And as she watched him struggle, Briar realized something more.
She wanted him.
Wanted him inside her, as she could never re-member wanting any man. She wanted to take the beast she saw in his eyes, that fierce, wild wanting, and tame it. Make it her own.
I feel this way because I am so close to taking the vengeance I have dreamed of for so long, she tried to tell herself.
But it was a lie.
Even as she repeated the words to herself, she knew she was avoiding the truth. Briar wanted him. Her body craved his. What had begun as playacting, a cold-blooded pretense, was now real desire, read lust. And explain it to herself in whatever manner she may, it was unexplainable.
As if he had sensed her need, he had begun to kiss her. Long, passionate kisses that made her mindless. Briar pressed against him, her arms about his neck, her fingers tangled in his black hair. As he kissed her, he was caressing her breasts, plucking at the taut nipples, causing her body to burn and ache. The cleft between her legs was swollen and hot, and when his manhood prodded at the juncture of her thighs, instinctively she opened them, giving him access. She should be frightened, or at least wary, because he was so big—but she was not.
Nevertheless, Briar braced herself.
But instead of thrusting himself brutally inside her, as Filby had done, he began to play with her. He ran his tongue slowly down one side of her throat, tasting her, enjoying her as if she were one of Jocelyn’s honey cakes.
The comparison made her giggle, and then quickly gasp in shocked surprise. “Ouch!” Briar pressed back into the furs, so that she could look at him, her face slack with amazement. “You bit me!”
“Just a little,” he admitted, with an unrepentant smile. “You taste so good, demoiselle.”
“I do?”
“Aye,” he mocked. “Inside and out.” And, sliding his hands beneath her, he raised his body over hers, lifted her, and with a thrust of his hips, entered into her slippery depths.
Briar’s eyes grew wider as she stared up at him.
Ivo felt the little movements inside her, the adjustments to his size, the grasp of her body about his. She was tight, though no virgin. But neither was she much used—Ivo knew the signs. In truth he cared not what she was, only that at this moment she was his. Ivo threw his head back with a groan of ecstasy, thrusting himself into her a little more, and a little further, unashamedly enjoying her. He withdrew, and thrust again, deep this time, and she quivered from her head to her toes.
“Oh, demoiselle,” he whispered hoarsely, gazing down at her with blurred black eyes, his hair a dark aureole in the candlelight. “Tell me I am not dreaming.”
And just like that, a wild storm of pleasure swept through her. Briar cried out and arched against him. He held her firm, allowing her to ride the tempest, content to let her have her moment while he kept his own pleasure in check. When she was still again, gasping, a sheen of perspiration covering her body, her hair sticky against his skin, he gently kissed her face. Little, light kisses across her cheeks and nose and brow; soft kisses against her eyelids, and the tiny scar.
A child’s cry. The bark of a hound. Voices raised in consternation.
The memory was there and gone, too quick for him to grasp it. Besides, his senses were clamoring for release, to take what she offered so freely. Whomever she was.
Ivo gazed down at her, at her mouth, reddened now, lush and swollen from his kisses. He nibbled it with his teeth while thrusting slowly between her thighs, feeling the tight sheath grasping him, holding him. It felt so good and yet he was wild to finish it—the two longings tugged him in opposing directions, an agony that was like ecstasy.
This wasn’t going at all as Briar had imagined it.
She had thought he would take her brutally, guiltily, and then toss her aside. She had thought to find joy in it, yes, but only because it was a culmination of two years of yearning and plotting. She had certainly not expected to be thrown into such a wild, passionate storm by his embrace. And she had not imagined to feel such delight in the joining of his body to hers.
More than that.
Such a sense of rightness, as if she had been born to be here.
Sweet Jesu, how could that be?
Briar’s anxious thoughts scattered as he moved again, stroking her deep inside each time he moved his hips. Oh, it felt so good when he did that. Felt so wonderful. Caught up again in her own rising passion, and completely in thrall to his tender teasing, Briar lifted her own hips to meet him. She could feel his entire body rigid with his need to let go, and yet he did not. Incredibly he held himself back, he waited, and Briar knew instinctively he was waiting for her to soar once more, before he would allow himself to join her.
“Sing, demoiselle.” His husky breath stirred the damp curls on her brow. “Sing our song.”
No, she thought, no, I must not, I will not... But it was already too late. Briar heard her own voice, harsh with pleasure and longing, as he tipped her over the edge once more. And this time, as she reached completion, he drove hard, once, twice, and followed, shouting his joy to the shadows, planting his seed deep within her, and shuddering his contentment in her enfolding arms.
Chapter 2
Briar lay quiet, her head rested upon his chest, with her hair spilling about them both. She could feel the steady thud of his heart, as well as every breath. He was stroking her back, his fingers gentle against her heated skin, while his gloved hand rested, relaxed, upon his hard-muscled stomach. She gazed at the black leather, idly wondering what was so terrible about the hand that he must keep it covered even at such a time as this.
