Page 60 of The Iron Earl

There was only one place he was going. To his room. To his wife.

Dragging off his coat, cravat and waistcoat, Lachlan charged through the door to his chambers, slamming it shut behind him.

Evalyn jumped up from the chair by the fireplace, the book in her hand dangling to her side. “Lachlan.”

Her hair long, let down from the blasted pins that kept it tight to her scalp, the tips of the auburn locks curled down about her breasts, stark against the white of her chemise.

“Where are your clothes?” Words had to fight their way past the stranglehold of anger about his throat.

“Lachlan—”

“You’ve been waiting for me?” His voice a growl, he stalked across the room and grabbed her around the waist, yanking her body hard into his. It knocked the book from her hand, the pages rustling, crumpling as they hit the floor.

Her dark eyelashes fluttered, confused. “Yes, I—”

“Good. Because I’m ready for you.”

Her head snapped back, her forehead furrowing. “Lachlan—the trial—what is wrong?”

“Nothing.” His hands slid down her body, wrapping around her hips, and he pulled her tight to him, grinding his cock into her belly. “Isn’t this what you were waiting for?”

“I was waiting for you, yes—”

“Good.” The growl in his voice deepened and he spun her around, picking her up, his mouth ravaging her neck as he moved them to the foot of the bed.

Setting her to her feet, he lifted both of her arms and placed her hands onto the left bed post to grip and then he bent, dragging her shift upward. His fingers went to the back of her thigh and he lifted her leg, spreading her, and then draped her calf over the footboard.

Five buttons on his front fall and he was free. Engorged and raging for her. Without preamble, he harshly slid into her from behind.

She doubled forward at the invasion, but it didn’t make him pause. The fury speeding his blood still pounded so brutally in his ears that he could barely hear the gurgled gasp from her throat. His left hand clamped over her fingers gripping the bed post while his right hand wrapped tight around her hip, bracing her against his onslaught.

His face buried deep into her hair, her neck, he slammed into her twice more and he was lost. Lost in her smell. Her body. The taste of her.

Lost.

Just as he needed.

Then he heard it. His name. His name from some far off island.

“Lachlan.”

Urgent. Troubled.

“Lachlan.”

He froze in mid drive, his face lifting from her hair.

“Lachlan—this—not like this—I want it, but not like this.” Her breathless voice spun around his head, sinking through the wall of fury into his consciousness.

Dammit to Hades, he was hurting her.

He pulled his shaft from her. Stilling.

She didn’t move.

Of course she wouldn’t. She would stand there and take whatever he doled out to her. It was all she’d ever known.

He was a blasted ass.