“I have wanted the same thing,” she whispered, undoing him with her sweet voice and her glorious confession and the way her lips grazed his as she spoke.
“Tell me,” he prodded, wanting to hear her say the words. Wanting so much he almost slammed into her then and there without even touching her cunny to see if she was ready. But of course, he knew she was ready. The scent of her arousal, musky and delicious, lingered in the air. Her body was so bloody responsive to his, seemingly made for his, made for him, and were he not so ruined by what had come before her and were she not the antithesis of everything he had hoped to have in a duchess, he would have sworn she had indeed been fashioned by the Lord specifically for him, and he for her.
But none of that mattered, and his every coherent thought ceased to exist, the moment she said the words he had been yearning to hear from her lips.
“I want you to fuck me, Spencer.”
Ah, hell. That undid him. The tip of his cock was already wet and he had not even yet been inside her. He was going to fuck her, but only after he worshipped her. He closed the distance between their lips, kissing her. It was fiery, passionate, a bit unhinged. Lips and teeth and tongue, messy and wild and everything he craved.
And then he broke away, slipped from her grasp, went down on his knees. He palmed both cheeks of her arse, thinking that even it was beautiful, perfectly shaped and pale and curved. He squeezed gently, then ran his hands with wonder down her thighs, circled his thumbs in the hollows behind her knees, trailed down her sleek calves and then lower still. He gripped one slender ankle in each hand and guided them apart until she was opened to him, her pink, glistening folds on full display.
“Jesus, princess, you are so damn beautiful.” The words were torn from him. His hands traveled back up her long legs—so long, so riveting, so fucking lovely—and then, he leaned into her, found her with his tongue.
He licked her slit, up and down, found her dripping, so ready for him, heard her breathy exhalation. She tasted as sweet as he remembered, better than anything he had ever known, and he licked and licked into her, dipping inside her channel, burying his face deeper, breathing in her essence, making her the center of his world.
His left hand found her hip, gripping, and his right hand dipped between her legs from the front, finding her hungry clitoris and stroking, working it until she writhed against him, rocking back and forth between the demands of his mouth and his fingers. He could sense that she was close to finding her release, and he wanted that more than anything. He pointed his tongue, drove it home inside her, increased the pressure on her pearl. Faster, harder, more.
Her entire body tensed beneath his touch, and she was shaking, trembling violently, crying out as she spent all over his tongue. He lapped it up eagerly, wanting more, anything she could give him. She was so wet, her essence soaking his mouth, his face, his fingers.
Yes. God, yes.
He rose to his feet, tearing his robe away until there were no more barriers remaining between them. His conscience decided to reassert itself in that moment, reminding him that this was her second time, that he should be gentle and easy with her.
Taking a deep breath, he willed his raging lust to temper itself, and planted his hands on her waist. He dropped a kiss on her neck. “The bed or here?” he gritted.
“Here,” came her ragged response. “Anywhere, everywhere. All I know is that I need you inside me.”
Bloody hell.
Her reflection in the mirror was that of a goddess. Her hair was everywhere. Her eyes shone. She looked half drunk, worlds away from the hesitant creature who had murmured her vows to him earlier that day and the lady who had lingered at the threshold between their chambers. So bloody beautiful. So untamed. So much his.
“Hold on to the top of the dresser,” he ordered, catching her ear in his teeth. He could still smell her, and it was intoxicating, as was her complete submission just now when he knew that she was anything but acquiescent. She was doing this for him, because of him, because of how he made her feel.
He reveled in it. Her hands went to the top of the dresser. His fingers dipped into her folds, stroking her slick seam before sinking inside her. Two fingers. She was hot, so hot, and tight. He slipped a third finger into her channel, and she gripped him, moaning. She was ready. More than ready. He stroked his cock, coating it in her wetness, and then tipped his hips, bringing him to her entrance. He licked the whorl of her ear, tongued the hollow behind it, feasting on the sensitive skin that he knew drove her to distraction.
“Ready, princess?” he asked, his every instinct screaming to take her but the deep-rooted sense of honor ingrained within him forcing him to wait. To allow her to maintain control.
She rolled her hips, rubbing her slick folds against him. Her curls cascaded down her back, over her face, partially obscuring her luscious breasts. “Yes.”
Her sibilant surrender was his final undoing. He positioned himself, and in one deep thrust, he was inside her to the hilt. “How do you feel now, Boadicea?”
A sigh escaped her. “Full.” She tilted her head back, locks of hair falling from her face, and met his gaze in the looking glass. “I want you so much that it hurts.”
Jesus. Christ.
His control fled. His honor. His mind. His comprehension of anything that wasn’t her disappeared, full stop. He was raging, needing, hungry, so damn hungry, and she felt better than anything had in all his thirty-three years. Better than anything he deserved. Just better.
He almost withdrew entirely only to drive inside her again. She tightened, moved against him, welcoming, urging. He was lost. Lost inside her. He thrust, faster and faster, slamming into her. He was mindless. Weightless. Relentless. Everything in him screamed, hungered, wanted, longed, took. Deeper. Harder. More. In and out, again and again, and she was slick and smooth, warm and tighter than a fist, and she was everything.
She was his.
His wife.
His…
Bloody hell, he could not even think. Could not do anything more than fuck her. Take her. Own her. Faster still, thrusting, possessing. In the glass, she looked as if she were intoxicated. Her face was flushed becomingly, head tipped back. He sucked her neck, found her racing pulse and licked furiously, hoping that he would make a mark. That he would find the proof of his lovemaking upon her delicate skin in the morning.
He looked down then, watching his cock slide in and out of her, seeing it rigid and glistening with her sweet arousal. He slowed for a moment, attempting to regain control, but he could not. He was dangerously close to coming, and as much as he loved being inside her, he would never lose himself so much that he would spend within her. He would not beget another child ever again, and it mattered not that she was his wife.
He thrust forward, his fingers finding her clitoris again, teasing in slow, perfect circles. Her flesh was so warm and slippery, so needy and inviting. He worked her, withdrew, sank deep inside her again, and then she was unraveling. She tightened, clenching on his cock, her body releasing a shower of delicious tremors yet again that he knew to be her climax.
Damn it, he almost came inside her. But his instinct worked in his favor, and he withdrew in haste, fisting his cock in his hand, spurting his seed all over the perfection of her lower back. He watched it fall, marking her as his. It was not enough. It would never be enough. But it was all he could offer her, because the part of himself that had once believed in love and hope had died a long time ago. This—the beast—was all that remained.
o woke in a strange bed, in a strange chamber.
And she wasn’t alone.
The warmth from a hard male chest radiated into her back. An arm, strong and possessive, wrapped round her waist. A cock, stiff and erect, pressed against her bottom. As wakefulness sifted through her, she arched instinctively, seeking him, as if it were the most natural act in the world. As if she had done it countless mornings before.
She felt…at home. His scent enveloped her, pine and soap and some
thing indefinably wonderful that was simply Spencer. While she had spent much of the previous day wondering if she had made a massive mistake in marrying the Duke of Bainbridge, his passion and intensity last night had gone a long way toward assuaging her doubts. Elsewhere, he may be icy and forbidding, but when he touched her, kissed her, took her, he burned, and she burned along with him.
The origin of their union was rather extraordinary, their courtship nonexistent and rushed, but the desire between them was not forced or feigned. It gave her hope that they could at least become friends, given time, though they may never love each other. That they were not doomed to an icy marriage of mutual loathing in which they sought passion in the beds of other lovers.
The mere thought of Spencer taking another woman as he had taken her last night—with such fierce possession—disturbed her. It occurred to her that she had never asked if he intended to remain true to their vows. For some reason, it had not been something she considered until this moment, when it all became quite clear to her in the early morning’s glow.
He was hers now. Vexing, arrogant, stubborn Spencer Marlow belonged to her. He was her husband. The beautiful, maddening, insufferable Duke of Bainbridge. In so many ways, he remained unknown to her. And yet, every part of him, all that she knew and all that she had yet to learn, was in her possession. She would not share him.
“What is it?” he whispered into her ear then, his hot breath sending a shiver of awareness through her. “I can practically hear your mind whirring like a machine.”
She had not known he was awake. Indeed, it surprised her that he had not disengaged himself but continued to hold her. After making love to her before the looking glass, he had taken her in his arms and carried her to his bed, where he had made love to her all over again. She had expected to return to her chamber, but he had kept her here with a simple command. Stay. And she had spent her first night sleeping in a bed with a man only to wake and find it the most natural and delightful thing.
How could he tell her thoughts were busy?
“It is nothing,” she said, not wishing to dispel the enchantment of the moment with her wayward fears.
“It is something.” He kissed her ear, the hollow beneath it, the side of her throat where she was sure her pulse pounded against his knowing lips. “As husband and wife, we must speak to each other with honesty.”
He had a valid argument, but how was she to concentrate when his tongue flicked against her skin and desire, new and simmering and wondrous, shimmered through her? She swallowed as his hand glided to her breast, kneading the sensitive flesh. He rolled her nipple, tugging it, and an answering ache bloomed between her thighs. Lovemaking was still new to her, and she was sore in strange places after last night, but she wanted him again in spite of it.
“Was I too rough with you?” he asked when she did not respond, his voice hesitant.
Most definitely not. She wondered, not for the first time, what his marriage had been like with his former duchess, before shoving all thoughts of it from her mind. She did not wish to allow whatever had come before her to intrude upon their burgeoning marriage.
“I will not share you,” she blurted.
He stilled. “Share me?”
Oh, drat. She had rather bollixed it up, hadn’t she? She took a steadying breath, grateful she did not face him. “I asked you before if you had a mistress, and you told me that you did not. I wish to make certain that you will not seek one out now. I know it is the way of things for many husbands and wives, but it is not what I want. I hope it is not what you want either.”
He was silent for a beat too long for her comfort, and then he kissed her shoulder. “I do not stray from vows, princess.”
She closed her eyes, allowed herself to revel in the sheer bliss of his body against hers, his mouth upon her skin, his masterful hands at work bringing her to life. “Good.”
“What of you?” he asked with deceptive calm.
Bo knew how much weight lay behind his question, for she recalled all too well his revelation that his wife had been unfaithful. She rolled over, facing him at last, meeting his seeking green gaze, and took his face in her hands. An unexpected burst of tenderness shot through her at how vulnerable he looked, how far removed he was from the supercilious Spencer Marlow she had come to know.
“I am yours,” she said softly, “and yours alone.”
The tension ebbed from his body. “Good,” he said in an echo of her one-word response.
“Very good.” She traced his lips with her fingers. How odd that in the span of a day, she was now free to touch him as she pleased without fear of recriminations. She could lie naked in bed with him, do whatever she wished, and she had no one to answer to. Propriety could go hang. Everyone else be damned. This man, this beautiful, complicated man, was hers at last. In every way. He had told her so. Just as she was his. “You were not rough with me, Spencer. You could not be. It is not in you.”
His expression shifted, growing shuttered. “You do not know what lies within me, Boadicea. Perhaps it would shock you. Appall you, even.”
There it was again, Bo was sure of it, the specter of his former wife. She wished she could undo all the wrongs, erase every hurt the woman had dealt him. With time, perhaps he would confide in her. Perhaps she could help him to heal. But not yet, not with their union being so new, all this territory between them uncharted.
She kissed him instead of answering or questioning him any further. Leaned into him, closed the distance, set her lips upon his. It was not the first time she had initiated a kiss, but its effect was nevertheless incendiary. He caught her to him as though he feared she might disappear unless he anchored her to his body, his mouth opening, their tongues tangling. The kiss was voracious. Consuming, needy, and rough.
His hands swept over her body, and he turned them as one, never breaking the kiss, so that she was on her back with him atop her. Her legs were spread open, his cock already nestled against her where she wanted him most. He reached between their bodies, fingers finding the bundle of flesh that was so responsive to his touch. What her bawdy books referred to as a gem.
As he worked her, it felt like a gem, bright, sparkling, bold. He already knew how to please her so well, understanding when to stroke her fast, when to touch her slow, when to increase his pressure. She was wet for him, so wet that she could feel the slick evidence of her desire. How she hungered. He made her mindless, weightless, so that all she could think and feel was him and what he did to her.
How he undid her.
She moved against him. Their mouths clung. Her breath caught, and she gripped the sinewy plane of his back, reveling in its smooth, hard strength. He pressed harder, faster, and she was close to the edge, about to unravel. Her nails sank into his skin. She sucked his tongue. And she was on fire in a way she had never imagined possible, all for him, because of him. He completed her.
He…
Oh.
She lost control, raked her nails down his back until she found his tight buttocks and gripped him, her climax spiraling through her, rushing upon her, taking her with the force of a locomotive. She spent, upon his wicked fingers, his tongue in her mouth, and she shook and tremored and savored every second of the release he gave her. But it wasn’t enough. Would never be enough. She still wanted more. All of him.
Bo tore her mouth from his, arched against him, gave him the forbidden words that had so aroused him before. “Fuck me, Spencer.”
With a primitive growl, he guided himself to her center and thrust, seating himself deep, complete, straight to the hilt. One thrust and she was filled with him. Stretched, hungry, more alive than she had ever felt. He kissed her again, deep and dark and devouring. His left hand sank into her hair, fisting in it, his right remaining on her folds, teasing her gem, making her so wild that she feared she would splinter into a thousand shards of herself at any second. He slammed into her, hard and rough. She gripped him to her, urged him onward, angled her hips to match his every thrust.
It was inevitable.
She was combustible.
He was going to drive her over the cliff.
And she could not stop it. Could not contain herself. Could not wait one minute more. His fingers, his mouth, his cock. He was so deep, so perfect, and he completed her in a way she had never fathomed. In a way she could not have known before this, before him. Her husband.
God, yes.
More.
She wasn’t sure if she said it aloud or in her head. All she did know was that he increased his pace, sank so deep inside her it seemed he would forever remain there, and worked her sensitive flesh so that she could not fend off her climax for another heartbeat. She came apart, tightening on him, crying out, clutching him to her, wrapping her legs around his waist, drawing him deeper still. As deep as she possibly could.
And then he withdrew, slipped from her body as the blissful ripples of her pleasure still resonated through her, and held himself tightly in his fist, spilling his seed into the bed linens. For as much pleasure as he had given her, Bo watched him find his release somewhere other than inside her yet again, and something cold and hard lodged itself in her chest. Something unknown, mingling with emotions she found all too familiar: worry, fear.
He collapsed alongside her, breathing heavily, and she stared at the ceiling. He had brought her the sort of pleasure she had imagined was fiction, silly hyperbole in the forbidden books she devoured. He had shown her the height of ecstasy, had promised to be faithful to her, had stood before their families and God and taken her to wife. They had made love four times. Three times as husband and wife.
And yet, he had never spent his seed inside her. Not one time. Though most refined ladies of her age remained blissfully ignorant of the details of matters betwixt a husband and wife, Bo was not. She knew how children—how the heirs of a duchy—were created, and it was not by the duke spending his seed into the sheets.
The chamber was silent except for their mutual labored breathing. Bo allowed the enormity of her realization to settle within her. Turned it over in her mind. Waited a few more breaths until she could not contain it another minute more.
Darling Duke Page 18