Pure Princess, Bartered Bride (Bride On Approval 1)

by Caitlin Crews

  “Please…” she said, her voice deep and husky, cascading over him. With a single, sure motion, Luc released the clasp of her bra and tossed the filmy piece of lingerie aside.

  Her breasts jutted before him, firm and proud, her nipples standing to attention at eye level. He could no more resist taking one tender bud into his mouth than he could resist his next breath. He covered the other breast with his hand, testing her shape, learning her curves.

  Braced above him, trapped between his hardness and the heat of his mouth, Gabrielle swayed in his arms. Her thick, luxuriant hair fell around them in wild waves, smelling of flowers and musk, cocooning them together.

  When her moans grew throaty, Luc switched his mouth to the other nipple, laving the tight peak with his tongue while his hand explored the breast he’d left behind.

  “Luc—” She gasped out his name and he liked it. He liked the desperation in her tone, the blind need on her face.

  She was his. He would never let her forget it again.

  “Please,” she cried. “I don’t—I don’t know—”

  He sucked her nipple into his mouth, hard, moved his hips against hers, and she exploded in his arms.

  Her head fell back, exposing her throat as the shudders racked her slender body. Triumph and a dark, keening sort of need ignited Luc’s blood. He wanted to be inside her. He wanted to personally investigate every last lie her trim body with its surprising lushness wanted to tell. He wanted to explore them all, with his mouth hot against her and himself deep within her, until the only truth she knew was him.

  She lifted her head as if it was far too heavy, and blinked at him, dazed.

  The worst part was that he no longer cared what she was lying about, how she had deceived him. As long as he could touch her, he didn’t care about a damned thing.

  It made him mean.

  “Are you always so responsive?” he asked acidly. “Or is this a show for my benefit?”

  She shook her head slightly, a faraway look on her lovely face and then a slight frown between her eyes. She shifted position, still straddling him, and Luc bit back a groan as the movement ground her harder against him.

  “Why would I put on a show for you?” she asked.

  “Touché,” he muttered, and claimed her mouth once more.

  Only as he explored her mouth, wondering if he would ever get used to the kick of it, did it occur to him that she had sounded bewildered instead of spiteful.

  He thrust the thought aside.

  He had to get inside this woman—his wife—or go insane.

  Now.

  CHAPTER NINE

  GABRIELLE had to be dreaming.

  She could almost convince herself of it—a foreign country, a strange house, the compelling and dangerous man who held her in his strong arms and reduced her to a shivering wreck. Aftershocks still skated along her limbs, so much concentrated pleasure making the air feel heavy around her. But Luc’s skin was warm next to hers, his kisses drugging and irresistible.

  She knew she was awake—more awake, perhaps, than she had ever been before.

  “Luc…” She tested his name, tested whether or not she was dreaming.

  “Hush.” His mouth came down on hers, a tidal wave of sensation crashing over her. If she could have gasped or screamed—but he was everywhere, crowding her and holding her, molding her body to his.

  He swept her up into his arms then, breaking from another scorching kiss to haul her tight against his hard chest. He rose from the sofa in a single, effortless movement, not trumpeting his lean, whipcord strength but using it without thought—which made it that much more shocking. Breathtaking. Gabrielle felt a flutter of reaction steal through her. His dark eyes gleamed in the shadows, her throat felt dry, and she worried that she had lost the ability to speak.

  She could only stare at the uncompromising planes of his face as he moved through the house, holding her in this parody of lovers on a wedding night. The wedding night she had run away from. Would he have carried her this way a week ago, in the dressing room of her father’s palazzo? Or later that night, in the suite of rooms he’d reserved across the island? Would she have felt this same way, as if she was under his spell, enchanted, helpless to look away from him for even a moment? She could remember too well how commanding and overbearing he had seemed in his morning coat—his shoulders so broad, his torso so lean and muscled, his eyes a darker gray than his coat. He was even more disconcerting tonight, bothering her, troubling her in every sense of the word. A deep shudder moved through her then, starting deep inside and working its way out. She was afraid. So deeply afraid.

  But Gabrielle had to be honest with herself, and the truth was stripped bare and evident as she looked at him, caught in his gaze as surely as a fly in a spiderweb. She felt the steel bands of his strong arms hold her easily—the heat of him soaking into her, surrounding her, while leftover pleasure still hummed through her body.

  It was not fear that warmed her blood, that made her feel so feverish and out of control. It was not fear that made her crave more of his hot mouth, his clever tongue, his masterful hands.

  It was desire.

  Gabrielle might not have felt it before—not like this—but she knew what it was. She knew what the ache between her thighs meant. What the tightness of her nipples meant. She thought she knew exactly what it all meant, and even while it terrified her she could admit that something in her thrilled to the battery of new sensation. Welcomed it. Wanted it.

  The same old doubts and fears crowded into her head then, louder and more insistent. She blinked and closed her eyes against him, as if that could block him out, even as she clung to him—even as he moved with that same inexorable force through Cassandra’s home.

  She did not know this man. This marriage was a horrible mistake, foisted upon her by her father. She had spent twenty-five years in blind obedience, but she was blind no longer, and she knew without a shadow of a doubt that marriage to Luc Garnier would destroy whatever burgeoning independence she’d discovered in the short week since she’d found the courage to stand up for herself.

  He would take her over completely, and it started here. It had already started—the moment he’d appeared at the door. She would disappear into him, drown completely.

  It was already happening—every time he touched her.

  “Luc—” she said again, pulling back from him, suddenly aware of how helpless she was, held high against his chest this way. How clearly it underscored his power and her lack of it. Never in a lifetime of powerlessness had she seen it so starkly, so clearly.

  His eyes gleamed, and then everything tilted wildly. Gabrielle gasped even as she registered that he’d tossed her onto the wide four-poster bed in the master bedroom as if she weighed no more than a feather. She bounced once, and then his hard body sprawled across hers, pinning her to the mattress. Gabrielle froze, while her heart beat wildly within her chest.

  Sensation fed into sensation—his hands roamed from her hips to her shoulders, then around her waist to test the shape of her bottom and trace the indentation of her spine—until Gabrielle could hardly tell the difference between them. There was only this fire, this need. He was heavy and hard all over. He crushed her into the mattress, pinning her, stealing the breath from her body…and she gloried in it. She felt electrified from each point of contact, from the dark addiction that was his clever, cruel mouth against hers, from the wall of his chest above her, from the hard muscled thigh that pressed intimately against her own. Her breasts throbbed and she felt herself melt, hot and wet beneath him. Her body was ready for him—ready and desperate and now.

  He braced himself on his hands, and Gabrielle fumbled with the buttons on his shirt, the material as soft as a cloud beneath her fingers. She had to put her hands on his skin—to see if she was the only one feverish with this need, to see if she could feel the same relentless desire in him. Muttering a curse, he twisted until he could rip the shirt from his torso, then tossed it to the floor. And then ther
e was nothing between her breasts and his muscles, hard-packed beneath his tight, smooth flesh. Only her skin against his skin.

  The delicious slide of it, the textures and the feel of so much strength so close against her, made her mouth go dry.

  Her hands trembled as she ran them across the fascinating planes of his chest, through the dusting of dark hair between his hard pectoral muscles and arrowing down his taut abdomen, the differences between them making her shiver and want. She throbbed everywhere. She could feel her pulse pound in her head, her heart and between her legs. Remembering the joy of it when he’d done it to her, she leaned closer and placed her open mouth on the tight male nipple she discovered. He groaned, and she turned her attention to the other nipple.

  “No more,” he muttered in Italian, dark and gruff into the crook of her neck.

  The same place on his body tasted of salt and something else—something that reminded her of Cypress trees and Adriatic breezes.

  “Do not tease me.”

  With deft, sure hands, he stripped the rest of his clothes from his body, and then did the same for Gabrielle, lifting her hips as if she weighed no more than one of the down pillows she lay against, pulling off her trousers with ruthless efficiency.

  Then he laid his naked body against hers, making Gabrielle gasp. She felt the crisp hair on his thighs press against her own smoother ones. His hard chest rubbed deliciously against her nipples. She could feel his erection strain against her softness, making her dizzy with want. Need. Luc.

  He braced himself on his hands above her, and looked down at her. The frank hunger in his gaze excited her almost more than she could bear.

  She felt wanton. Powerful.

  “Don’t tease me,” she whispered, daring to throw his own words back at him.

  His mouth curved, but it was less a smile than something purely male and sexual. It connected with something deep inside Gabrielle and made her ache.

  Everywhere.

  “Your wish is my command, Your Royal Highness,” he murmured.

  And then, without any warning, he twisted his hips and thrust into her.

  He came up hard against her, hearing her cry out as he did so. It was so unexpected—so surprising—that Luc stopped moving, his breath scraping in and out of his chest as he stared down at her in shock.

  “You are a virgin.” It was not a question.

  Her eyes swam with surprised tears as she looked up at him, her small hands braced against his chest as if holding him off.

  “You should have told me—” But he cut himself off. She had told him in every way she could. Her wariness of him, though she had looked at him with such sensual curiosity at their wedding reception. Her artless kisses. The innocence he had first wanted to honor, and then had cynically believed she was faking. When exactly should she have explained that she was an untouched virgin? When he was having a temper tantrum over that piece of filth paparazzo? He hadn’t wanted to believe the evidence before him.

  But he hadn’t meant to hurt her.

  “Yes,” she said after a moment, squirming against him. He thought she was trying to get away from him, little realizing that her movements had quite the opposite effect. He was deep inside her, all the way to the hilt, and yet she kept wriggling, drawing him in even further. It was torture. Sweet, delicious torture.

  “Of course I’m a virgin!” Again she moved restlessly, crossly, beneath him. “What does it matter?”

  He searched her face. She was flushed as much from anger as passion, but he knew her body now. He knew how she responded. He moved experimentally, just a roll of his hips, and she gasped again, the color on her cheeks deepening. Confusion washed across her face, and she bit down on her full lower lip.

  “Did that hurt?” he asked quietly. He did it again, and her breath came out in a rush.

  “I…I don’t know…” she stammered, her gaze almost troubled.

  “I would not have hurt you if I’d known,” he told her. He traced the curve of her neck with his fingertips, down to her perfect breasts. Regret seared into him, and he kissed one proud crest, then the other. An apology of sorts.

  “If you’d known…?” she repeated. She blinked. “Because you thought…?” She didn’t finish the sentence, but stared up at him in sudden outrage. Her hands balled up into fists against his chest.

  “Yes, I thought.” He rolled his hips again, pleased to see her outrage fade into a tiny sigh, her hands unclenching and sliding down toward his hips. “You are not fresh from the convent. I did not negotiate our marriage with your Mother Superior. You are a grown woman.”

  He did not say I thought you were a liar.

  He felt her softness and her heat surround him. She cradled him between her thighs.

  “No,” she said, her voice breathy, “I was not in a convent. Not technically. But of course there was no…I could never—” She broke off, her cheeks turning a deep shade of rose.

  Inside his chest, something stirred to life and expanded, triumphant.

  Mine, he thought. He wanted to roar it. No other man had ever touched her. No other man ever would. She was his. More completely than before.

  “For all intents and purposes you might as well have been in a convent,” he murmured. “I understand.”

  He exulted in it.

  “Luc…”

  His name on her lips excited him. He kissed her deeply. He moved against her slowly, carefully. Deliberately.

  “Trust me,” he whispered, sinking deep into her, sheathing himself completely in her hot depths.

  He built the fire with long, slow kisses. He fanned each and every flame that he could think of, kissing the elegant line of her neck, reaching around to hold her bottom on the shelf of his hands. He set an easy, unhurried pace—encouraging her to do more than simply accept his thrusts. Soon she moved to meet him, her hips rising of their own accord, as if she couldn’t help herself. Her legs moved restlessly, then found their way to rest on the back of his. His hands caressed her and guided her, reaching between them and stroking her in her most sensitive place until her breath came in short, hot pants and her head thrashed from side to side against the pillows.

  Mine, he thought.

  When she flew apart, he followed.

  A long time later, Gabrielle woke with a start.

  At first she didn’t know what could have woken her. But then, almost immediately, she recognized Luc’s hard body against her own, sprawling across the bed with one arm carelessly thrown out over her. Had that been what pulled her from sleep? She had never shared a bed with someone else before. It felt strange and almost invasive to have so much big male animal crowding into her space, taking up so much real estate on the mattress that had seemed vast to her before. Tonight it seemed woefully inadequate. He was so large.

  The events of the long night teased at her, vivid images chasing each other through her head, each one connected to sensations she could still feel in her limbs. She felt used in a way she never had before. She felt like a woman. As if she had finally discovered the purpose of her breasts, her hips. As if she’d been created to give him pleasure, and as if she should glory in it.

  Gabrielle looked at Luc as he slept, his firm, cruel mouth soft and almost sweet in slumber, making him appear much more approachable. Younger and smoother. She smiled to herself. It wasn’t that he looked boyish—she couldn’t imagine Luc as a boy; the harsh lines of his face forbade it somehow—but he seemed so much less in sleep. More easily contained, maybe. Less frightening. Less overwhelming. Not so edgy and abrasive. Easier, somehow, to contend with.

  She shivered, though she was not cold, and turned, so her back faced him and she could stare into the darkness. Was she changed, as she’d feared? Altered forever? How could she tell? She hadn’t expected it to be so…physical. She hadn’t expected to feel him so deep inside her body, or that having someone invade her in that way would make her feel so small and yet so strong all at the same time. It was so confusing even now. She had known the mech
anics of the act, of course, but the execution had been so…Luc.

  He was like a force of nature. He had hurt her, and then he had made her feel nearly wrung out from the pleasure he could give her. Even now, wide awake and tormenting herself in the night with questions she wasn’t sure she wanted answered, she wanted him. His very nearness made her nervous—made her body hum in yearning, even though she could feel aches in various places from new and unusual activity. Even after everything that had already happened she wanted him. Was that more of her abominable weakness? Or was he simply that powerful?

  “You are thinking so loudly that no one can sleep,” Luc said then, making her flinch away from him in surprise. When she turned over to face him he was watching her, those dark eyes bottomless in the dark of the bedroom.

  “I’m sorry,” she said automatically. Then wondered why she should apologize for something so ridiculous as his claim that he could hear her thinking. He was not supernatural. No matter how he might appear sometimes. “You must be a very light sleeper.”

  He reached over and traced the frown between her eyes, smoothing it away with his strong fingers. She leaned into his touch the way plants leaned toward the sun, and with as little conscious thought.

  “You do not need to worry,” he told her in that commanding voice. “I will take care of you.”

  It sounded like a vow. All his rage from earlier in the evening seemed to have left him. All that ferocity and anger. Though he was no less imposing a figure, lying there so dark and masculine against the sheets, his well-sculpted shoulders broad enough to block out the rest of the room from her view. Gabrielle discovered she was holding her breath and let it go—only to catch it again when his fingers moved to drag across her lips in an unmistakably sensual gesture.

  But, “Sleep,” he said.

  “I don’t know what woke me,” she whispered. She felt that speaking in her normal voice would be like talking too loudly in a church. She could sense that a great storm had passed in him—the one that had taken them both over, the one she was still not certain she had survived intact—but she didn’t know why. She was afraid to upset the delicate balance that seemed to hover between them. She wanted his eyes to remain so clear and very nearly soft as he looked at her—she wanted his mouth to curve as it did now.