Chapter Twenty

      Avery was not in bed. He lounged in the chair reading, his bare feet propped up on the fender, a leather-bound book in his hands.

      ‘Laura?’ He dropped the book to the floor and stood up. ‘Is something wrong?’

      ‘It occurred to me that I had spent rather too much of my marriage lying in my bed waiting on my husband’s pleasure. Literally, his pleasure. Certainly not mine.’

      ‘Laura!’ He sounded so shocked she almost smiled.

      ‘I do not think I need to mince my words with a man who uses his wife for his carnal needs without any consideration for hers,’ she retorted.

      ‘The devil you say!’ Avery strode across the room and confronted her. Laura took a step back and found her shoulders were against the door. ‘Are you saying that I take you without your consent?’

      ‘No, you pig-headed man,’ Laura snapped. ‘I am saying you leave me unsatisfied in order to punish me for trapping you into marriage. When you condescend to come to my bed at all, that is. There, is that plain enough for you?’

      ‘You are saying that you want me even after I said those things about coming to you only to get an heir? Even after the way I leapt to assumptions over that letter to Piers?’

      Suddenly she saw a vulnerability that she had never glimpsed before. Perhaps because she had never looked, perhaps because all she had been filled with had been her own needs—her need for Alice, her need to somehow survive loving this man who thought so little of her.

      ‘Yes, I am saying that. We have always known it, you and I, haven’t we? That there was an attraction, despite everything.’ She reached up and touched his face, trying to convey a tenderness that she dared not put into words. ‘I am a grown woman, Avery. A married one.’ Laura looked deep into the troubled green eyes. There it was again. Avery needed something and perhaps, just perhaps, she might be it. ‘You want me, too.’ She did not dare risk saying need.

      He did not answer and for a despairing moment she thought he would turn from her. Then his mouth came down over hers in a kiss that was hard and unapologetic and demanding. She fisted her hands into his hair and kissed back with equal force. There was the metallic taste of blood in her mouth, his, hers, she did not know, or care. She would probably have felt no pain if a bullet had hit her.

      Avery put his hands on her waist and lifted her up, heedless of her hold on his hair, his mouth still fastened on hers. Pushed back against the door, all she could do was wrap her legs around his waist as her nightgown rode up and she felt silk, skin, coarse hair and blessedly hot, hard, fierce heat against the soft skin of her inner thighs.

      He lifted her higher, freed her mouth, then with relentless control, let her slide down, down until their foreheads rested together and he filled her. They clung to each other, joined tighter and deeper than they had ever been before, the only sound their shuddering breaths.

      Then he began to move. They were so locked, the position so strained, that he could make only the shortest withdrawals and thrusts, but the very constriction and restraint inflamed her beyond bearing. Laura found Avery’s mouth and pressed her own to it open, her tongue searching and twisting against his, her breasts crushed against his chest, each movement fretting the hard, aching tips of her nipples against the lawn of her nightgown.

      He growled deep in his chest and lifted her, holding her higher so he could thrust harder, making the door rattle at her back, merciless until everything knotted, broke, shattered and she screamed against his mouth, convulsing around him, until she felt him shudder and collapse against her, the spasms of his release sending her over into a second crashing climax.

      He must still be supporting her, she realised hazily, otherwise she would have poured down the wall, boneless and limp. Avery was so still she might have thought him unconscious, the thud of his heart against her breast and the heat of his breath on her bared shoulder the only indications that he lived.

      After a long moment he lifted her, shifted her in his arms and carried her to the bed. He laid her down and then simply collapsed on the covers beside her, limbs sprawled, eyes closed. Laura found strength from somewhere to roll over and push back the sides of his robe. The belt had been lost somewhere. She folded her arms on his chest and studied his face. His hair was dishevelled and there was a smear of blood on his lip. She wondered if he was asleep or simply as shattered by the experience as she felt.

      Cautiously she sat up and dragged her nightgown over her head. It was torn and crumpled and she tossed it to the floor and went back to contemplating her husband. The dark lashes lifted and he regarded her steadily. ‘Did I hurt you?’

      ‘I don’t think so. I did not notice if you did. Did I hurt you?’

      ‘I have no idea.’ His lips twitched into a fleeting smile. ‘I had other sensations to deal with.’

      ‘Mmm.’ She curled up against his chest, a satisfyingly broad and strong pillow.

      Avery tugged until he could flip covers over both of them. ‘I regret that I may need to lie here awhile before I can repeat any part of that performance.’

      ‘I will contain my impatience,’ Laura murmured and heard his chuckle. ‘Part of me wants to know where you learned to make love so skilfully, part of me does not want to hear the answer.’

      ‘What happened just now was not skilful.’

      ‘It was thrilling beyond words.’ She wriggled so she could trace kisses across the flat pectoral muscles and feel his skin quiver at the touch. ‘And the first time...’

      ‘You mean that the way you responded to me that first night together, that was genuine? At the time I believed it was, hoped it was, but then when I knew why you were there, I did not know.’

      Laura sat up abruptly. ‘How good an actress do you think me, Avery?’ And how cynical? But he said hoped. Does he care?

      ‘I do not know.’ He sat up against the pillows, turned so he could look her in the face. ‘Your—’

      ‘My reputation?’ Her heart sank. So that was it, not the uncertainty of a man who cared, but the doubts of a man who thought he was dealing with an experienced lover. ‘I was a virgin when I first lay with Piers. Thinking back, I expect he was, too. We made love six times. I told you I have been with no one else, Avery, whatever the gossip says. They called me Scandal’s Virgin, did they not? That was the truth. I flirted, I kissed, I permitted liberties that I should not have, but that was all.’ Part of her rebelled against justifying herself, part of her desperately needed him to understand.

      ‘Why?’ he asked. ‘Why risk your reputation like that?’

      ‘Frankly?’ She shrugged, embarrassed by telling someone she cared about what had motivated her. ‘I was angry. Angry with men, angry with society. Angry with myself. Piers had taught me to love, but then he left me. I know it was not his fault, that my anger was not rational, I understand that.

      ‘I wanted a lover, but there was no one I could bear to be with and besides, I dared not risk falling pregnant again. Society expected me to return to the Marriage Mart after my illness, but how could I counterfeit an innocent little virgin? Besides, if I married, the man would have to be very naive indeed not to notice I had carried a child.’

      ‘If he wished