Chapter 11

Later that same night

Sylvester

Hyacinth's long, sinuous body rippled beneath Sylvester's as he pumped his hips.

"Harder," his wife ordered, her eyes black pools of lust as she stared up at him.

He slammed into her savagely enough to shake the frame of the huge four-poster bed.

And again.

And again.

"Is that the best you can do?" she taunted, the words gasped out between punishing thrusts. Her lips curled into a rare smile, this one almost evil. "Fuck me like you hate me, Sylvester."

He gave a bark of laughter and instantly ceased his thrusting, sliding a hand around her throat and squeezing—not too terribly hard, but enough to cut off her air. "You will take what I give you and be grateful for it, witch."

The vixen rolled her eyes at him, her pale, freckled skin darkening the longer she went without a breath.

Even after half a year of marriage a great deal about his wife was still a delectable mystery to Sylvester. But the one thing he knew for sure was that she never gave in first. His choices at that moment were to either kill her or fuck her as she'd demanded.

Sylvester smirked down at her; he would give her what she wanted. This time.

He quickly released her, withdrew from her body, and flipped her over, earning a startled squawk in the process.

"Up," he ordered, raising her hips off the bed while pushing her shoulders down, holding the back of her neck and pressing her head against the mattress. "Stay," he ordered, giving her slender neck one last squeeze before dragging his fingers down the vulnerable knobs of her spine.

He rose up high on his knees and stared down the creamy length of her bowed body. Fuck . Was there any sight more beautiful?

If there was, it was the next one.

Sylvester spread her buttocks and caressed down her cleft, sliding a finger into her wet, swollen cunt and pumping in and out of her tight sheath hard enough to force a grunt out of her. She canted her hips, and he smiled at her silent begging, adding a finger and fucking her hard while his other hand slid around her thickened waist. He caressed her rounded stomach, his balls clenching with primitive pride at the evidence of the child he had put inside her.

Sylvester gritted his teeth against a dangerous swell of desire and reluctantly released her belly, quickly locating her engorged nub and working two powerful, back-to-back orgasms from her body.

"Sylvester…please," she begged breathlessly when he thumbed the throbbing bundle of nerves, preparing to work her toward pleasure a third time.

He gave a mocking laugh. "Oh, now you are begging and not commanding?"

She whimpered.

"Once more," he ordered.

***

Hy knew it was never a good idea to taunt her husband—at least not unless he was tightly bound hand and foot and she had a whip in her hand—but it was simply too tempting to bring out the streak of sensual cruelty that he usually kept under such tight control.

"Once more," he barked, and then used his thumb in a way that demanded an orgasm from her exhausted body.

Hy gave in to the inevitable, too-intense wave of pleasure that crashed over her.

She had barely begun to convulse around his fingers when they disappeared, and he slammed his thick hard length so deeply she saw stars behind her eyelids. He remained motionless, keeping her stretched and almost uncomfortably full as she came undone.

Only when her climax ebbed did he move inside her, slow, deep thrusts that plumbed her so deeply that pleasure and pain met. He slid his hand into her hair and wrapped it around his fist, twisting her head to the side until she could see him looming over her, his eyes black with lust, his tightly clenched jaw making the savage scar on his cheek even more livid.

He drove into her hard and Hy whimpered, her eyes fluttering shut.

"Eyes on me," he snapped, his gaze burning into her when she could manage to lift her heavy lids. "Is this what you wanted?" he asked, his thrusts punishing, the words squeezed out between clenched teeth, the muscles of his torso hard, rippling, and glistening from his exertion.

He was utterly, completely—almost painfully—magnificent.

And he was hers . All. Hers. When would that stop amazing her? How had homely, gangly, awkward Hyacinth Bellamy managed to attract such a man?

"I…love…you," Hy panted the words between the brutal slamming.

He groaned, drove himself deep, and then his entire body stiffened as he filled her with liquid heat.

A moment later his big body collapsed over hers.

"Oh, Hyacinth. You undo me," he whispered, and then toppled them both to the side.

A short time later…

Sylvester carded his fingers through his wife's damp hair as she rested her head on his chest and toyed with his navel.

"It is odd that you are not ticklish at all," she said, not for the first time, her low voice vibrating through his body.

Sylvester smiled as she lightly glossed her fingers over his sides, down his thigh, seeking some part of him that would reduce him to a giggling heap. She was extremely ticklish; amusingly so. When he was feeling especially cruel—usually after she had driven him to it—he tickled her just to see his normally serious wife laugh uncontrollably. She claimed it was a worse punishment than a beating. His smile grew into a grin; it had been foolish of her to give him such a weapon.

"Katie is unhappy."

The smile slid from his lips. He had thought the same thing more than a few times but had not mentioned it because he had been so preoccupied with Andrew and their reconciliation.

He'd lived in the same house with Kathryn for months but did not know his young sister-in-law very well. Even so, he'd seen something he recognized in her eyes: desperation. It was an expression he'd seen in Andrew's eyes countless times over the years. Only recently had his cousin lost some of that haunted look. He had begun to hope that Andrew had left his pain and rage in the past.

But then earlier tonight, in the drawing room—right before Andrew had stormed out—he'd seen such a look of angry despair on his cousin's face that it had left him breathless. He had been about to run after him, to see if he could help. But he knew Andrew would not appreciate him prying. Sylvester would wait until tomorrow to check on him.

He turned his thoughts back to his wife, who was probably waiting for an answer. "Kathryn was not this way the last time you saw her—in the spring?" he asked.

She shook her head, her silky hair stroking his chest. "No. This is new."

He heard the anguish in her voice and knew she must indeed be worried because she so rarely exhibited any emotion—at least not outside of sex, the only time she seemed to loosen her tight control.

"Have you tried asking her if something is wrong?" he asked, even though he could guess her answer.

"No. At least not in so many words."

He smiled. "You might need to be direct with her, darling."

She made a thoughtful humming sound, which was her non-confrontational way of saying no.

"Phoebe said our mother is insisting that Katie return to Bath with her after Christmas."

His fingers stilled in her hair. "She will not allow her to have a Season?"

"She says Katie may have her come out next year and that she will come to London to oversee her launch."

He resumed his stroking. "Do you doubt that will happen?"

She shrugged. "I don't know."

Sometimes understanding what Hyacinth wanted was difficult. Sylvester decided to take his own advice from a few moments earlier and be direct.

"What do you think would be best for your sister?"

It took Hyacinth a good five minutes before she answered. His wife was not given to impulsive words or actions.

"My mother has always been critical of Katie—at least, she was critical of the way she used to be, which was something of a hoyden. I suppose it is possible she might no longer carp at her now that she is always so neat, tidy, and without a hair out of place, but…"

"But?"

"But all the evidence suggests my mother will simply find some other reason to criticize her."

He smiled at her wording, albeit a bit sadly. Sylvester's own mother was an unnatural bitch incapable of showing love—not even to her own children. He had been fortunate as a child not to spend much time around her as she had always avoided him and his brother as if they were carriers of the plague. Hyacinth, he knew, had not been so lucky with her own mother.

"Kathryn need not go to Bath," he said.

She rolled away slowly and then pushed up onto her elbow to look at him, a slight furrow between her glorious eyes. "But under the law she must obey her parents for the next three or so years."

He shrugged. "There are ways around that."

"What do you mean?"

He smiled and traced the sharp line of her jaw with one finger, awed as he often was by her stark beauty. "Being a duke doesn't just mean that I get to wear a funny hat and moth-eaten fur robes on occasion."

"You mean you would bring an action against her?"

"It would never come to that. There are other ways of applying pressure. The first and easiest method would be to simply talk to Needham."

"You think he would threaten to curtail my mother's allowance to gain her compliance?"

"I think he is no great admirer of the Countess of Addiscombe," he said dryly.

She nodded slowly, her gaze vague. Gradually, the tension drained out of her. After a moment, she looked into his eyes. "Will you see to that—if it becomes necessary?"

Sylvester slid a hand behind her neck and brought her close enough to kiss her gently, stroking her cheek with his thumb as he held her gaze, staring into her ridiculously beautiful eyes. Sylvester could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times his wife had asked him for anything, and it was only twice. She had wanted her friend Charles to live closer and she had asked for a comfortable pasture for her broken-down old nag, Thunder.

"Of course I will do that, Hyacinth," he said. I would do anything you asked of me, my love. Anything.

He kept that last sentiment to himself, knowing it would only embarrass her.

"Thank you, Sylvester."

"It is my pleasure."

Her eyelids suddenly lowered, and her hand slid beneath the sheet that was barely covering his spent cock. "How may I show my gratitude?"

Sylvester opened his mouth to confess that pleasing her was reward enough, but then her hand closed around his prick. He hissed in a breath as she stroked him with skilled, slightly roughened fingers.

"Were you about to say something?" she asked, her head lowering over him and her hot, wet tongue licking up his quickly stiffening shaft.

He groaned. "I was going to order you to thank your husband properly."

"Why do I think that is not what you were going to say?" she teased, tormenting the head of his cock with teasing flicks of her tongue.

He cupped the back of her head and lightly, but firmly, pressed down. "Less chatter and more gratitude."

She gave a soft, snorting laugh and then swallowed him deeply.

And those were the last words spoken for a long, long time.