Secrets of Sin (6 page)

“It is of no special consequence to me that you are here.” Her look was cold and callous. “Once again, I do not have any choice in the matter.”

Reinier captured her smaller hand in his and brought it up between them. “Oh, but there is always a choice, wife.” His voice was seductive and dangerously low.

Emiline felt the blood drain from her face as he held her hand. No man had ever dared touch her like that, not since…well, not since their honeymoon. She felt herself quiver inside.

“I wonder…Do you ever wish to be free?”

Did she ever…Oh! Emiline understood now. He wanted a divorce as well! What a very fortunate twist of fate for her. “Of you?” she blurted out, speaking faster than she could hear herself think. “Yes, of course! In fact—”

“No,” Reinier cut her off with a patronizing snort. “No, not of me, I’m afraid.” He used her hand, held close to his heart, to guide her back to the table again. Her fresh hope shattered, Emiline was now more confused than ever. She blinked up at him as he released her and backed up slightly from the table.

Reinier spread his strong arms wide. “Free of all this.”

What was he talking about? The mental image of what he asked was outright ridiculous.

The way her expression changed, the way the light in her eyes died to be replaced by cool determination and prudent intent was simply amazing for Reinier. He found himself eager to taste her confusion in the air. The scent of strawberries filled his mind and let sweet memories tickle up and down his body. He wanted to catch a bit more of her spice, even more alluring now that she was angry with him.

He leaned down and set his hands on the arms of her chair. “All you command. What I mean to say is…Have you ever wished for someone else to be in control? To turn over the burdens of rule, to let go of all the responsibility and control, and just be free to follow?”

Reinier could read it in her eyes. The mere thought that her mind had instantly gone in the right direction was so very arousing. She’d wished it already. But did she have any idea how far this would go, how far he’d take her if only she let him guide her?

He pulled away from her and gave her the space she needed.

Emiline rose from the table without Reinier stopping her this time, and she moved across the room toward the small fireplace in the center of the east-facing wall. She turned to the empty hearth, placing one hand on the mantel. Eventually, she pressed out between clenched teeth, “You do not know me.”

Reinier moved to the fireplace and stood directly behind her. He touched her dark, smooth shoulder lightly with the back of his knuckles and let his breath caress her perfect neck, marveling again at what true beauty he’d sailed away from.

“Oh, but I want to know you, wife,” he whispered.

At that, Emiline spun quickly, too quickly for Reinier to catch her small hand before it connected with his cheek with more force than he’d ever imagined she could have. The smacking sound reverberated throughout the room, the candles on the mantel flickered, and even the natural music of the West Indian night outside seemed to stop in time.

His last words had definitely struck a chord—his tingling cheek was proof of it.

They stood as they were for what seemed like hours but could have been only seconds. In those moments the morning tide was completely forgotten. Reinier couldn’t think of anywhere else he wanted to be tomorrow. He had no intention of rushing things, he decided as he rubbed his cheek tenderly. He was always in the mood for a good challenge—thrived on it, in fact. Right then he was quite determined to spend a few days learning all about this new side of Emiline, the angry, passionate, and quite alluring facets of his wife he’d never seen.

Well, learning and then teaching, of course.

Emiline’s eyes were wide. She seemed horrified by her loss of control. The memory of how she shivered to his touch earlier was still echoing in his mind, but now hatred must be tickling her palm as well. Was she just as furious at herself as she was at him?

In a slow movement, meant to give her enough time to react while the dark light in his eyes dared her not to, his hands lightly gripped her forearms. When he spoke, he hoped the rich sweetness of sensuality in his voice was adding insult to injury for her.

“You’ve changed, Emiline. I have definitely seen—and felt—that now.” He laughed lightly. “But the facts are as they are: You are my wife. And this is my home when I choose it.”

His fingers started to move over her skin on their own accord. There was a brief moment when he asked himself how he could have forgotten how magical her skin felt. His hands followed his fingers, slowly moving up and down her arms.

Telltale goose bumps rose on her flesh, but he could see she was determined not to show any reaction either to his words or his touch. Reinier might not have known in the beginning, but he had been waiting for this moment since he’d first stepped foot back on the island. He leaned down until his lips were a hairsbreadth from hers.

“I have rights here—like it or not.” His breath tickled her soft lips. “I think there’s been enough discussion for our first night. Now, come to bed, wife, and we can continue this tomorrow.”

Emiline stood frozen as she watched his pale, freshly shaven cheek turn an angry crimson and quickly start to fade again. In some small way it should have been a satisfying feeling, but it wasn’t. Nothing about her wayward husband was as it should have been. Looking farther up, she saw those cool, pale citrus-colored eyes twinkle.

Her spine tingled at the thought of what his kiss might feel like. For only a split second she let herself remember what his lips tasted like, how gently they could draw her in. But then she pulled away from Reinier’s arms with all her might.

He had no rights here after sailing out of her life on the ship her money had built. Oh, she would make sure those papers were signed and he was off her island sooner rather than later.

“As I told you, Monsieur Barhydt”—Emiline thrust her chin up indignantly to make her point clear—“I rule Bougainvilla, and I surely do not take your commands. But you are right about one thing, sir. We will continue this discussion tomorrow. Good night.”

Turning away and marching toward the door to the main hallway, the breath flew from her lungs as Reinier quickly came up behind her. His muscular arm gripped her small waist when he crushed her tightly against his body. Through the silk of her dress, she felt him aroused and straining against his breeches. Once again, a deep blush moved from her cheeks to the tightening tips of her breasts.

His breath was hot and demanding against her throat. “You may very well rule Bougainvilla, madam,” he purred into her ear, passion and promise all rolled into one. “But before I leave here again, I will rule you. And rest assured, wife, you will beg me to do it.”

Emiline’s whole body stiffened in resistance. As suddenly as he’d captured her, he let her go.

She wasn’t sure if it was his words or the definite twinge of excitement she felt that scared her most, but she knew she hated him for it. For that and the fact that this man she now considered barely more than a stranger somehow saw into the farthest part of her mind—a part that she only admitted to herself in the darkest of dark and lonely nights.

Not looking back, Emiline moved out of the room as quickly as she could without breaking into a dignity-killing run.

I
n her hurry, Emiline barely made it into her room without stumbling and almost ran into Justine, who had been waiting to help her undress and had jumped to her feet as soon as Emiline had opened the door.

“By that look and your haste, I take it things didn’t go as well as you’d hoped?”

That was quite an understatement. “Just a minor setback.” Emiline moved to the dressing table and began to remove the pins from her hair. “Nothing I can’t handle, truly.”

Justine walked up behind her. “Well, you can tell me all about it while I help you get ready for bed.”

“There’s no need. I can put myself to bed. You go on to yours and we’ll talk about it tomorrow.” Emiline caught Justine’s eye in the mirror. “I’ll be fine, really. I love you, but I’m not a child anymore. Now shoo.”

Justine sniffed at Emiline’s dismissal. “It’s not that. But if you say so, good night.” The maid curtsied and left.

Sighing with relief, Emiline rushed to the door and quickly bolted it from inside, then ran to the adjacent door that connected Reinier’s and her dressing rooms and bolted that door as well. That would show Reinier just how much she despised his being here.

He thought he had rights to everything here including her? Well, she’d be damned if she let him have any of them.

Her hand grasped the soft silk of her dress right above her wildly beating heart. Breathing hard, she told herself her hasty retreat was not an act of cowardice, but sensible and prudent. She’d been much too much of an easy prey for him the first time, but she knew his tactics now.

Emiline bit her lower lip and pushed away from the door. Stomping her foot, she couldn’t believe he was playing his games with her. Again.

She’d believed she’d learned from her mistakes. She’d succeeded in convincing herself that the spell between them was broken. Yet when he touched her, she knew she’d only deluded herself. She was still attracted to him.

But how could she be when he was nothing but a supercilious fop, the worst libertine she had ever met! Did he really think she didn’t know? Didn’t know that he had run off to sow his wild oats, never thinking about how he left her wounded and brokenhearted, left her to live with the certainty that she’d failed as a wife?

Reinier was too sure of himself. But he’d always been like that. It was part of what had attracted her in the first place. She had chosen him because he was the best, the one with more appeal and more drive than all the rest. Suitors had come en masse and left just as quickly after her rude refusals. Her father had only sighed and called them crazed tomcats. She’d laugh with him and say she knew they weren’t love-crazed over her personally, rather lusting after her dowry.

But then she’d fallen for the roaring cougar among the yowling tomcats. As soon as she’d first set eyes on him, Emiline had forgotten to be guarded. Her father had known, though. He’d warned her that cougars were solitary creatures. They weren’t meant to be tied down, and no one would ever be able to hold one. At least not for long.

She’d set out to prove to everyone she could be the perfect wife to the one no one else could tame. But as it turned out, her efforts had been in vain. She’d fallen in love and he hadn’t returned those feelings.

Emiline had been another person then. Now she knew that her life before him was ill spent. She’d lived through every day like the spoiled brat she’d been, too consumed with herself, too sure of the power she’d had with her father’s tremendous wealth. Looking back, she despised who she’d been then. There was nothing left of the girl he’d once married.

And now she was feeling miserable at her own confusing reaction to him. She sank to the floor and let her head rest against the solid wood of the door while her hands balled into fists.

Why did she feel so torn inside? Why did he have to be so charming? Why did he have to be the most irresponsible man on earth?

Emiline quickly turned her ear to the door. She could hear his footsteps and laughter in the other room. Why did that make her tremble?

Closing her eyes, she winced ever so slightly at the creak of the wooden floor in his room.

She really had forgotten how breathtaking he was. She’d made herself forget how sensual and incredibly reckless he was. How could she, after all those nights she’d spent in desolate loneliness, still want him? Her weakness was disgusting.

His words echoed in her head. He had been speaking of giving up her precious and hard-won control to him. Of course, her first reaction was that she’d been there, had tried that, only it hadn’t been enough.

Her eyes were getting weary, and slowly Emiline got up from the floor. She fumbled with the last few pins in her hair until it was freed and fell loosely over her shoulders again. How she hated when she had to capture her hair in such a tight imprisonment.

Come to think of it, she’d started to wear it down when Reinier asked her to all those years ago. It was just to spite him that she had wanted to wear it up on her head again and hide its wild fullness from him.

Emiline slipped out of her shoes and unceremoniously kicked them into a corner. Her dress followed in much the same fashion. Once she’d put on her flimsy dress for the night and her nightgown, she felt calmer. She inhaled deeply as she sat down by the vanity table again and began to brush her hair.

She remembered only too well how proud she was to tell her friends she was engaged. They’d giggled in a silly manner, clapped their hands and congratulated her, and had shared more or less valuable insight on what to expect. That she should hold back and meekly accept his attentions, for men did not appreciate their wives being happy to welcome them. Also, they told her that what happened between husband and wife in private was something one could endure at best, or that men always sought their entertainment elsewhere; there was nothing you could do against it.

She scoffed at those pearls of wisdom she’d been given by her friends back then and threw the brush down with a frustrated huff. It occurred to her that none of her friends’ advice had done her any good. No matter how hard she’d tried, she knew he had never really loved her, just her money. He’d wanted a warm bed while he built his precious ship and that was that.

Recalling when she’d first sensed he was pulling away, she bowed her head in despair as the feelings revived once more. The more he’d kept to himself, the more she’d given. There were a few times when she hadn’t held back despite her friends’ advice and had come to him, wanting to, needing to feel him, craving to touch him as he touched her, giving him everything just to get his love in return. But it was useless.

The yearning to hold him to her grew as she caught him looking out to the sea with such a deep longing in his eyes. Soon he began to spend the evenings alone at the shore, watching the sun going down as night ascended, and only then, when every star finally flickered, had he come into the house. Emiline had felt it. She was losing him.

With a heartfelt sigh, she rose from the chair and walked to the French doors of her room. Opening them, she welcomed the fresh night breeze as it whispered over her. Her skin tightened with the sensations of the wind drifting under the gown and nightdress. The light material seemed unbearable all of a sudden, so she let the gown fall to the floor.

Without realizing it, she cupped her breasts with her hands. Their weight was heavy. They felt swollen, and just touching them made her gasp. She quivered inside as the tingling sensation of lust rushed through her like a bolt of lightning and pooled right between her legs.

She made it to her bed, lay down, and brought her knees up. Her nightdress slipped up to her waist. The breeze was now the only thing that kissed her aching, exposed core as her legs fell open.

Her folds were warm and moist, her sensitive nub hard and aching. She let her fingers play over it, bathed them in her sweet dew, and slowly circled around the most eager spot. She knew how to draw her own pleasure and give herself what she needed.

Her other hand found her breasts and cupped them, one after the other, squeezed the hard peaks just enough until her whole body started to quiver with the sensations she brought herself.

Her sides tingled and tickled with anticipation. Only then did her fingers find the hard pebble and rub over it in small circles.

Oh no, she thought just then and rubbed herself faster, she surely didn’t need him, not for this, not for anything. In all these years she hadn’t needed him, she hadn’t fantasized about him as she did this.

Soon that familiar edgy pressure built in her that demanded an urgent relief. But she wanted to draw it out, and she had enough discipline to prolong her pleasure.

She didn’t want to yearn for his touch. She didn’t. No. She hadn’t needed him, not once in all these years, years of distant longing to run her hands over his powerful body again, years of hungering for his kiss, years of feeling his member in her, move in her, thrust into her again, and again, soft, slow…or hard, yes, so hard he’d force the air out of her lungs with each rolling, pumping motion of his hips.

A fresh gush of moistness bathed her fingers and she almost slipped.

No, it didn’t turn her on even more to think about him while rubbing harder and faster.

Her other hand came down, too, and she thrust a finger into her, then two, mimicking pumping movements.

No. Thinking about him didn’t peak her desire. Not at all. Imagining him, how he looked covering her, how his hair tickled her face and breasts, how he threw his head up when she scratched his back and he smiled, rumbling his deep, masculine approval that he’d made her forget herself….

Don’t hold back. Never hold back with me, Emiline.

The pressure at the end of her spine built. Her body heaved off the bed. She threw her head back and closed her eyes as she felt the pleasant shower of memories wash over her.

Her hand was moving harder now, on the place where he loved to kiss her most, he’d said, because she tasted like strawberries all over.

Her body remembered his touch only too well, his teeth, scraping the inside of her thighs, raking each and every inch of her body in those almost bites that made her squirm. His satin lips nipping and pinching her nether lips…kissing her until her body caught fire…how his tongue swirled and danced and then flicked over her sweetest spot…

Emiline didn’t want to remember how he could make her body sing to his tune alone, how he could make her ache for him in simmering pleasure or greedy lust. She refused to recall his breathtaking tricks with his clever tongue, his wicked hands, his glorious member….

Damn him, she was her own mistress now. Emiline had learned all about her body’s yearnings and responses in all those years alone, not remembering, not fantasizing about…No, she didn’t need him anymore.

Come, Emiline. Come for me. Now.

Her body coiled with the growing tension, her blood catching fire. Falling through a pitch-black hole, she resurfaced on the other side in a shower of blissful sparks that licked at and then scorched her skin.

Twisting on the sheet, her eyes snapped open. Emiline gasped, then wheezed in a deep breath and held it, trying not to make a sound. Her body shook hard in tiny, luscious spasms that seemed endless, intense, so much so that in the end she couldn’t hold back the low moan she’d been fighting.

Exhausted, her head and limbs fell limply to the side. Trying to catch her breath, heart thundering in her ears, she licked her lips.

Wickedly wanton. Amazing. Like never before.

That wasn’t quite accurate, though.

Sadly, she knew the truth. She’d just come harder than ever before by fantasizing about him.

Reinier was back again and he’d asked for what was rightfully his. In spite of how hard she was trying to fight the attraction, her body demanded the opposite.

Did he have any idea how tempted Emiline felt by his presence, by his words?

Probably.

No! She was too strong to give in. First thing tomorrow she’d have it over with. She’d get Reinier to sign the papers, then send him packing and back to his ship still hard and wanting what she wouldn’t let him have. That would show him.

Having turned down the offer of a servant for the night, Reinier crossed to the dressing room and began to remove his boots and coat himself. At the sound of the bolt sliding into place on the door that connected their dressing rooms, Reinier couldn’t help but laugh out loud.

She’d made herself crystalline clear. As bad as his reputation deservedly was, he’d never force himself on anyone—that didn’t want him to at least—and he wasn’t about to start with his own wife. He might not be the most moral of gentlemen, but he was one nonetheless.

Stalking from the locked door to her dressing room into his, he wondered why she’d stayed in the smaller mistress’s suite and not moved in here. She’d said herself she ruled Bougainvilla.

He wasn’t sure if he felt comforted or disconcerted by the fact that at least in this tiny respect he still had a place here. At first he’d thought maybe the lover Connor had spoken of had been using it, but when he’d first arrived there hadn’t been any evidence of a lover currently in residence. Reinier had turned his suite all but upside down—twice—and either her staff was beyond remarkable or no one else had recently occupied it.

Reinier ran his hand across the soft-washed navy silk of the dressing bench at the end of the bed, remembering a time when she’d come to him wearing only emeralds and citrines begging him to let her make love to him right here on this bench, in fact.

That had been close to the end. Probably she’d already begun to feel him pulling away. It had been one of the very few times she’d approached him instead of meekly awaiting his attentions. It had finally been a much welcome change from the smitten, immature girl that hung on his every word and was more than happy to lay back and let him have his way with her, body and money alike.

But it had been too little too late. His heart and mind were already at sea with his new ship and his newly formed partnership.