“I am going to come inside you now,” he said, the restraint slipping as he said the words aloud, barely tamping down a groan of erotic torture. “I am going to fill you with my seed.”
“Yes,” she whispered, rocking on him, the word almost a whimper.
“My name,” he had the presence of mind to command, increasing the pressure on her pearl. “Say it when I spend in you. I am your husband.”
“Ah.” Her eyes closed, and he felt her walls tightening around him again as another spasm of release gripped her. “Zachary.”
“Yes, my love.” He approved. He approved so much that he buried his face between her pretty breasts and jerked his hips upward, angling her so that he was deeper yet, and lost himself inside her.
The rush of his pinnacle took him by surprise as he emptied into her. And still, he kept fucking. Thrusting and rocking her on his cock, determined to wrest every drop of his mettle, to drain himself completely inside her. And empty himself he did, with a ferocity that left his ears ringing as he gasped for breath, holding tight to this woman he loved.
To his wife.
“Mine,” he told her, the only coherent word he could manage.
It was primitive and boorish, and he acknowledged that as the last drop of mettle spilled from him, but the sentiment was undeniable. They were wed. She was his, now and forever. Just as he was hers.
But he had been hers from the moment she had kissed him in Greymoor’s salon.
Izzy collapsed against him, her heart pounding so hard, he could feel its beats, her breathing as ragged as his. And at last, he was a happy man.
CHAPTER18
By the time Izzy reached the breakfast table, Anglesey—her husband,Zachary—was already awaiting her. He greeted her with a dazzling smile and a courtly bow that made her feel as if they were at a ball surrounded by hundreds of watchful eyes rather than alone in a room with a sideboard laden with delicious-smelling sustenance.
“You are astoundingly lovely this morning,cariad,” he greeted, taking her hand in his and bringing it to his lips for a lingering kiss.
The cynical part of her said he was merely playing a role. He was a practiced rakehell, after all. He knew well how to woo a woman, and from the moment they had stepped into the carriage together the day before until he had sweetly kissed her goodnight after they had arrived at their destination, he had most definitely been wooing her. Seducing her, too.
Her cheeks heated at the reminder of the unexpected passion they had exchanged on the drive to Haines Court. She had not intended to succumb to him, of course. But the Earl of Anglesey was an impossible man to deny when he truly unleashed the full extent of his charm. He had armed himself well. Had known just what to say, how to tenderly kiss her, to wickedly caress her. How to turn her into pudding in his skilled hands. But she was not ready to surrender her heart just yet, though she may have surrendered her body in a moment of foolish vulnerability.
“You are quite handsome yourself,” she grudgingly allowed.
Of course he was. When had he ever been anything less than astoundingly masculine, faultlessly elegant, and utterly beautiful? Never that she had seen, that much was certain. She did not believe him capable of anything less than perfection, like any god briefly descending to gift the mortals with his rarified presence.
But like gods, he possessed a glaring weakness. His was that he was a Lothario. He had loved another woman. He knew how to seduce. And had done so many times before her. She did not dare believe she would be the last.
“How did you sleep?” he asked next, his tone solicitous and polite.
If she had not known he had uttered such vulgar, bawdy words as he had in the carriage yesterday, she would scarcely believe him capable of it now.
“Well, thank you.” That was a miserable lie. She had spent the night tossing and turning alone in a bed that seemed perfectly unobjectionable, her mind being the cause for the disruption rather than material comforts. “And you?”
“I could have slept better,” he said, pressing another kiss to the top of her hand without bothering to elaborate. “Shall we? I am hungry enough to eat my bloody boots and rude enough to acknowledge it aloud.”
His unexpected confession startled a laugh from her. “Truly hungry enough for that?” She glanced down at the polished leather of his neatly laced Balmoral boots. “I would imagine they might require some salt, at least.”
“Perhaps an accompanying sauce,” he agreed sagely. “I have a notion they would be deadly dry. Béchamel, do you suppose?”
Another laugh fled her before she tamped it down.
What was this?
First, she had allowed him to make love to her in the carriage on the way to their honeymoon, and now she was giving in to laughter? He was truly a dangerous man.
“I might recommend a velouté,” she suggested anyway, following along with his light banter.
And then cursed herself for a fool.
