Robert got home later than anticipated. It had taken longer to get the information out of the Turkish sailor than they’d thought it would. He’d been surprising loyal to the Dutchman. But they now had a name—Lucas Van de Berg. A common enough Dutch name, but it was a place to start.

And they knew he was looking for a ship. He’d removed a small cargo of explosives from the Turkish vessel they’d seized today, and he wanted another ship to put it on. The sailor did not know why. As far as he knew, Van de Berg was still in London. It wasn’t the answers to all their questions, but it was more than they knew this morning. There were actually two of Van de Berg’s men among the remaining crew. The rest were exactly what they seemed, simple sailors who had fought with the agents out of fear and a sense of misplaced loyalty to their fellow Turks, and not as part of the Dutchman’s plot.

Explosives for an assassination seemed a messy business. Hastings and Sir Barnabas agreed. Robert had offered to bring it up with Simon before they returned to the Home Office tomorrow to sort through it all. The perfect opportunity to address that other situation as well. And he still needed to talk to Christy about the attack this morning. He’d been trying all day not to think about how close he’d come to losing her.

But when he walked in the house, he knew everything would have to wait until the morning. The house was quiet and the lamp was turned down low in the hall by the door. He headed for the kitchen and a bite to eat. There was a plate covered by a cloth, left for him by cook or by Christy.

He pulled off the cloth and knew it was Christy. She’d sliced two pieces of bread and the butter dish was there, as well as the honey. Cook only left him one slice with butter. He smiled sadly. Soon he’d be back to a one slice of bread life.

After he’d eaten, he slowly made his way up the stairs. Tonight was definitely different than the other night, when he’d come home late and Christy had waited up for him. She’d most likely cried herself to sleep tonight. Or given in to temptation and crawled into bed with Simon. Robert was too much of a coward to go and check.

His own hypocrisy wasn’t lost on him. Hadn’t he spent the night in Simon’s arms just two days ago? God, it seemed longer than that. So much had happened since he innocently offered Simon comfort, and yet he couldn’t blame Simon. Was he to blame? Perhaps. Maybe he had been testing himself and Simon.

He went straight to his own rooms, unable to think about it anymore. He was too tired to think at all.

When he entered his bedroom, he stopped short at the sight of Christy curled up in his bed. She looked peaceful and angelic with her pretty dark hair fanned out across the pale sheets. Her hands were tucked up under her cheek. She looked as if nothing bad could ever touch her.

Robert knew it for the lie it was. Her life had been harder than most. Unloved, unwanted, orphaned, tossed aside by a self-absorbed husband, an uncaring lover, and then rejected by Simon, who swore his love at the same time he said he could not be with her. Why? What was it Simon had said? That marrying her would ruin her life. Robert didn’t understand that. His past as a spy certainly made him less respectable than most, but so did Robert’s profession.

“Robert?” Christy’s sleepy voice pulled him from his thoughts.

“Yes, dear?” he asked.

“Come to bed. I tried to wait up, but I was too tired.” She reached out a hand blindly to him, a sleepy smile on her face while she stayed curled up, the covers kicked to the end of the bed in the heat, her eyes closed. She looked…happy. But how could she be when who she really wanted—Simon—was in the bedroom next door? Wasn’t he?

“Stop thinking about the case,” she chastised. Her eyes were open now. She came up on all fours and crawled to the end of the bed. She kneeled there to face him, one hand on the bedpost, still looking sleepy and disheveled, her unbound hair falling around her shoulders. “Come to bed,” she said again.

“Why are you here?” he asked quietly.

“Shut the door,” she whispered. She put a finger to her lips. “Don’t wake everyone.” She had a devilish gleam in her eyes at odds with her angelic looks. She wore nothing but a simple, shapeless nightshift, yet she was temptation itself. He resisted.

“Why are you here?” he asked again. It was a question he’d been asking himself all day. Why had she accepted his proposal? Was it desperation? She could have stayed with Harry; he’d told her so. But she’d opted instead to divorce Harry and marry Robert. Was it merely for the marriage bed? Surely not. She could have taken lovers, even kept Simon as her lover had she stayed married to Harry. His head had been spinning all day trying to make sense of her choice. Why him? Why choose Robert?

“Because I wanted to see you, silly,” she said. “We haven’t had enough time together the last few weeks with this awful case and everyone coming and going. I miss you. Don’t you miss me?”

She pouted, a very pretty pout, a flirtatious pout. She didn’t flirt with him. They’d never needed it. Although perhaps at the beginning they had flirted. Or she had. He’d never been any good at it.

He knew why she was here tonight. Because she felt guilty about what had transpired with Simon this afternoon and she was here to make herself feel better by being with him. And he was just weak enough tonight to let her.

He took a step closer to the bed, and she reached out and pulled him closer still by tucking her fingers in the waistband of his trousers. “Well?” she asked. “Didn’t you miss me?”

She had no idea how much. How frightened he was by the attack on her this morning. He didn’t answer her with words. Instead he closed his fist in the hair on the back of her head and kissed her hard, trying to both punish her and force all thoughts of Simon from her mind.

She wouldn’t play by his rules, however, and pushed her arms up, forcefully making room so she could wrap them around his neck. She imitated his embrace, closing her fist in his hair and kissing him just as hard, upping the ante by biting his lower lip and sucking it like a piece of sugar candy. Robert’s head began to spin as if he’d had too much brandy and he had to pull away from the kiss to catch his breath.

“Yes,” Christy whispered, kissing his throat as he gulped in air. “That’s exactly how I want you tonight. Please, Robert. Take me like that.”

Robert grabbed her arms and had to pull hard to break her hold on him, dragging them down and off him. He shoved her and she fell back on her hands on the bed, panting. At first she looked angry, but when he began to unbutton his jacket roughly, almost tearing the buttons in his haste, she smiled like a self-satisfied cat.

Robert didn’t take his eyes off her as he undressed hastily, tossing his clothes aside. He never did that. He was normally fastidious to a fault. But he saw no reason to be like that tonight. There was no benefit to it and every advantage to getting in that bed with Christy as fast as he could so he could forget his misgivings and make her forget any she may have. That was all he knew, as far as he could reason in the moment.

When he had nothing left to remove but his trousers and small clothes, Christy sat up and slowly pulled her shift up and over her head, tossing it aside as carelessly as he’d been doing. While he finished undressing, she kneeled naked and unashamed on his bed, waiting for him, her head cocked to the side as she watched him, as if to say, Here I am. Come and get me.

So he did.

He crawled on the bed in front of Christy on all fours and he kept advancing, forcing her back awkwardly. She didn’t complain. She scrambled to untangle her legs so she could lay beneath him. She was panting, and he knew it was from want. She liked this. How had he never known that? Married for months and he’d never realized she wanted to be hunted, stalked, won. She was a prize to be won.

He reached down and hooked a hand under her arm, pulling her with him as he moved farther up the bed, almost dragging her, and she laughed in delight. The sound both pleased him and saddened him. She had never laughed like that in bed with him before.

To mask his reaction, he swooped down and kissed her again—hard and possessively, the way she seemed to like. She tasted warm and sweet. Her mouth was so wonderful, soft and tender. Vulnerable.

He lowered his weight onto her so that her breasts were pressed against his chest and he could feel each breath pushing her softness against him. He slid both hands into her hair and cupped her head holding her where he wanted her, directing the kiss, controlling it. She purred in her throat and wrapped her arms and legs around him, rubbing her quim against him like a cat in heat. He dragged his mouth away, across her cheek.

“Oh, yes,” she said breathlessly. “Like that. I like this.” She dug her nails into his back. “I want you.”

“I like it too,” he whispered in her ear. He licked the delicate whorls there, then bit her lobe, and she purred again. “I like not worrying about hurting you or frightening you. I’m not sure where those ideas came from.” He rubbed his nose against her cheek and then kissed her again, giving free rein to his passion. He hadn’t really understood until just now how much he’d been controlling it. “I’ve been holding back so much,” he murmured against her lips.

“Don’t hold back,” she whispered back. She bit his lip and it stung. She licked the sting away. “I can take it.” She leaned up, and right against his ear whispered so quietly he barely heard her, “Fuck me, Robert. Like I know you want to.”

Her words ignited something in him, something he hadn’t even known was there. He had always desired Christy, but this feeling burning him up inside was so much more than mere desire. It was elemental, a need to take her and possess her, to be one with her. To carry her with him into the abyss of this thing that had got hold of him.

He kissed her again and then slid down to worship her body as he had not done properly since he had promised to do so in his wedding vows. He understood it now, those words he had spoken. This. This is what it means to worship her with my body.

He kissed her skin, licked it, tasted the salt of the day’s heat on her and relished her spice. When he traced his tongue down the path between her breasts, she shivered and he travelled next to her hard nipples, kissing and sucking them, gently nipping them, and she gasped, her legs tightening around his waist, her fingers clenching in his hair as she held his mouth on her. He had never dared do this to her, though he had longed to. What a fool he’d been. What a misguided fool to think respecting one’s wife meant you could not treat her like an object of sexual desire. He desired her in so many ways; this was only one of them. To deny her this act of worship was the height of disrespect. Tonight he would atone for his sins.

He let his hand glide down from her hip to her thigh, massaging it as he went. He pulled it from around his waist, and she moaned in protest. “No,” she begged.

“I want to kiss you everywhere,” Robert told her, sucking on the side of her breast, leaving a mark, licking it. He liked his mark on her. He’d heard men talk of kissing women on the quim, and he’d seen pictures of it, naughty illustrations when he was in school. He’d never done it. He had a gorgeous, willing, passionate wife, and he’d never done it. He refused to let one more day go by without doing that for her, too.

“Oh, God, yes,” she said enthusiastically. She quickly pulled her legs down and spread them, feet braced on the bed. “Please.” She pushed his head down toward her sex. “I’ve been dying for you to do it.”

Robert was a little nonplussed. Clearly Christy had done this before. Well, then he’d better make sure to do a damn good job of it.

He pushed himself down with one last kiss on each breast, a playful kiss on her stomach, and then he was there. The scent of her was the world’s most exotic aphrodisiac. He cupped her derriere, leaned down and delicately licked her slit—her moisture was salty and earthy and divine. She pressed his mouth harder against her.

“Kiss it like you did my mouth,” she whispered. “I like it like that down there, too.”

Robert was grateful for the guidance. He followed her advice and kissed her passionately, shoving his tongue inside her, fucking her with it, lapping up her salty sweet passion, and she moaned, arching her back, pushing her quim against his face, wordlessly begging for more. Robert smiled, pulled back and teased her with the tip of his tongue. When he nudged the hard little button of flesh at the top of her slit, she gasped and fisted the covers.

“Right there, then?” he asked with satisfaction. “Good.”

“Robert,” she moaned. “God, please.”

“What?” he asked, then he teased her with the tip of his tongue in that special little spot again. She sobbed a little.

“Put it inside me,” she begged.

His cock was so hard he could feel his heartbeat there. At her words, the beat intensified and he felt it leak a little. Clearly his cock liked the idea very much.

“What?” he asked. “This?” He slid his finger inside her. “God, you’re so wet. You’ve never been this wet.”

“Fuck me,” she begged. She pumped her hips, riding his finger, and moaned in frustration. “More,” she demanded. He obliged by leaning down and tickling that sensitive little knot with his tongue while he moved his finger in and out. She purred and thrust against his mouth and hand. “More, more,” she said again.

Robert couldn’t tease her anymore. “Yes,” he said. “I’ve got to have you.”

He came to his knees and shoved her legs apart, staring at her wet, dark pink, swollen quim. He’d never taken the time to really look at it before. To admire it and memorize it in amazement that it was his to fuck.

“I never thought a man fucked his wife,” he told her. His voice was rough, a little breathless. She watched him with glassy, passion-drunk eyes. “I never thought of what a man and wife did as so earthy or carnal. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t understand that this was what you wanted, that this is what I should have been doing all along.”

“I should have told you,” Christy said. She reached out and wrapped her small, delicate hand around his hard cock. Her grip was surprisingly strong. “So now I’m telling you. Fuck me, Robert. Fuck me like a man should fuck his wife.”

She stroked his cock, and when she let go he kissed her and adjusted his weight before he finally pushed into her. She moaned and slid her hands up his arms to his shoulders and dug her nails into him as she lifted her hips off the bed and met his thrust. “Just like that, husband,” she whispered.

“Like that?” he asked. “Or like this?” He gripped her hip with one hand and fucked into her harder. She gasped, her nails digging deeper.

“Yes,” she hissed. He felt her sex clench around him. He did it again, a little bit harder. She moaned, and bent her legs so that she was gripping him with her thighs. “More,” she whispered.

“I see,” he said, his chest heaving. He wasn’t going to last much longer, but he teased her nonetheless. “What you really want is to be fucked.”

She laughed breathlessly. “Didn’t I say so? Fuck me, Robert. Fuck me now.”

He obliged her. He thrust into her hard, steady, pushing her up the bed so that she had to put a hand against the headboard behind her to keep from sliding into it. Robert loved every minute of it, and from the sounds Christy was making, so did she

He knew the instant she came. Her back arched and her quim strangled his cock, pulsing around him as she threw her head back and moaned loudly and long. He kept going even as she came, and with each thrust she shivered and cried out again. When he came, he buried his face in her neck and his cock in her hot, quivering passage and held on for dear life, shaking and sweating and falling apart in her arms.