much, at first, but then, just what she needed.

Twice more he brought her to climax, until she was boneless, floating above herself. As she listened to him shuck his clothes, she realized he must have released her hands, though she didn’t move them, wasn’t even sure she had the strength to lift her arms.

Maxim, however, had strength enough for both of them. With ease, he rolled her onto her belly. “Lift your hips,” he coaxed.

She’d nearly forgotten what was yet to come. But Mama’s description of the marital bed had been nothing like this. He positioned himself behind her, his member hot against the backs of her thighs. “This is how beasts mate,” she exclaimed, not exactly protesting. She could feel him at the entrance to her body.

“And does not rumor have it that I’m a beast?”