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He lay back and watched her expressions of wonder and expanding possibilities as she sat atop him. She slid her body along the length of his erection, and he closed his eyes on a groan. She played that game until he was mindless and trembling. When she licked his nipples, he finally had to stop her.

“I need you to take me,” he whispered. “Just guide me inside you.”

When she took him in her hand, he shuddered. As she impaled herself on him in a wet, hot slide into bliss, it took everything he had to control his need to pump inside her.

While everything else in her life was falling apart, he would give her this one thing to control.

“This feels wondrous,” she whispered.

She leaned forward over him, her hands braced on either side. He lifted her hips and pressed her back down again, showing her the movement. As she experimented on her own, he caressed her breasts, molding and tugging, rubbing her nipples between his fingers. He watched the passion that lit her face, the intensity as she struggled for her own climax. He came up on his elbow to kiss her, and then gathered her breast like a ripe fruit to bring into his mouth.

With every stroke she grew bolder, and he arched his hips to thrust inside her ever deeper. When she found her release, he fell back on the bed, catching her hips to grind her against him as he came.

When she collapsed across his chest, he held her, fingering her wet hair aside so that he could press kisses to her forehead, her cheek, her ear. His cock still pulsed inside her, urging him to roll her onto her back and take her again.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

Though he wanted to hold her, she moved off of him and seated herself beside him on the bed, using the sheet once again to hide herself from him. That didn’t bode well.

“Did you hear the news?” she asked softly.

He sat up beside her, his anger renewing. “Aye. I will not allow that bastard to usurp my place as your betrothed.”

“John.”

“How can he not wait for the king’s decision?”

“John, please listen to me.”

When she touched his arm, he finally looked down into her determined face. He didn’t like what he saw there.

“I’m through fighting this, John.”

Her quiet voice filled him with confusion.

“Elizabeth, what are you talking about? Of course we are going to fight this.”

“Nay, I have been the source of too much pain. My steward died⁠—”

“Through no fault of yours.”

She continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “Anne has been cruelly imprisoned for almost a fortnight now.”

“She wanted to help you!”

“And you—John, you have risked your life for me over and over. You’re a hunted man now. I cannot live with that.”

She let out her breath with a shudder, and he realized that the fall of her hair had hidden her tears.

“It is my choice, Elizabeth. I am meant to marry you.”

She glared at him wildly. “I cannot risk them killing you!”

“Elizabeth—”

“Don’t you see, I thought I could be different from other women, that I could make my own destiny. It’s been a hard lesson, but I’ve learned that I am no better than anyone else. Too many people depend on me, and I couldn’t bear it if anyone were killed defending me. I am going to marry Bannaster.”

He inhaled quickly, struggling to control his anger. She would not respond to intimidation, but she was intelligent and logical. If only that tactic would work. “Elizabeth, it always comes back to control with you. You’re doing all this to hold onto your power to choose, even if it is to choose a life sentence of misery.”