A Most Unusual Mistress (Rogue Scandals) Read Free

Regretfully, Ash reminded himself just whom he was facing. He held his hands out in supplication. However, Adriana had not yet finished blackening his character.
    “Because you are one? Any man who states he is no longer harboring a mistress and is then found bollocks-deep inside said mistress only days before his wedding is not to be believed,” she said, her anger evident in her words. He watched, fascinated, as she picked up two small, exquisite Sèvres vases from the mantle and threw them at the wall in quick succession. They shattered in the hearth, and Ashley waited for her reaction to such damage. Adriana showed no sign of even noticing her wanton destruction and merely dusted her hands on her skirts.
    Unusually, no servant appeared to discover the reason for such noise. He wondered if such temper was the norm, and the servants well used to it.
    He chose not to ask her.
    “Therefore,” she said. “I do not believe anything you say to me. Lud, she is treated better than me. Have you ever touched me with such desire?” She laughed bitterly. “Perchance I should phrase that have you ever touched me? We both know the answer. Yet I have seen the way you look at me when you think you are unobserved. Indeed, on one occasion, my lord, I was the observer as you took yourself in hand and fisted yourself until you spilled your seed while shouting my name. So I know you are not indifferent to me. But touch me? Make me come? Pah. Do I not deserve the attention you paid her?”
    “You are to be my wife,” Ash said stiffly. He knew his face reddened in shame, for he was ashamed of the discomfort he had caused her. “However,” he continued, ignoring the ripple of excitement her query had aroused, “not my whore. I respect you.”
    “I would be better off as your mistress and get the body and the fucking I desire,” she said frankly. “Lud, Ash. I want your love, your body, and to be fucked. If that is not to be my culmination, then let me be your whore. For a twelvemonth, I have spied and regarded you in secret, stroking myself after peering at you without your knowledge. Lud, I ache for your touch. If, as your wife, I do not receive all that I desire, I do not desire to be your wife. Why should I settle for less than all you can—if you chose—give me?” she demanded. “Just because it is assumed women of our class do not enjoy more than the mere mechanics of sex, or indeed, merely tolerate a husband’s touch, do not assume that of me. If, as your mistress, I will receive more than duty demands, then make me her. However, don’t bother to make me your wife. I have too much esteem to settle for less than I deserve.”
    He wondered if he imagined what he heard. “And you feel you deserve to be my mistress?”
    “Well, I deserve more than a ten-minute fumble once the lamps are dimmed.”
    He couldn’t believe his ears. Bloody hell . This was a woman after his own heart...or cock.
    “Know you what you are asking? For the pictures you are conjuring have my cock throbbing. It knows, as I do, the pleasure to be had in showing you. I believe,” he said slowly, “you do deserve more, my love. My whore you shall be.”
    ***
    Adriana stared as her mind began to assimilate all that had occurred that day. To find the man she dreamt of—brought herself to fruition thinking about and was due to marry shortly—deep inside another, benefitting from all the things she had been longing for, was a bitter pill. For it then to be intimated she would not be enjoying such depths was beyond acceptance. Respect, if it included none of the proclivities she had understood could be enjoyed between a man and a woman, was not respect, but duty. All her life, until setting up her own household, she had been regarded as a duty. No more! She would have what she wanted and if that entailed being a mistress to the man before her, then by God, that is what she would be. A role unknown to her. A role she would learn and assimilate