His eyes flashed blue-black. “Do you think that isalla whore gives of herself, Lizzie? To swallow a man’s seed?”
She looked away; his gaze was too ferocious, too desperate almost to withstand.
“I have not begun to make you my whore, wife. You do not realize the depravity I am capable of.”
“And is that what you desire, Baron?” She finally pushed back. “Is that all marriage means to you? Subservience, debasement,degradation?” Elizabeth’s gut ignited, though she quickly doused the flame. “That is not marriage, sir, that is servitude at best. You may be baseborn, Baron, but you presented a better version of yourself to me in courtship than you do now, on our wedding night.”
His eyes narrowed to slits, yet she willed herself to remain indifferent, to prove he could not hurt her. “I did not expect affection from you,” she continued, “but respect for my person I did, in truth, expect. And if I must continue to suffer the man you’ve just shown yourself to be, I pity the children born of our ill union, who will discover in you a beast of a father, instead of a gentleman.”
Milton pinned her wrists to the bed so fast his weight robbed Elizabeth of all air. All self-control escaped her as she berated him with the only part of her still free: her tongue.
“You wicked, bloody?—!”
***
He stole her curse in a kiss of fury, then raked her flesh with his teeth, attacking skin with nips and licks. He ravaged his way down her shaking body, then rid himself of his breeches at the foot of the bed.
Milton would show this lofty hussy who was master of her world, if it was the last dastardly deed he did. He’d render her senseless with desire, then grant her no release. Because he, Jasper Audrey, would let no blueblood make a mockery of him.
Yet her gaze blazed orange in the glow of the room’s crackling, spitting flames, her eyes lit by a fire that matched his own unbridled lust. Milton paused his attack not to stop hisassault—he’d force pleasure from flesh the only way he knew how—but to separate mind from body, to detach his soul from what now occurred. He knew how to float, how to assess from a distance. Yet the man he looked down at…
That man was no better than his own bloody sire.
He slammed back into his body, quelling the awful urge to do his wife harm. He was better than this, damnation. She deserved better on her bloody wedding night. He’d not initiated his mother’s many virgins in such crass manner as he now treated his wife. Fuck!
Milton slumped atop Elizabeth, the beast fled his breast, his spirit dead. He could not move. He barely breathed.
“Baron,” she spoke at last, her tone this time devoid of judgment. “Clearly I have provoked you, as I’ve done so oft before.”
He made no attempt to respond.
“Rule number three,do not goad,was it not, sir?” She paused. “Milton?”
He only nuzzled her nape, inhaling her scent, so sweet.
“Jasper?” She timidly spoke his name. “Are you … alright?”
“Fuck, Lizzie.” He exhaled the expletive hot onto her skin. “My mother was right.” He sucked in his next breath, returning to himself. “I don’t deserve a woman filled with your fire and light.”
“Youdon’tdeserve me,” she agreed. “But you have me.”
He ceased to breathe.
“So what will you do with me, husband?”
Milton lifted his head and met his wife’s eyes with raw determination. “I am going to pleasure you like you’ve never been pleasured before, woman.”
***
And he did. For Elizabeth was being eaten alive, every inch of flesh kissed, bit, lapped, and laved.Thiswas what Li’s maids had meant when they’d told her Jasper Audrey was magnificent.
He played her like a fiddle, trite as that might sound, for her body was, in truth, his instrument. He began a slow, surging tempo, attuning her nerves to his touch as he stroked her breasts into peaks. Heat ignited a blaze deep inside her groin, for the man did not cease, though she begged him for release.
“Not yet, Lizzie.” He dipped his head to her bosom again. “Wait.” He inhaled a nipple, suckling with lazy vigor, as though he’d all the time in the world whenshehad no patience, no sanity left at all. Her senses screamed for more,now,while his hand at her other breast plucked a pulsing pizzicato. Until he released her nipple to the air—at last!—then bent his head to devour the other.
A drop rolled down Elizabeth’s hot face. Did she weep? Did she care? The sounds emanating from her throat rang more animal than human in her ears.
“Darling,” Milton teased as he released her aching bud. “Your impatience is a treat, your tears a delicacy, the gift of defeat.” He sampled her damp cheeks. “I cannot wait to sink myself inside you, but you must be ready for me first. Slow down, my sweet.”
