Seducing the Ruthless Rogue (34 page)

“Aye.”

“I do not believe this,” she stood and paced the room before spinning to stare at him, her hands fisted on her hips.
 
“Let me tell you something,” she approached him and pushed her pointer finger into his chest repeatedly.
 
“No one, I repeat, no one has ever dictated to me what I can and cannot do, nor are they going to start now.
 
I don’t bloody care if you are the King of England, I will continue to do as I please.”

Mack stalked her, forcing her backwards, until she stood in a corner.
 
“No, you won’t.”

His brogue was thick and despite her anger, a shiver of longing ran down her spine at the sound of it.
 
“I suggest you step back.”

“Don’t think you will do the same thing you did to me before.”

“Get out of my way.”

“No.
 
It’s about time someone took you in hand.”

“And I guess you think that person is going to be you?”

“Who better than a husband?” He grinned wickedly at her.
 

“If I cannot write any more articles or attend any more of my meetings, I want you to quit being Director of the War Office.”
 
He threw back his head and laughed.
 
She was mesmerized by his handsome features, and the way the light played on his dark hair, making the strands of silver that were nestled in among it sparkle like morning dew on a flower.

“You’re out of your bloody mind.”

“Am I?
 
Who is the head of a family?
 
Who is supposed to provide for the family even if that only consists of me and Mr. Bartlett?
 
You are in a dangerous position,
husband dear
.
 
What should happen to me if something happens to you?
 
You’ve been shot recently, have you not?
 
War is a dangerous business.”
 
As she spoke, her stomach turned sickeningly.
 
She might not like Mack too terribly much, but she did not want him to be permanently maimed or worse.

“As I have told my brother, the threat to me is over.”

“I sincerely doubt that all threats to you are over, but since you won’t see my point of view, I believe this conversation is over.”
 
She moved to step around him, but was brought up short when he moved the same direction she did.
 
Cassie stepped the other, but found a large, Scottish male blocking her that way as well.
 
“Get out of my way.”
 
When he showed no sign of moving, she made a sharp turn and dipped, but she gasped in shock at his sudden move.
 
Cassie felt a broad shoulder press against her stomach.
 
Before she knew what had happened, she was hanging upside down, staring at an extremely firm male buttocks encased in cloth.
 
“What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded.
 
“Put me down.”
 
She swatted at him, feeling the firm buttocks beneath her hands.
 
She squawked when she felt a stinging slap through the material of her dress on her posterior.
 
“How dare you!” She pushed herself up and tried to look at him, but failed.

He ignored her and began walking across the room.
 

She watched the floor move under her as he marched through the house.
 
With every step he took, she also saw the way his pants pulled tightly, outlining his muscles.
 
Her face felt flushed, but she did not know if it was from hanging upside down or witnessing her husband’s masculinity so closely.
 
“I demand you put me down!”
 
Suddenly she felt herself flying through the air, backwards.
 
When she hit the soft mattress, she bounced several times.
 
The bed groaned in protest, but did not break.
 
She would have been horrified if it had done that.

“Happy wedding day,” Mack said, before turning and slamming the door behind him.

Cassie pushed herself up off the bed and raced across the room, slamming the bolt into place, locking him out permanently for the remainder of the day and most definitely the night.
 
She was halfway across the room, when she heard a loud crash.
 
She spun around to see the door bounce off the wall and into Mack as he crossed the threshold.
 
The doorknob and lock hung precariously from the door.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Cassie demanded, backing up away from the formidable looking man.
 

“I was willing to sleep in the other room tonight, to let you get accustomed to the idea of a strange house and being married to me.
 
You put paid to that, Cassie darlin’, when you slid that bolt into place.”

“Leave me alone, or I’ll…”

“Scream?
 
Who’s going to hear you?
 
If you hadn’t noticed, this is not the best of neighborhoods, and besides, a man has the right to do whatever it takes to keep his woman in line.”
 

“If you think I will allow you to lay one finger on me,” she began threateningly.

“Oh, you’ll do more than allow,” he growled as he approached her, “by the time I’m done, you’ll be begging for my touch.”

***

Never in his life had Mack been more angry than when he heard Cassie slam that bolt into place.
 
Not when his father had disowned him.
 
Not even when Cassie had called him a bastard.
 
No, when he had heard that telling snick, he had seen red.
 
Before he knew what he was doing, he had raised his booted foot and slammed it into the door near the doorknob.
 
Mack had felt great satisfaction when the door flew open, and even more when he witnessed the stunned expression on his wife’s face.

“You’re not going to get away from me,” he stalked her across the room.

“Don’t make me hurt you,” she threatened.

“I have studied your moves, Cassie darlin’.
 
You’ll not be hurting me anymore.”

Cassie made a sharp move and found it countered.
 
She tried another one and found the same.
 
He moved on her like a jungle cat.
 
He pinned her against the wall, her hands above her head.
 
He felt her breathing grow fast and labored and knew she was not unaffected by his touch.
 
Mack forced her legs wide so he could wedge himself between them.
 
At first he did it to keep her from attempting to unman him, but as he settled against her, he felt some relief as his throbbing erection pressed against the span of softness between her pelvis.

“Do you feel what you do to me?” he whispered.
 
He placed a soft kiss on her forehead.
 
Mack pulled back and saw that her eyes were tightly closed, and her lips were pursed shut.
 
He dropped gentle kisses over each of her eyes, then her cheeks, and finally the upturned tip of her nose.
 
His lips caressed hers, lightly, teasingly, but she remained the same, trying to block out what he did to her.
 
Mack let the tip of his tongue glide against the seam of her lips and though her eyes flew open, her delectable mouth remained tightly shut against his invasion.
 
She left him no choice.
 
“Forgive me, darlin’,” he said before crushing his lips roughly against hers.

Chapter 19

“Ow!” Cassie managed to get out before she found Mack exploring the recesses of her mouth.
 
Her lips throbbed where he had ground them against her teeth, but somehow he seemed to soothe even that small injury.
 
She felt her heart beating heavily in her chest.
 
Cassie would be lying if she said she was not the least excited about what her husband was doing to her.
 
Husband
, she thought.
 
She had never thought she would find herself married.
 
The boys in the village had always thought her much too strange and learned for them.
 
Then when their little family had moved to London after her mother’s death, she had not gone about looking for a husband or friends.

“Where are you?” he asked, resting his forehead against hers.

Cassie found herself staring into a pair of smokey silver eyes, rimmed with dark lashes.
 
Dark brows formed a ‘V’ from the way he scrutinized her.
 
Cassie flexed her hands that were still pinned above her head because her fingers ached to rake through his short, dark hair.
 
She wanted to test the texture.
 
Was it silky or coarse?
 
“Do you know you have flecks of silver in your hair?” she asked curiously.

“I would say half of them have been caused by you.”

“Me?
 
We haven’t even known each other that long.
 
How dare you accuse me…”

“Did you know your eyes flash when you’re angry?
 
They look like they are lit from within.”

“Let go of me.”

“Not on your life,” he said.
 

Cassie didn’t fight him as he plundered her mouth like a marauding pirate.
 
This time there was no way her mind drifted.
 
The things he was doing to her were making her insides melt.
 
She began to respond, and she heard a deep groan.

“That’s it,” he said before returning to her mouth once more.
 
This time he nibbled at her lips as if they were a fine delicacy.
 
“You look so bloody beautiful,” he whispered as he moved to nibble on her right earlobe.
 

“No, I don’t,” she replied breathily.
 
“I’m just plain.”

“Whoever told you that was a liar.”
 
Mack bent down and lifted her up in his arms.

“What are you doing?”

“Taking you to bed.”

She started wiggling in his arms.
 
“Put me down.
 
You were going to sleep elsewhere.
 
Besides it’s afternoon, you said so.”

“You put paid to me staying in another room when you bolted that door.”
 
He held her tight in his arms.
 
“As for the time of day, I can see you better this way.”

“That’s improper!”
 
Cassie was flabbergasted at what he proposed.
 
She knew what happened between a man and woman, but assumed it happened in the dark of night.

“Nothing is improper between a husband and wife.”

He sounded almost wicked and shivers ran up and down her spine.
 
She found herself placed on her feet next to the bed and spun around so that her back was to Mack.
 
Cool air hit her heated skin as buttons were slipped free.

“I don’t know know whether to thank Mikala or murder her.”

“Why’s that?” Cassie licked her dry lips, her breath raspy.

“Because she picked the most exquisite dress, but it also has too many bloody buttons.”

Cassie giggled.

“Did you just giggle?
 
The staid and always serious Cassiopeia Elizabeth Graham McKenzie giggled?”

“No,” she denied, attempting to keep a straight face.
 
She jumped when she felt his lips brush her nape, and then lower until he reached the edge of her chemise.
 
She tried to take a step away from him, but he just followed her.

“You’re not going to escape me, Cassie.”
 

She felt his lips brushing along one shoulder, then her nape again, and finally her other shoulder.
 
His hand brushed along her spine, only the fine cloth of her chemise keeping her from fully feeling his touch on her heated skin.
 
“Copulating will not erase the issues between us.”

“I agree, but it will ease some of this tension we feel around one another.”

“How do you know that?” she demanded.

“I have experience,” he turned her around in his arms.
 
“Now for once, can you just do what I ask?
 
Just be quiet and enjoy.”
 
While she stood with her mouth gaped open like a fish, he began to tug the dress down her arms.
 

“We should wait until it’s dark.”
 
She reinforced her concern.

“No talking.”

“I am your wife not your child, and you can’t order me about as if I were.”

“If you don’t stop talking, I am going to put a gag on you.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“Don’t test me, wife, you don’t know what all I would dare.”
 

Was he hinting at a darker side to his nature?
 
And what did that darker side entail?
 
Cassie felt a thrill of excitement and trepidation at the same time.
 
Somehow she missed her gown slithering the last bit down her body.
 
Now it rested in a heap of silk and lace on the floor.