Impatience seized him when the gown caught beneath his own weight and he swore, destroying the rest of the garment as he rended the delicate fabric to pieces in a single movement. “Damn you!” Amanda swore, her eyes upon his, wide with anger and alarm, her protest frantic. “You’ve ruined the gown—”
“My love, God rot the gown!” he said flatly, pulling the remnants of silk from her body and the bed. Amanda grasped for the disappearing fabric, then found herself entirely naked and captured by his arm and his thigh. She was amazed at the emotion that welled within her, the fury, the fear…and the tense excitement. “You’d said you’d not take me until I gave you leave!”
“You, love, have not held to your part of the bargain.”
“My part! I want no part of this!”
“You do, Amanda. You are flesh and blood, lady. You are ripe and I shall prove to you that married life is no hardship. Lie still, lady, and let me touch you. Better yet, do not lie still, but twist and writhe beneath me, press yourself against me,” he ordered her, his eyes hard and demanding upon hers.
She felt what his words implied. Felt his body with the length of her own. Completely naked beneath him, she tried to whisper words to disavow him. She wanted to fight him so badly, and yet she was so suddenly still. His leg was cast upon hers, powerful, muscular, she could not escape him if she chose. She did not know if she chose. There was a rushing all about her, a startling fire within her. She felt it as she saw his naked thigh draped upon her own beneath the rising hem of his robe. She felt it deep within her stomach, and deeper still, at the juncture of her thighs. Hot and frantic, it coiled tighter and tighter and she both dreaded and eagerly anticipated his touch.
She swallowed sharply and he watched the length of her throat, watched where her heart showed its frantic beat against the swan’s column.
“Eric—”
“Be still!” he commanded her. He pressed his lips against the pulse at her throat, moving his hands upon her, his fingers stroking the length of her with a hunger he could not deny. He touched her thighs and allowing his touch to brush the striking red triangle at the apex of her thighs, and he went onward to explore her belly and waist, the deep valley between her breasts. Her fingers curled over his shoulders, her nails digging heedlessly into his flesh.
Suddenly he drew up, casting his robe aside.
When he stared down upon his wife, her eyes were closed, her lush lashes dark above her cheeks, her lips parted, her breath rushing from them. Her breasts rose in swift and beautiful agitation. He found himself pausing for the simple pleasure of seeing her body before he lowered himself to touch it again. The tendrils of her hair lay like laps of flame upon the pillow, like liquid fire, spilling into him, haunting him. The fever that had seized him the first time he had seen her in Damien’s arms came home to him then, causing him to tremble with the prospect of his longing. He hurriedly sank back down, afraid of breaking the spell that lay upon her, so fragile was her consent to his will. She was his wife; he could have her as he pleased, and no man could gainsay him. He wanted more.
He caught her shapely limbs, parting them and lying between them so that her eyes opened with alarm. A gasp escaped her and her eyes closed as a word of protest tore from her. With a wicked smile he cast his hands beneath her buttocks, lifting her hips. He buried his face within the fascinating texture of the tempting sable-red triangle, his tongue ravaging her with a shocking, seductive invasion. Her fingers tore into his hair, she writhed, she cried out.
“Nay …!”
“Aye, my love,” he murmured, his breath hot against her delicate flesh. She could not fight the weight of his shoulders, nor would he show mercy now.
“My God, ’tis wicked—”
“God, madame, has blessed our union. And love, lady, is wicked and beautiful, as it will be between us.”
She gasped again, but the sound of it was lost in a cry, for he curled his fingers within those that tugged upon his hair, and he had his way with leisure and purpose, finding the sweet bud wherein her own desire lay, touching upon her very innocence. She thrashed upon the bed, seeking to escape him, seeking then to know more of him. He felt the change within her as he ruthlessly captured her sensuality, felt the surge of her body, tasted the nectar of her warmth as she writhed against him, seeking release from all that he had nurtured within her. Frantic whimpers fell from her lips, and her hips undulated in an ever-growing rhythm. Then she stiffened, straining, crying out, and the sweetness of climax exploded from within her. He lost no time but rose above her, the full weight of his body wedged between lovely length of her thighs. “Madame, would you stop me?” he demanded.
She lay silent, her eyes closed. He leaned low against her, demanding more emphatically, “Amanda! Shall I have my wife this night?”
Her lips parted just slightly. He lay his palm against her breast, bringing his words to the hollow of her throat. “Amanda—”
“Yes!” It was a pained whisper that tore from her throat. Then she cried out, her eyes opening for a moment of emerald anguish, then closing again as her arms wound around him. She could not meet his gaze, he knew, and he did not care, not at that moment. He gritted his teeth, his muscles clenching, demanding that despite his state of desperation, he take his wife with care. He moved against her, the tip of his shaft coming into the contact with the barrier of innocence. A cry of pain and protest rose to her lips no matter how he had prepared her; he closed over that cry with his kiss and entered into her like silk and steel. Her nails dug into his flesh again, her head fell back. He moved slowly, so slowly, until she had taken all of him into her, whispering assurances all the while. Her eyes remained closed, her face pale, but once she had accepted him, he began to move. He fought the wave of stark dark desire that seized him and brought his rhythm to her slowly. He had proven that passion dwelled within her, he need only ignite it again.
He touched her as he moved, stroking her breasts, her cheeks, her breasts again. He touched her lips with his own and seared her with his kiss. Her lips parted, a soft moan escaped her, and then triumph seized him, for she was moving again. Moving with his thrust and surge, undulating, like a wave of fire, beneath him.
Somewhere in the tempest that followed he allowed himself the sheer pleasure of having her at last, of burying himself within the beauty of her molten sheath. All the reckless abandon that he had denied himself burst forth, and he took her in raw, blinding desire, his tension and energy relentless, then finding fruition in a volatile combustion that cast him shuddering deep, deep within her time and time again. The pleasure was so great that he saw blackness as the veil of release first lifted from him, then, in alarm, he stiffened against her. He exhaled, feeling the trickle of sweat seep down his chest, and then he exhaled again, feeling that she still lay, wracked with tremors, beneath him. He held her tight, kissing her forehead, then pulling back to see how the moon and the firelight fell over her sleek body.
Her hair was entwined about them both. She did not open her eyes until he touched her cheek, then they came wide upon him, and she groaned, trying to twist away in some new horror. Alarmed and impatient, he dragged her back. “Madame, what—”
She bent her head against him, whispering fervently, “It is not right! Oh, God, what you have done to me—”
“I am baffled, love. What have I done that no other husband, young Tarryton or multichinned Hastings, would not?”
“It isn’t that!” she whispered.
“Is it me? Forgive me, milady, but I thought that I caused you as little pain as possible. Nay, call me an egotist as you are so wont to do, and yet still, I would swear I caused pleasure.”
“Oh!”
She almost turned from him. He caught her shoulders and lay her back, crawling above her and demanding now that she meet his eyes. “What is it?”
She moistened her lips. “It is not you. It is me!”
