“Fine. You want to touch me?” His jaw was clenched. He reached between them, jerking up the hem of his nightshirt. He gripped her wrist and guided her hand to his flesh. “Like this,querida. Stroke me.”
Her fingers closed around him, with his atop. Nothing could have prepared her for the feeling of him, firm and smooth, velvety soft, thick and long. He moved her hand up and down, showing her what he liked.
She wished for the bedclothes to be gone so she could see all of him. But she would settle for this, his hardness filling her hand, the groan he could not suppress falling from his beautiful lips.
Yes.
This.
More.
“Catriona.” Her name was low and guttural.
He was losing himself. She was making him.
She wanted to kiss him, but she would not push him that far. Before he left her, his lips would be hers to claim, she vowed it to herself. For now, she closed the distance between them instead and pressed her lips to his neck. She found his pulse. It was fast, as fast as her own.
And then she licked him. Tasted his flesh as he had tasted hers.
Delicious.
“Mierda,” he bit out before grasping her wrist and pulling her away from him. “I warned you, but you would not listen.”
As she watched, he hauled back the bedclothes in one swift motion, and then, in the next, his big body was atop hers, her legs naturally spread to accommodate him. Her night rail was still bunched around her waist, and his shirt had flipped up in his movement. His manhood rested against her center without any separation between them.
She had won this battle, she thought.
And victory, when it came to the man she had married, was so very sweet.
Chapter Twelve
Consummating his marriagewith Catriona had not been Alessandro’s intention when he had decided to spend the night in her bed. After he had aided his drunken bride in slipping into her night rail—all whilst carefully averting his gaze lest he be tempted by the sight of a breast or even a hint of nipple—he had gone to his own chamber to prepare for bed.
It had only been when he had ventured next door once more to check on her and she had complained of being cold that he had reluctantly joined her beneath the bedclothes. He had meant to offer her warmth, but instead he had fallen asleep at her side, oddly comforted by her presence.
Bedding her had not been his initial intention that morning either when he had awoken to her body close to his and her breast in his hand. But as lucidity had gradually restored itself to him, he had been reluctant to stop touching her.
And now, he had to be inside her.
He had almost come in her hand.
That would not do. He could only spend inside her.
To get her with child, he reasoned with himself. But reason had nothing to do with yanking his night shirt over his head and discarding it. Nor did it have anything to do with removing her night rail with equally swift measures. It had precious little to do with lowering his head to her beautifully upturned breasts and sucking a nipple into his mouth.
No, that had everything to do with passion. With the yearning that had been building inside him from the first moment he had crossed paths with her. He could not deny he wanted her. Had to have her.
The lusty sound of satisfaction she made when he suckled her pleased him. So did her hands upon him, soft and small and eager, traveling everywhere and leaving hunger in their wakes. He sucked her other nipple, then flicked his tongue teasingly over it.
Her moan rewarded him. Her nails dug into his shoulders. His cat had claws, and he liked it. He liked it far too much.Slowly, he reminded himself.Go slowly. Cuidado.
She was a virgin, and he must proceed with caution. He had never before taken a woman’s maidenhead, for Maria had lain with others before him out of necessity, and the women he had bedded before her had been well-experienced. He did not know what to expect. That he must take Catriona’s innocence at once filled him with a potent combination of reverence, trepidation, and lust.
His.She would be his. Forever.
Until you return to Spain, taunted a voice inside him.
Here and now, the notion of her ever taking another lover was unthinkable. He cast it from his mind and delivered a gentle kiss to her stiff nipple. She made a throaty sound of feminine pleasure, and it was so unbearably erotic, he could not stop the bolt of lust that shot straight to his ballocks.
