Argyll chuckled. “Only you would prefer I give my fortune away rather than lavish it upon you as the queen you are.”
Since their first meeting, there were two primary responses he’d sought to rouse from his bewitching bride: mindless lust, the kind that made her forget herself. And—And then a moment he’d sought since two days earlier happened.
A tremor passed through Daria before laughter burst free—bright, helpless, unrestrained. Her shoulders shook; her head tipped back. And yes—bastard that he was—Argyll drank in the sight of her freely: the lift and fall of her breasts beneath the sheer cotton, the faint pebbling where the fabric clung, the way the material tugged and skimmed her thighs as she laughed.
For all that he hungered for her, it was this raw amusement he had coaxed from her that filled him with the greatest swell of masculine satisfaction.
“A q-queen,” she rasped, flinging herself against his chest. She pounded her small fists against him, trying—and failing—to bring herself to order.
Wait a moment…
His mouth hardened.
His provoking wife had fixed upon endearments, now laughed at one he’d bestowed upon no other. A largesse that had slipped free as naturally as breath.
Growling, Argyll bit his fingers into her hips, drawing a sharp gasp from her. He tightened his hold and pulled her firmly between his legs.
“You bear my name,” he rasped harshly, burning his gaze into hers. Argyll kissed her.
Daria’s mouth yielded to his; her body melted against him.
Argyll curled his fingers under the curve of her sweet arse and dragged her closer—letting her feel the full force of his desire.
“You bear my title.” Deepening their kiss, he pressed the full length of his arousal hard against her belly. “You are my queen.”
Her breath stuttered. Her lashes lowered.
“And since you belong to me,” she murmured, voice gone soft and steady, “that makes you my king.”
His nostrils flared. Argyll and Daria moved their eyes over one another.
They came together in a collision—mouths meeting in a kiss that stole sense and air alike. Daria clutched at his neck as he lifted her leg, wrapping it securely about his waist. He scooped her up by the other thigh and carried them hard against the floor-length mirror fixed to the wall.
There was nothing but breath—hers shuddering against his mouth, his drawn from her—and the unmistakable give of her body beneath his hands. He felt the instant her strength wavered, the way she clutched at him as if the ground itself had shifted, fingers biting into his coat, her body yielding to his without hesitation.
She moaned as she parted her lips, and Argyll took that sound as invitation enough. He claimed her mouth as he meantto claim her—thoroughly, irrevocably. His tongue swept deep, demanding, learning her response with the ruthless patience of a man who had waited far longer than he cared to admit.
He pinned her between his body and the cheval glass, the cool resistance of it making her softness more pronounced beneath his hands. Gathering her wrists in one hand, he drew them above her head, not to restrain—but because he needed her there. Needed her open.
“I am obsessed with you, Daria,” he said roughly, breath sawing in and out before he swallowed her mouth again. “Since the first day—”
“Th-that isn’t t-true,” she protested, her words breaking apart as his mouth took hers again.
He felt the answer to that denial in the way her body arched into his, in the restless friction she made against him, where instinct overruled caution.
A short, unintended laugh escaped him before dissolving into a groan as she pressed harder against the hold he kept on her wrists.
He hungrily returned to her lips.
Sliding both her wrists between one of his hands, he used the other to shove the thin slip of fabric down her body.
Palming the slight weight of her breast, he raised it to his mouth and sucked the crowned pink tip.
Daria cried out, twisting and writhing against the bonds he’d made for her. “Please!”
“Please what?” he breathed against her heaving chest. “Stop or—?”
“Free me!” she gasped. “I need to hold you.”
