Tempting a Sinner by Kate Pearce Page A

cock aching like a toothache. She’d done that quite deliberately. He wanted to go back in there, spank her, and then fuck her so hard that she wouldn’t be able to walk or argue with him for a week.
    “Are you all right, Benedict?” He jumped as he noticed Adam Fisher sitting in the chair by the fire he had so recently vacated.
    “How did you get in here?”
    “You know I can get in anywhere.” Adam shrugged. “I heard you wanted to speak to me urgently, so I came as soon as I could.” His gaze dropped to the huge bulge in Benedict’s breeches. “Did I catch you at a difficult moment?”
    “Don’t try to distract me.” Benedict snapped. “Perhaps you’d like to explain why you sent me off to find my wife?”
    “Oh, that.” Adam waved a careless hand. “I merely thought it was time you reclaimed her.”
    “She doesn’t consider herself my responsibility. She says that my father legally dissolved the marriage.”
    “Did he?”
    “Why didn’t you just tell me that she’d returned to England?”
    “What would the fun have been in that? I simply decided to allow the letter she’d sent you to get through.”
    “Where did you acquire the information?”
    “From a mutual acquaintance at the pleasure house.”
    “Who?”
    “So many questions,” Adam murmured. “It was one of the French women who works there. I believe she met your lovely wife when they were both following the army. They’ve kept in contact for years.”
    “That explains a lot.” He fixed Adam with a fulminating glare. “It does not, however, excuse your behavior. What in the devil were you thinking, sending me up there to deal with a madwoman? Didn’t you know we parted on extremely bad terms?”
    “One had to assume so, seeing as you haven’t seen or spoken to each other for over eighteen years.”
    Benedict jabbed his shoulder and then regretted it. “She shot me and chained me to her bed!”
    “What an enterprising woman. I can’t wait to meet her.” His gaze strayed to the bedroom door. “I assume she is the reason you are in such a state?”
    “I am not in a state. And even if I was, you would be partially responsible for it.”
    “I apologize if I am de trop .” Adam smiled sweetly. “If I interrupted you, please go back and attend to your wife. I’ll wait.” He stretched out his legs and crossed them at the ankles.
    “I am not—” Benedict paused and cupped the still-urgent swell of his cock. “She—”
    “She is what?”
    “She’s sleeping.”
    “And you don’t wish to wake her with your inconvenient desire?” Adam shook his head. “What a considerate lover you are.”
    Behind him, Benedict heard the faintest of sounds and the click of the bedroom door latch. Perhaps Malinda needed to understand that she wasn’t the only one who could play games.
    He advanced toward Adam and unbuttoned his breeches to reveal the thrust of his cock. His friend’s gaze fixed on his arousal and Adam purred like a cat.
     
    Malinda climaxed with a delicious shudder, let out her breath, and stretched luxuriously. It was amusing teasing Benedict. She hadn’t anticipated having any fun with him at all. But his relentless need to know everything had to be controlled and checked before he uncovered all her secrets. His ability to focus on what he wanted was legendary and, in this instance, worked in her favor because he wanted her. But that lust was combined with a ruthless intellect that secretly intimidated her. Even as a young man of eighteen he’d shown signs of it. The fact that he’d organized their marriage and made everything legal should have warned her that, when he wanted to achieve something, he would do anything to accomplish his goal.
    One thing was becoming clear. He wasn’t as involved with his father as she’d originally believed. She was beginning to doubt that he had any idea what the Marquis of Alford had done to her father, or why she’d had to return to England. Could she trust him with the