The wondrous sensation of this man filling her up was like nothing she had ever experienced before, and it brought tears unbidden to her eyes.
She gasped when he started to thrust, moving in and out, his lips leaving her throat. But when he pulled up to look down at her, he paused.
“What is the matter?” he demanded, his tone more than a little concerned. “Am I hurting you?”
“No,” she whimpered, fighting back the tears, smiling with unbridled affection. Gripping his face in her hands once more, she breathed, “Don’t stop.”
Stretching her neck up, she kissed him and guided him back down on top of her.
With such tenderness, he kissed her in return, thrusting inside her once more. She moved her hips, thrusting upwards to meet him, the sheer size of him filling her fit to bursting. And burst she did, her insides exploding with a pleasure the likes of which she had never known and feared she never would again.
“Em…” he breathed in her ear in a long and drawn-out moan of pleasure. Her insides squeezed tightly around his cock, and she felt his throbbing member growing harder still.
“Alex!” she screamed his name, her head tilting back as she was overwhelmed by sheer, explosive, all-consuming pleasure. “Alex!”
Over and over, she screamed his name, not caring who might still be about to hear, not caring if anyone on the street below might be able to hear her.
“Fuck!” he growled then and for a second Emmaline thought perhaps it was she who might have hurt him. Her hips stopped thrusting, she opened her eyes—only now realizing she had closed them—and saw the look of sheer pleasure mirrored upon his expression. “Emmaline!”
As he growled her name, his entire body grew rigid, trembling in what appeared to be an uncontrollable convulsion.
“Alex?” she gasped, her heart skipping a beat.
He groaned then and she felt hot, thick liquid pulse inside her, his cock throbbing still with the spilling of it.
It was only then she realized what had happened and a small, devilish smile of her own spread across her face.
“You little minx,” he whispered when he saw the smile. He panted hard with the effort of all they had just done.
He kissed her tenderly upon the lips then, another upon her forehead, before he slipped from her and dropped down onto the bed beside her.
Before she could say or do anything, he slipped his arm beneath her and pulled her over onto him, encouraging her to rest her head upon his chest.
And as the candles in the lanterns slowly started to die down, the devil lord whispered, “My devil lady, I do believe I may be falling in love with you.”
Emmaline did not dare to speak. She barely even dared to breathe. The bliss surrounding them, the tenderness of his words, was too sweet to risk. And so, she breathed out a sigh and nuzzled closer to his chest, running her fingers through the hair that grew where his scars did not touch.
It was only when she was sure that he had fallen into a pleasure-induced slumber that she dared to gently trace her fingers over the silvered scars upon his chest.
“Sleep well, my scarred devil duke, for I believe I am falling in love with you too,” she whispered into the darkness, wondering whether some part of his unconscious mind might actually hear her.
Whether he did or not, it did not matter, for she was certain that one day not too far away she might just find the courage to tell him again, not only with her body as she just had but with all the wondrous words she had read about in romance novels over the years.
And for once, she felt as though she may just have fallen into the pages of one of them. It was a girlish, and perhaps even foolish thought, that helped her slip into an easy and comfortable sleep upon the chest of her most handsome, most damaged husband, hoping that tomorrow she would find herself still wrapped in his arms, unable to be touched by the negativity of the world that had plagued them both for so long.
Chapter 19
Waking the next morning was rather more like rising into a dream than from one. Alex's face broke into a smile almost immediately upon the opening of his eyes. With Emmaline's head resting upon his chest, the soft sounds of her breathing assuring him she was still sound asleep, he couldn't help but hold back laughter at the gentle snoring emanating from her.
Nor could he stop from stroking back the hair from her face just to touch her. But almost immediately, his wife animated.
“Oh, Em, I’m sorry. I didn't mean to—” he began to apologize but she slipped off the bed so swiftly that it cut him off entirely. “What is the matter?”
Emmaline stood, eyes darting around the room. Without response, she rushed for the water basin sitting on a nearby table.
“Emmaline?”
Alex rose from the bed, more than a little concerned with how pale his wife had grown. And when she white-knuckle held onto the basin with both hands, her head bent over it, gagging, Alex was certain he knew what was coming.
