He wrinkled his brow, but didn’t get up or try to stop her as she gathered her things in a pile in her arms. She didn’t even try to dress as she hustled to the door and fought to open it with her hands full.
“Bollocks,” she muttered under her breath.
He could have gotten up and helped her, but she didn’t even look at him. It was obvious she wanted to flee, so he let her flail until she finally got the door unlocked and opened, then stepped into the antechamber. He heard the door to the duchess’s chamber open then shut, and she was gone.
He stared at the now-open door in utter confusion and disappointment. Here he’d thought there was a connection. No, he knew there was. And she ran from it. From him.
The walls he’d hoped to ease down were most definitely still up. The question was, could they ever be brought down? The larger question, the one that haunted him as he stared at the place in his bed that still smelled of her skin, was…did he want them to be?
Abigail sat in the tub, water steaming around her and she should have felt relaxed by the soothing heat. Only she didn’t because her errant mind took her to places it shouldn’t go. Places it had been going far too often as of late, she could admit that to herself.
She kept thinking of Nathan. Of the passion that had flared between them only an hour before. Only if it had just been passion, that wouldn’t have been a problem. Passion was what they had agreed to not that many days ago when negotiating the terms of their marriage.
The problem was that more than just passion had lifted its head that day. She had felt a connection to Nathan when he touched her, when he shattered her…and when he lay beside her, his dark brown gaze locked with hers. She had melted a fraction, felt herself sliding toward him in spirit, as well as body.
Only one other time in her life had she done that. Erasmus Montgomery had made her heart flutter too. She couldn’t trust that feeling. It was the way to heartache. She knew it in her head.
But her heart was the problem. Even now she felt the swell of it as she pictured Nathan. Her mind spun up a dozen beautiful scenarios where they didn’t merely share passion, but shared their lives and their souls and their futures in every way.
“Foolish, overly romantic—” she muttered, then drew in a huge breath of air and slid beneath the water. She lay in the silence, her eyes closed, and tried to get herself together.
The Duke of Gilmore was her husband, thanks to a set of foolish mistakes that had set them on this path. She could accept that because there was no other choice. She could even accept that she might like him a little. That he might not be the ogre she had once made him out to be.
But she would not…she shuddered to even think the word…love him. She didn’t love him. She couldn’t. She had no faith in the emotion, nor the foolish decisions it almost always led to. At least for her.
Her lungs burned, and she slowly surfaced for a gulp of air. When she did, she found Nathan standing in the doorway, clad only in a dressing gown, his pupils dilated as he watched her. She swallowed and fought the urge to cover herself. It was a little late for that now. And her body wasn’t the problem, at any rate.
“I didn’t see you there.”
He smiled. “No, you were busy playing mermaid at the bottom of the tub.”
The words were playful, the tone was too, but there was tension around his mouth. Her getting out of their bed and practically running into her chamber had clearly left him with…questions. Ones she had no answers to.
“It’s a big tub.”
He took a long step into the room. “Abigail, did I do something to upset you?”
“Not at all. I had fun.” She tried to make her tone light, as if what had happened earlier had no meaning. “I’m looking forward to having fun again.”
He swallowed. There it was, the way she could maintain power and break connection. If she made the sex between them pleasurable but meaningless, it kept his mind on something she could control.
“Come here,” she said softly, crooking her finger.
He hesitated but only for a fraction of a second before he moved toward her. He sank down on his knees next to the tub. She pulled her hand out from in the waves and traced a wet fingertip along his jaw. His eyes fluttered shut, and she smiled.
When she felt a flutter in her stomach, it was just because she wanted him. Because having even a small amount of power over him was intoxicating. She was reading too much into it when she thought it was something deeper.
He lifted a hand into her hair slowly, then wrapped the length of her wet locks around and around his hand. The tug against her scalp made her sex tingle, and she let out a low sigh.
“Mine,” he murmured before he kissed her, hard and unyielding.
She nodded against his mouth, pushing those fluttering feelings away when they resurfaced. “Whatever you want,” she murmured back, and gently caught his lower lip between her teeth.
He drew back, his eyes wide, and released her hair. “Stand up.”
She did so, taking her time so that when she rose out of the water, rivulets of water running over her curves, he could truly appreciate the show. “Now what?” she asked.
He grabbed one of the towels her maid had left for her and dropped it on the floor in front of the tub. “Step out,” he said, his voice hoarse and rough.
She held out a hand, lifting her chin like a queen. He shook his head as he took it and steadied her. But the moment she was flat on her feet on the towel, he pivoted her around so her naked, wet back was against his front.
“Nathan!” she squealed. “I’m soaking you.”
He sucked the side of her throat and slid a hand down the center of her body. When he reached her sex, he parted her lips and stroked her gently. “Seems like I’m soaking you.”
He pushed his robe open. She felt the tickle of his hair against her back, her thighs as he pulled her harder against him. His cock was hard against her backside, and she pulsed back against it with a whimper.
“Minx,” he whispered, and bent her over. She wrapped her hands around the edge of the tub and gasped as he speared her in one long thrust.
He took her, hard and fast. She felt the desperation in his strokes, the need to have her and to find that same connection they’d made earlier. She shut her eyes, focusing on the pleasure and not the emotions. And oh, there was pleasure. This new angle found spots in her she had never known existed, a new flavor of the pleasure. She reached between her legs and touched herself as he thrust harder and faster.
Water sloshed on the ground around them as she ground back into him. Her fingers were coated with wetness that was from far more than her bath. He caught her hair again, tugging gently, and it pushed her over the edge where she had been dancing.
She came, grinding hard against him. Harder when he cried out and she felt the hot flood of him deep within her. For a moment they remained that way, bent over the tub, water pooling at their feet. He withdrew at last, shaking his head as he stood.
“Good God, woman, you will be the death of me.”
She laughed as she grabbed another towel from a nearby chair and wrapped it around herself. She leaned up to kiss him briefly before she stepped away. “What a way to go, though, Your Grace.”
“Indeed,” he agreed, and huffed out a long breath. He was watching her, his gaze intent and focused, so she turned away. He frowned as she did so—she caught the expression from the corner of her eye.