He shifted to her opposite breast, drawing the same pleasure there. Her sex was getting wet as he performed his act and her body writhed beneath him. She had never felt anything like it, not even in all the times he had so scandalously touched her. This was more…focused somehow. More purposeful.
But of course it would be. This was leading to a claiming, a final act that would change her body and her soul, that would change everything between them forever.
And as frightening as that was, she didn’t fight it. She practically purred as he traced his hand down her bare side and then slid his fingers between their bodies. He found her sex, continuing to suckle at her breast as he spread her folds open and smoothed the wetness of her body across the tingling entrance there.
He popped his mouth free. “You are so wet, Emma. So ready. And I want you so much. But I need to know that you want me to do this tonight. Once I do, there will be no going back. No escape. So you must look at me and tell me that you want me.”
She swallowed hard. This was her final chance to end the madness that was building and swirling inside of her. The last chance to walk away from him.
But she didn’t want to do that. Not tonight. Not ever.
She reached up and cupped his cheeks. She met his eyes, holding him as steady as she could manage when her world was spinning wildly.
“I’m yours, James,” she whispered. “And I want you.”
He let out a sigh that felt like it held the relief of a thousand lives in it. Then he stared down into her eyes as he positioned himself differently. She felt the hardness of him, of his cock, pressed at that slick spot between her trembling legs. She found herself lifting into him without meaning to do so, and then he was pressing inside.
“Oh God,” he groaned as the tip of him entered her. “You are perfect.”
She whimpered a response because there were no longer words in her head. There was just this animal act between them that she wanted and feared in equal measure.
He took another inch, and there was the pain he had told her about, a quick tearing that made her suck in her breath and dig her fingernails into his shoulders.
“I know,” he murmured, “I know, I’m sorry. But I promise you that is the end of it, Emma. It will never hurt again.”
She nodded slowly, praying he was right and knowing he might not be. He moved forward, taking her further and further until she felt certain there was no space left in her body for him. When he had taken her to the hilt, he stopped and held still inside her.
She stared up at him in wonder, and he smiled. “What is that look for?”
“You told me I was made to accept you,” she said with a shake of her head. “I just didn’t believe you.”
He leaned in to kiss her gently. “When it comes to this, I would never lie to you, Emma. And now I can’t wait anymore. I have to have you, really have you.”
He thrust as he said the last word, and she gasped at the thick slide of him inside her clenching body. It was such a strange sensation, foreign but also oddly natural. He didn’t belong where he was, and yet each time he moved inside of her, it felt more and more right.
And then he shifted his hips in a slow circle and she froze. This was no longer odd, it was…good. So good. Pleasure rocked through her as he circled again, grinding his pelvis against hers and eliciting a harsh moan from her lips.
“That’s right,” he whispered. “That’s what I want, Emma. I want your pleasure. I want to make you shake with it.”
She lifted against him, and now it was he who made a harsh sound of pleasure. She smiled. It seemed for once she might just have as much power as he did.
They began to move together, their eyes locked as she lifted into him, as he drove into her. The thrusts came harder and faster now, and her body reacted with blissful sensation as the pleasure he created mounted, increasing as his neck strained and his eyes glazed.
And then release hit her, in waves that were far more intense than anything he had drawn from her before. She clung to him, burying her mouth against his naked shoulder so the household wouldn’t be brought down by the cries of her release.
He thrust through it all, demanding more, taking more, and finally he let out her name in a pleading cry and she felt heat fill her. The heat ofhim, the heat of his release. He collapsed down over her, his breath ragged as he held her tight, smoothing his hands over her hair, her back, her shoulders, while he rolled to his side and pulled her flush against him.
How long they lay like that, she had no idea. All she knew was that she felt warm, safe, protected like she never had in her entire life. When James’s arms were around her, it was a cocoon where no evil could penetrate. And she loved him all the more for creating that little haven of safety, even if it was only in her mind.
He leaned down and kissed her temple before he separated their still entangled bodies and got to his feet. She watched him as he bent, gloriously comfortable in his nakedness as he dressed.
“You have to go?” she asked, hating the faint desperation in her question.
He glanced at her over his shoulder. “I must. Since we are to wed, the scandal if we were caught wouldn’t be as bad as it would have been a day ago, but it is not the way I want your life as Duchess of Abernathe to start. So Imustgo.”
He was still tucking his shirt into his trousers when he turned back to her. He looked at her, that heated stare flitting from her head to her toes, and shook his head. “Amazing,” he muttered.
“What’s that?” she asked softly.
