And she liked the feeling of him, potent, male, demanding. His mouth took, his kisses bruising and carnal, wild with need, open, hungry, and unashamed. He bit her lip, thrust his tongue against hers. His body gave, those wicked fingers on her knowing where to touch, how much pressure, when to increase his pace and when to slow to a torturous rhythm that left her gasping into his mouth and arching against him.
He tore his lips away, as breathless as she. “Daisy, sweet Christ, you’re going to be the death of me.” He kissed her neck again, tongued the hollow behind her ear. “Spend again for me, buttercup. Make it worth everything.”
There was an undercurrent in his words, a hint of accusation, a whole lot of fire. She didn’t know what he meant, and further examination would need to wait, for he was moving again, faster and deeper. It consumed her. He consumed her. She angled her hips against him, allowing her thighs to fall open more, bringing him even deeper. Nothing had ever been more right. He was everything, and she was everything, and the world was exploding with color and light and sound and smell, and oh dear Lord…
“Again, buttercup.” There was his voice, low and demanding, his tongue resuming its exploration of her skin as though she were a delicacy laid before him. Behind her ear, down her throat, probing against her pulse, the curve of her breast, teasing a nipple. He caught the stiff peak in his teeth, nipping, his fingers working faster over her pearl, his manhood sliding in and out with delicious friction.
She gasped. Moaned something. Perhaps it was his name. She didn’t know. Didn’t care. Her breath came faster, heart galloping, entire body aflame, and she was hyperaware of every connection between his body and hers. Ready to come undone.
Bliss crashed over her, sudden and overwhelming, like the sea in the grip of a hurricane. It was fierce, magnificent. Nature at her most violent and passionate. Daisy shook, crying out, gripping his broad shoulders, sinking her nails into him, straining upward, seeking more as pleasure burst within her.
He gave her what she wanted, sliding home deep and quick, moving in long, pleasurable thrusts that had her tightening around him even more. And then, his large body went utterly stiff as he drove himself into her again, a curse slipping from his lips before his mouth came down on hers once more. A new sensation, hot and wet, blossomed inside her.
He rocked into her a few more times, prolonging the moment and the pleasure both, before breaking the kiss to stare down at her. “Damn it.”
And then he withdrew from her body, rolled away, and left the bed.
“Sebastian,” she protested, feeling the loss of his touch—the loss of him—like an ache.
He stalked away from her, his dressing gown billowing behind him like a dark, angry cloud. She realized belatedly that neither of them had entirely removed their robes. As he opened the door joining their chambers, she flipped the ends of hers back over her, covering her nudity.
How foolish, an attempt to preserve her modesty after sharing her entire body with him. After he had known her and pleasured her so intimately. But as she watched him leave, she was acutely aware that, husband or no, he remained very much a stranger to her, and she was beginning to fear that it wasn’t just her body he had claimed.
The thought left her more chilled than the cool night air and the London damp combined. Indeed, it chilled her straight to the marrow.
hat in the bloody hellhad he just done?
Sebastian breezed into his private bathing chamber. The gaslights remained lit, for he’d intended to perform his nightly ablutions before going to sleep. But instead, he’d gone in search of the one woman in the goddamn world that he should stay farthest from. The woman he couldn’t seem to stop touching, kissing, wanting, and lusting over.
The woman he had just bedded.
Had he actually believed he could withstand the temptation of being in Daisy’s bedchamber again without taking her? More fool, he, for all it had taken was the wet heat of her cunny and the sweetness of her lips to make him risk everything he sought to preserve. His loyalty, his oath, his country, his honor.
“Fuck,” he cursed once with feeling, and then thrice more for good measure. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” This latest manifestation of counting he blamed upon her as well.
She had infected him like a disease. Burrowed beneath his skin like a tick. Had somehow managed to do what no other woman before her ever had. And in one night of allowing his prick to rule his head, he’d just done what he’d sworn he wouldn’t do.
He washed her blood from his cock, and he had never performed another task that made him feel lower. There it was, the evidence of their union. How the hell would he annul their marriage now, after he had so selfishly and stupidly taken her innocence? Oh, he had no doubt that Carlisle would still pull the proper strings to accomplish such a feat, but could Sebastian, in good conscience, do it?
One answer belonged to that question, and one answer only.
No.
He pulled his robe together and knotted the belt. Then, he seized the bowl he ordinarily used for shaving and filled it with warm water, still cursing himself. He took up two small towels before turning back toward the chamber where he’d left Daisy, thoroughly deflowered. He lowered all the lights save one.
Carlisle was going to have his head. Married for the span of one day, and he’d consummated. Had more than consummated. He’d spent inside her. Jesus Christ, his stupidity and raging lust now meant that there was the chance that Daisy could bear his child.
The notion didn’t curdle his blood as it ought. Instead, an odd, foreign surge of warmth flooded his chest. What in the name of all that was holy? Ruthlessly, he forced the sensation to go the hell away. She wasn’t meant to be his duchess. He still didn’t know which side of the damn fence she stood on. He had deceived her, had dishonored her, and under no circumstance should the thought of Daisy growing heavy with his child and bearing him a daughter with sprightly golden curls and green eyes make him feel anything other than revulsion.
When he strode back into her chamber, determination and self-control firmly once more at the reins, a pang of some indefinable emotion nevertheless stabbed through him. She lay where he’d left her, the long, beautiful strands of her hair in disarray, her robe closed, hands laced together in a protective gesture. Her expression wary, her cheeks flushed a becoming shade of pink as she made eye contact with him.
She looked so small and alone, delicate and frighteningly lovely all at once, that his hands trembled, sending some of the water splashing from the sides of the bowl. It landed on his bare foot and the thick carpet with a splat. Damn it to hell, how could this woman who was a stranger to him, this dainty, elegant creature he didn’t dare trust, shake him to his core?
It made no sense, but she did.
He continued across the chamber, not stopping until he’d reached her bedside. Everything in him had meant to upkeep his honor and preserve her virginity. Yesterday, he’d stood at this same spot, slashing his thumb and smearing his blood into the bedclothes to maintain both.
He loathed himself.
