He was buried deep, held in the very place his body had demanded, and still the need swelled. Not satisfied. Not even close.
Tristan drew back and drove into her again, harder this time, chasing the vanished instant when possession had almost felt like peace. She cried out, and the sound struck him low in the spine. He wanted that too.
He wanted deeper, though there was no deeper to go.
He wanted closer, though she was already around him.
“Give me more,” he said against her mouth, and his hand slid up her spine, fisting in the loosened fall of her hair. “Give me everything.”
“Yes,” she breathed. “Everything you want, Tristan. Everything.”
He tore his shirt over his head and dropped it somewhere among the scattered papers. Then he dragged the sleeves of her dress down her arms, baring her shoulders, her breasts. He was struck stupid by the sight of her half-unmade on his desk, all gold hair and pink skin and ruined diplomacy.
Then he pulled her against him. Her breasts pressed to his chest, her arms locked around his shoulders, her mouth opening on a sound he felt more than heard. He crushed her closer and drove into her again.
She gasped his name.
He thrust harder.
Again.
Again.
Not enough, not enough, never enough, because every sound she gave him became another thing he wanted.
He held her so tightly her heartbeat seemed to enter his own chest. He wanted to remain there, inside her, around her, held by her, until the ship, the sea, and every sane doctrine he had ever trusted sank.
“Tristan.”
Her body tightened around him, and her head fell back, hair spilling over his arm, throat arched, mouth open on a cry she could not swallow. He felt the pleasure seize her, felt it draw through her in hot, desperate pulses, then it struck him so hard it nearly blinded him.
He tore himself free with a curse and spent against the wet folds of her sex, one hand braced on the desk, the other locked around her hip. The release went on and on, wrenching through him in brutal waves until his breath broke and his knees nearly followed.
Their sounds filled the cabin. Her panting. His.
Somewhere above, men worked the ship, and here below Tristan stood like a man hauled from wreckage, chest heaving, one hand still gripping her as if the world had tilted.
Marguerite opened her eyes. Her cheeks were flushed. Her mouth was swollen. Her hair lay in wild gold disorder over his ruined charts. She looked thoroughly kissed, thoroughly touched, thoroughly taken.
And somehow he felt less steady than before.
“Was that enough?” she whispered.
Enough?
He had taken what he had come for. More than that. She had given him the most private surrender of her body, and by every law he understood, that should have steadied him.
Yet . . .
He reached between her legs and let his knuckle trace her slick center. Her hips twitched. He pushed, just enough to slip inside. The muscles there fluttered, soft from release, and her moan vibrated against his throat. His own body answered, hard again.
Still not enough.
Then she touched his cheek, her fingers soft against the roughness of his jaw. The gesture slipped beneath every defense he had left. His breath came wrong, shallow at the top of his chest, and some vital weight seemed to move out of place beneath his ribs.
She had given him everything he had asked for.
So why did he feel out of balance? As if something were missing from him.
