He rose to his feet, tearing his robe away until there were no more barriers remaining between them. His conscience decided to reassert itself in that moment, reminding him that this was her second time, that he should be gentle and easy with her.
Taking a deep breath, he willed his raging lust to temper itself, and planted his hands on her waist. He dropped a kiss on her neck. “The bed or here?” he gritted.
“Here,” came her ragged response. “Anywhere, everywhere. All I know is that I need you inside me.”
Bloody hell.
Her reflection in the mirror was that of a goddess. Her hair was everywhere. Her eyes shone. She looked half drunk, worlds away from the hesitant creature who had murmured her vows to him earlier that day and the lady who had lingered at the threshold between their chambers. So bloody beautiful. So untamed. So much his.
“Hold on to the top of the dresser,” he ordered, catching her ear in his teeth. He could still smell her, and it was intoxicating, as was her complete submission just now when he knew that she was anything but acquiescent. She was doing this for him, because of him, because of how he made her feel.
He reveled in it. Her hands went to the top of the dresser. His fingers dipped into her folds, stroking her slick seam before sinking inside her. Two fingers. She was hot, so hot, and tight. He slipped a third finger into her channel, and she gripped him, moaning. She was ready. More than ready. He stroked his cock, coating it in her wetness, and then tipped his hips, bringing him to her entrance. He licked the whorl of her ear, tongued the hollow behind it, feasting on the sensitive skin that he knew drove her to distraction.
“Ready, princess?” he asked, his every instinct screaming to take her but the deep-rooted sense of honor ingrained within him forcing him to wait. To allow her to maintain control.
She rolled her hips, rubbing her slick folds against him. Her curls cascaded down her back, over her face, partially obscuring her luscious breasts. “Yes.”
Her sibilant surrender was his final undoing. He positioned himself, and in one deep thrust, he was inside her to the hilt. “How do you feel now, Boadicea?”
A sigh escaped her. “Full.” She tilted her head back, locks of hair falling from her face, and met his gaze in the looking glass. “I want you so much that it hurts.”
Jesus. Christ.
His control fled. His honor. His mind. His comprehension of anything that wasn’t her disappeared, full stop. He was raging, needing, hungry, so damn hungry, and she felt better than anything had in all his thirty-three years. Better than anything he deserved. Justbetter.
He almost withdrew entirely only to drive inside her again. She tightened, moved against him, welcoming, urging. He was lost. Lost inside her. He thrust, faster and faster, slamming into her. He was mindless. Weightless. Relentless. Everything in him screamed, hungered, wanted, longed, took. Deeper. Harder. More. In and out, again and again, and she was slick and smooth, warm and tighter than a fist, and she was everything.
She was his.
His wife.
His…
Bloody hell, he could not even think. Could not do anything more than fuck her. Take her. Own her. Faster still, thrusting, possessing. In the glass, she looked as if she were intoxicated. Her face was flushed becomingly, head tipped back. He sucked her neck, found her racing pulse and licked furiously, hoping that he would make a mark. That he would find the proof of his lovemaking upon her delicate skin in the morning.
He looked down then, watching his cock slide in and out of her, seeing it rigid and glistening with her sweet arousal. He slowed for a moment, attempting to regain control, but he could not. He was dangerously close to coming, and as much as he loved being inside her, he would never lose himself so much that he would spend within her. He would not beget another child ever again, and it mattered not that she was his wife.
He thrust forward, his fingers finding her clitoris again, teasing in slow, perfect circles. Her flesh was so warm and slippery, so needy and inviting. He worked her, withdrew, sank deep inside her again, and then she was unraveling. She tightened, clenching on his cock, her body releasing a shower of delicious tremors yet again that he knew to be her climax.
Damn it, he almost came inside her. But his instinct worked in his favor, and he withdrew in haste, fisting his cock in his hand, spurting his seed all over the perfection of her lower back. He watched it fall, marking her as his. It was not enough. It would never be enough. But it was all he could offer her, because the part of himself that had once believed in love and hope had died a long time ago. This—the beast—was all that remained.
o woke in a strange bed,in a strange chamber.
And she wasn’t alone.
The warmth from a hard male chest radiated into her back. An arm, strong and possessive, wrapped round her waist. A cock, stiff and erect, pressed against her bottom. As wakefulness sifted through her, she arched instinctively, seeking him, as if it were the most natural act in the world. As if she had done it countless mornings before.
She felt…at home. His scent enveloped her, pine and soap and something indefinably wonderful that was simplySpencer. While she had spent much of the previous day wondering if she had made a massive mistake in marrying the Duke of Bainbridge, his passion and intensity last night had gone a long way toward assuaging her doubts. Elsewhere, he may be icy and forbidding, but when he touched her, kissed her, took her, he burned, and she burned along with him.
The origin of their union was rather extraordinary, their courtship nonexistent and rushed, but the desire between them was not forced or feigned. It gave her hope that they could at least become friends, given time, though they may never love each other. That they were not doomed to an icy marriage of mutual loathing in which they sought passion in the beds of other lovers.
The mere thought of Spencer taking another woman as he had taken her last night—with such fierce possession—disturbed her. It occurred to her that she had never asked if he intended to remain true to their vows. For some reason, it had not been something she considered until this moment, when it all became quite clear to her in the early morning’s glow.
He was hers now. Vexing, arrogant, stubborn Spencer Marlow belonged to her. He was her husband. The beautiful, maddening, insufferable Duke of Bainbridge. In so many ways, he remained unknown to her. And yet, every part of him, all that she knew and all that she had yet to learn, was in her possession. She would not share him.
“What is it?” he whispered into her ear then, his hot breath sending a shiver of awareness through her. “I can practically hear your mind whirring like a machine.”
She had not known he was awake. Indeed, it surprised her that he had not disengaged himself but continued to hold her. After making love to her before the looking glass, he had taken her in his arms and carried her to his bed, where he had made love to her all over again. She had expected to return to her chamber, but he had kept her here with a simple command.Stay.And she had spent her first night sleeping in a bed with a man only to wake and find it the most natural and delightful thing.
