“I’ve never run from you, Alex,” she whispered. “In fact, it has been yourself who runs–”
She was wrenched into his arms and vehement lips covered hers, smothering all retorts. He’d been right – his mood was foul and his touch unrefined, but then she was equally enraged: at being disregarded, at being tested, at his deuced control.
Scratching at his shoulders, she hauled his banyan down, revealing his damp chest and that strange tattoo covering a nasty scar. She kissed it and he grunted with torment.
Against the opposite wall hid a delicate rosewood table and she was unceremoniously swirled and sat upon it, a porcelain angel crashing to the floor as hands rummaged at her rail, yanking the material high, shoving, parting her legs.
Deft fingers found her core, caressed and pushed, and Aideen moaned, scrabbling at the fall of his breeches.
It seemed an age since they’d been entwined, and impatience tore at her. Aideen was sure she’d be alarmed if she cared to look down – at the size and ferocity of his need – but she didn’t, instead lifting her chin and jerking his mouth to hers, kissing with fierceness and pent-up frustration.
Alex responded, cursing, his lips moving to her neck and grazing the skin whilst he pushed her fumbling hands away and ripped at his breeches. Hauling her forward on the polished wood, she circled her legs around his slender hips. Felt his arousal press.
A thrust. One determined thrust and he was deep inside.
Having only experienced the wedding night, she felt so stretched, so filled, and she groaned, legs thrashing for leverage. Strong hands grabbed her thighs, held her whilst his body bucked with frenzy, the table shuddering under the force.
Sinking, surging so quickly, the pleasure. The days of taunts and silences alike had stripped her emotions bare and all sensation collided: the cloth of his breeches abrading her thigh, his chest against her breast and those bucking hips.
His face buried itself in her neck and she opened her eyes over his shoulder.
What she saw tipped her over the precipice of pleasure.
She cried out as the ecstasy ripped through her, curling her toes and causing her nails to scratch into his nape.
Alex’s thrusts became frantic, one hand removing itself to the wall for more power, until he too growled his release to the empty corridor, hand fisting on the flock paper.
His body jolted, face dropping deeper into her neck, breath rasping as he ran fingers through her hair.
Despite the abused table now listing somewhat, and her legs aching with cramp, she didn’t want to stir, didn’t want to move a muscle. If they moved, all the problems of the day would return.
But gradually he did, and she now noticed his right forearm had a cloth tied around it, blood spotting the pristine white. “You’re hurt?” she whispered, legs lowering to the ground. “I can get som–”
“It’s nothing. A scratch.”
It didn’t look to be a scratch, but she knew that tone – manly pride and all that balderdash.
Instead, she raised a gentle hand and stroked his ruddy cheek.
For a while, he accepted her caress, even shifted further toward her touch, but then he opened his eyes, glanced down, and a kind of horror shone in those green orbs as he took in her dishevelled state.
He backed away.
“I used you ill, Aideen,” he murmured, buttoning his breeches with an unsteady hand yet sounding as though he’d just stepped on her dress.
She remained silent, feeling anything but ill-used, but he closed his eyes, seemingly fighting some inner torment, jaw clenched, until turning his face from her sight.
“Leave me be,” he whispered harshly into the dark. “I do not want you.” And he walked down the hallway without so much as a backwards glance, softly closing his bedchamber door behind him.
Such callous words and Aideen knew she should be fuming. Hurt beyond measure. Hate him for his curt denial of their passion when moments ago, he’d made such desperate love to his wife.
But she felt none of those emotions, none of that hate, because the very sight that had crested her pleasure had been the same that now prevented her from despising her husband.
The giltwood mirror opposite with its carved panels portraying dance and music had reflected all.
His smooth back, his tight buttocks, but after their ardent clash, the sheer look of desolation and distress as he’d uttered those cold words. That look had betrayed him – it had hurt Alex to say those words as much as it had hurt Aideen to hear them.
Such agony and wretchedness had been displayed in those eyes, such self-loathing.
