Liquid heat pooled between her legs that appalled and excited her in an unexpected assault. She squeezed her thighs tightly together.
With a gentleness she hadn’t remembered from their wedding night, he squeezed her thighs and kneaded her breasts. He couldn’t disguise the harshness of his rapid breaths or the inferno his skin exuded. The barely contained restraint was ever prevalent.
His erection pressed against her hip, a rod of pure forged steel singeing her bare skin. Her heart pounded beneath his mouth. His hand flattened against her stomach again and moved over the curls at the core of her body.
He raised his head, but it was too dark to read his eyes. “I won’t hurt you, darling. Not this time. I-I vow it.”
Gabby held her breath, wanting more than life itself to believe he spoke the truth, but too frightened to capitulate and trust him.
He shifted over her, and she stiffened, her fingers digging into his shoulders.
“God, I did horrendous damage before, didn’t I?” He spoke in low volumes, seeming to berate himself.
“I-I’ll do my duty by you, Huntley. I-I swear,” she whispered in cracked words.
A bark of huffed laughter whispered over her lips. “’Tis not duty I’m after right now, love.”
“It’s not?”
“No. It is desire. And I fear when a woman calls her husband by his title in the midst of activity such as this, the responsibility to duty lies with said husband,” he grunted out. He shoved the covers off the bed and moved to the foot. “Loosen your legs, my lady. I won’t hurt you. You’ll see.” He smoothed his hand back over her stomach. It quivered beneath his touch. “It’s all right. You must have faith in me. Spread your legs.”
Stinging tears squeezed through her closed eyes.
“Your legs, Gabriella. Open up.” His cajoling tone was edged with determination and… need.
Gabby forced herself to breathe, willed back the sudden bout of anxiety. With her arms at her sides, she flexed her fingers, all the while, inhaling in measured intervals. She would survive this.
The tension in him shocked her. He seemed almost… afraid. For her? It was a stunning thought.
She took a deep breath. Oxygen flowed through her body with each breath, the effect was stunning. The muscles in her chest eased, though her stomach continued to jump like fish in a stream. His patience surprised and thrilled her. She flattened her palm against the heat of his chest. Eventually, her legs received the message her brain was sending and loosened.
Huntley parted her and poised himself at her entrance.
Now that the climatic forces from moments before were subsiding, she was suddenly mortified by her conventional upbringing. A modest woman did not lie exposed as this. Wet and desiring a man’s touch. A shocking notion to realize she desired his touch more than anything in that moment.
Poised between her with her bent knees, he ran his hands over her thighs, inside and outside, never going near the dampness she feared was seeping from her and onto the fresh linens. He leaned forward and pressed his lips to the inside of one knee.
She jerked, smacking him on the jaw.
“Revenge, Lady Huntley? I wouldn’t have thought it of you.”
“N-no,” she stammered, but then reined in her words, because his were tinged with… amusement.
“Are you l-laughing at me, sir?” She was stunned to hear her own voice mixed with embarrassment and indignation.
“Never.” His mouth and teeth trailed her inner thigh, nibbling and licking, drawing ever so close to the most forbidden heart of her.
She tried closing her thighs, but his large body hindered her efforts.
“Not so fast, my darling.” He moved his mouth to her other leg.
Up the skin to her knee, then down, never quite touching but stirring her into another heated frenzy.
“Your scent has already driven me mad. I shall likely perish once I’m sheathed within your heat.”
He was slow, patient, methodical—easing in then pulling back. Each time, a little deeper than the time before.
No pain. She went wild, her body bucking up, impaling him deeper within her.
