What Her Sicilian Husband Desires by Caitlin Crews

Author:Caitlin Crews
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2023-02-24T14:43:01+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

“I’VE BEEN RESEARCHING the roses,” Chloe announced at dinner one night.

“Have you?”

Lao considered her over his glass of wine. She sat, flushed and pretty, in the chair opposite him. The prettiness was a genetic gift, he knew, but he’d had a hand in that flush. He had decided that he fancied an aperitivo this evening and had found his way into her dressing room earlier, scattering her attendants with a tilt of his head. Chloe had been dressed in nothing but a strapless bra and matching bit of lace panties, a confection in human form.

She had made him feel drunk when he did not allow himself drunkenness.

He had knelt down before her, drawn one silky smooth leg over his shoulder, and drank his fill.

And then, to prove to himself that he was under no kind of spell, he had not taken his own pleasure in her.

Because he could wait, he had assured himself. He kept assuring himself. This was not about need. This was about the future he intended make happen with this woman. Not just any woman—his wife.

And that did not require his own release.

The results of his handiwork were before him now. All that glossy need in her gaze. All that heat in her cheeks that he knew reached every last part of her lush little body.

He had checked.

“I looked online, of course, but in your library too,” she said. After clearing her throat and squirming in her seat. She looked edible—though he could see she meant to sound serious. “I can’t find the specific variety of rose that grows here anywhere.”

Lao did not precisely sigh. He sat back in his seat and considered her. “What I can’t help but notice is that you seem determined to find a mystery here, no matter where it is you look. I am tempted to find this insulting. Perhaps you may have heard it said that a rose is...just a rose, Chloe. Sometimes they grow wild and mean nothing at all.”

Her eyes flashed a bit at that but she didn’t comment directly. She never did. He had never told her that she must keep any hint of her temper to herself, the way he could distinctly recall his own father lecturing Portia back in the day.

“Your silence must be gracious, woman,” his father had thundered. “You must reflect the Monteleone legacy with every glance, every word, every expression on your face. What you think, what you feel—these things matter not at all.”

Lao had never said such things to his wife.

Still, though he knew that he’d seen that flash in her gaze, she spoke instead of the damned roses. “I hunted down your gardener. He does not have any English so I had one of the women who help with my dressing translate for me. But he agreed. It’s a different sort of rose, Lao.”

And a man who was not under this woman’s spell might have laughed at that, because it was so obvious where she was heading. But Lao had never been much given to laughter, so he only sighed.

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