For her transgression, she will pay—with screams of forbidden pleasure.
After a lifetime of hard work, Captain Roake Barbenoir finally has all he has ever wanted. Wealth, social position, and the epitome of an ideal wife, the beautiful and well-born Jenesta. Of all his treasures, she is his favorite—a pearl, perfect and pure—and Roake vows never to tarnish her with the dark sexual knowledge he gleaned from a life at sea.
Yet every breath his sweet wife takes arouses an urge to watch her come apart under the onslaught of his passion. But she must never know of the lust-filled, almost demonic cravings fighting for release in his soul. To make her privy to them would be to lose her warm regard.
Each time Jenesta feels she and her enigmatic husband are growing closer, Roake withdraws behind a cold, unreadable mask. Perhaps if she knew him better, knew more of his past, she could learn how to win his heart. The answers surely lie behind the locked door of Roake’s east-wing retreat. The one he has forbidden her to enter.
Jenesta’s defiance of his one simple rule cannot go unpunished. For her transgression, she will pay—with screams of pleasure; sweet, exquisite pain; and perhaps with the loss of what she wants most. Roake, and his love.