Breathing hard, he let the hem of her nightshirt fall, now parted. She tried to cover herself but he snatched her hands away, bringing them up behind her back. Nadine looked up at him in alarm as the dress fell open around her body, the candlelight infusing her skin with a golden luminescence.
Nadine squirmed in his grip, trying to hunch her shoulders and make herself smaller even now, when the sight of her had him about to lose control.
“I wish I could clothe you in candlelight,” he said, rising, but not to his full height. He kissed her again on the mouth, reaching back to encircle her wrists, sliding his hands down until their fingers were clasped. Then he pulled he forward, until they were flush from hip to chest and she was looking at him with glassy eyes like she was drunk and reason had eluded her along with her senses.
Her heartbeat thrummed against his skin and he thought she looked a little surprised when he swung her around, causing her open dress to flare out just as a vein of lightning arced beyond the paned glass window.
No more running, Nadine.
Without any further pretense, he scooped her up by the backs of her thighs and dropped her on the settee. The cushionssank beneath his weight as he crawled on top of her, releasing a sweet, cloying fragrance of dust and decaying brocade.
She touched his face, fingers grazing his jaw. But there was pressure and intent in those slender fingers, so he took her hands away and pinned them over her head.
A gasping laugh escaped her lips as he drank in the sight of her unhurriedly, but her wrists twitched in his grip like she wanted to cover herself. “I—I didn’t come here for this,” she said, as he dragged his knuckles over the downy rise of her stomach. He imagined her swollen with child—hischild—and felt a dull answering throb low in his belly.
(yes)
“I didn’t imagine you did. But I’m enjoying it just the same.”
She was breathing fast. So was he. His great-grandfather had taken his second wife like this, locking her in with his lust like a ravening wolf. And she had feared him for it, which had only heightened his pleasure. Nadine was frightened, yes, but a dark anticipation lit up her features in much the same way as the lightning had, and it was this, more than anything, that threatened to undo him.
“Fuck me, Nadine.” His voice was loud in the darkness, grating as thunder. “I’ll chase all the shadows away.”
“I’ve—never done that,” she stammered.
“No?”
She shook her head, eyes lowered.
Cal rolled down her underwear. Arousal glossed her flesh and beneath the dark springy curls of her pubic hair, he could see pinkened flesh, swollen and enflamed from his touch. She sucked in with a slight hiss as he pushed her legs wider.
Grabbing for himself, he demanded, “How do you fucking stand it?”
“I—”
Her eyes flew open wide as he aligned his cock against her slit with a low groan. She parted around him like a kiss. He couldfeelher trembling now, like the flame of her candle when held aloft in her shaking hand.
“Wait,” she protested.
She felt . . . even better than he had imagined.
And what better way to mark her, than to fuck her deep and brand her womb with his seed.What lush Eden, he thought, inhaling against her throat as he cupped her breast, as if trying to capture the flutter of her racing heart.My perfect hell.
“Cal—please.” She tensed against him. “I can’t . . .”
“You need this as much as I do, little sparrow.”
And I need to be tamed.
His push was met with immediate resistance. Still shackled by his fist, the muscles in her wrists flexed as she strained beneath him, squeezing with her thighs, the walls of her cunt. The friction was ungodly, making goosebumps ripple down his arms.
Let Daddy scare you a little more.
“Cal,” she cried out.
“You’re not getting away.” He bit back a moan as he sank deeper into the cradle of her hips. “Not this time. I can save you, Nadine—but only if you’re mine.”
She recoiled in shock even as he felt her clench around him involuntarily as his words splintered into a growl, and that little movement brought them fully flush. Her soft body cushioned his, warm and pleasing, her face mere inches from his. Withher lips swollen from kissing and her cheeks reddened from exertion, Cal thought she looked like a blushing bride.
