“Gabriel,please.” She didn’t even know what she was begging for.
His eyes were dark with triumph. His lips closed over hers, the kiss rougher, more forceful than before. She reveled in his possession. Suddenly, she felt a stretching sensation, and then he was touching her…inside. Her breath held, her muscles clenching on unfamiliar fullness.
“Goddamn, you’re small. Gripping me so tightly.” His chest surged. “Am I hurting you?”
“No.” It wasn’t painful exactly. “It feels… strange.”
“Strange in a bad way?”
“Strange in a strange way. Do it again.”
“Like this?”
This time, the exquisite, filling friction made her back arch. “Yes,” she sighed.
He groaned her name, and his touch changed. His fingers took on a rough, driving rhythm, the lunging cadence shoving the breath from her lungs. It was sogood. When his palm met her swollen flesh in a light slap, she whimpered with pleasure. He did it again and again and again. Her head tossed against velvet as the crescendo in her soared…
“Pull on the strap,” he ordered. “Pull hard for me.”
She clutched the leather and yanked. Every part of her tautened, and his fingers thrust deep, a transcendent surge that made stars blur before her eyes. Her hips arched as he filled her completely, his palm grinding wetly against her sensitive bud.
“Come for me now, Thea,” he rasped.
She cried out as she hurtled over the finish line. Voluptuous spasms rippled through her, one after another, strong and unbearably sweet. The tides of bliss rocked her, cleaved her from her old self, and left her shivering with the new discovery.
When she regained her senses, she gazed up at Tremont. For once his expression was unguarded. In his gleaming gaze, she saw her own awe reflected. And the glimmer of something else, too, that might have been… hope.
Chapter Twelve
Gabriel awoke fully alert, a habit from his espionage days. Being groggy could get you killed, and that was no way to start the morning. Lying in the guest bedchamber, the dawn’s light seeping in through a crack in the velvet drapes, he was acutely aware of two facts.
First, he’d brought Thea to climax in the carriage last night, and it had been the hottest, most seductive experience of his life. Her passion had rocked him to the core. She hadn’t been afraid or repulsed by his lovemaking. She was a lady, an innocent, yet she’d wanted him—hell, she’dbeggedhim to give her release. The wanton beauty of her orgasm had stunned him; if they hadn’t arrived back at the Strathaven residence, he’d have dearly loved to give her another.
He stared up at the plaster cherubs frolicking along the edge of the ceiling, his heart thudding. Possibility flared inside him. Could she accept his carnal desires?
I want to experience it all with you.
True, her words had been that of an innocent: she had no idea what “all” with him would entail. Yet her openness roused his deepest fantasy, one he’d long ago forsaken. Wanting something that didn’t exist was futile, but his old, dangerous desire took root nonetheless: what would it be like to possess a lady entirely? To have her surrender to him, to give him all of her trust, to belong to him and only him?
The prospect fluttered at the edges of his consciousness, as tantalizing as a dream. A hidden floodgate opened inside him, releasing so many needs, of such intensity, that he couldn’t register them all. Raw wanting raged through him.
His pulse hammering, he reached below the sheet. He stifled a groan as his hand closed around the stiff, aching ridge of his cock. During the years of his marriage, he’d gotten accustomed to self-pleasure. For better or worse, frigging had become a necessary habit.
But he didn’t want to think about the past. He wanted to focus on the future, the fantasy awakening inside him. Closing his eyes, he allowed himself to imagine all the things he wanted to do with Thea. The wicked pleasures he wanted to introduce her to, the limits of her passion he wanted to test… and control.
In his mind, he returned to the darkness of the carriage, to her lovely nude body spread for him on the velvet cushions. This time he saw her hands bound by the passenger strap, her wrists secured by black leather as he fingered her. His breath quickening, he fisted his erection, mimicking the tight, shy clasp of her pussy, the way it had milked him so lushly. By God, she’d been magnificent in her throes. He pictured himself clamping his hands on her downy thighs, spreading them wide as her climax trembled through her.
Lowering his head, he put his mouth on her. Her essence flooded his senses like ambrosia, and he hungrily feasted. To the music of her pleading whimpers, he licked her creamy slit, delving deep, groaning as her fluttering muscles pulled him in deeper. He fucked her with his tongue, and she let him have her this way—in any way he pleased. His cock spurted; he fisted himself harder as he licked upward to her pearl, flicking it.
When he suckled the proud little bud, she cried out again, her thighs tautening around his head. Her crisis set fire to his blood, and the next instant, he mounted her, notching his prick to her wet gash. He drove forward, pleasure rippling down his spine as her passage received him. Her eyes held him as wholly as her untried flesh, hazel pools glimmering with trust. With pure surrender.
Undone by her, he let the animal in him go free. He rammed into the heart of her, into her wet, giving welcome. Her moans accompanied the ferocious smack of his bollocks against her dewy petals. She took him to the balls, and it still wasn’t enough, he needed to be deeper yet. Hoisting her ankles over his shoulders, he slammed his hips home. Again and again and again.
Straining against her bonds, she arched to take everything he had to give her. Her breasts bounced with his thrusts, the coral tips erect and proud. She cried out as her sheath began to convulse around his invading shaft. He drove himself home, hitting the end of her with a groan. Her lushness milked him, and his stones burgeoned, his seed climbing. Plunging into her cream-filled cunny one last time, he exploded in a haze of bliss.
Panting, Gabriel lay against the pillows, the bedclothes damp, his heart drumming. As he slowly came down from the release, he felt calmer, his head clearing. The desire between him and Thea last night had been real. True, he hadn’t exposed the depth of his proclivities, the extent of his need for sexual domination, but her response thus far had been promising. Was it possible that she could accept him sexually?
Anticipation wound inside him. His sense of honor dictated that he make her a proposal, but he wouldn’t go into it blind like the last time. That route led only to misery for both parties. This time, he would learn from his mistakes. He would tell Thea his expectations in full, outline the kind of marriage he had to offer.
