Beneath his palm he felt the firmness of her breast, the peak of her nipple a hard nub. He moved his hand so that he could swipe his thumb over that taut peak and felt her shudder, heard her sharply indrawn breath as she captured her lower lip between her teeth.
“No, this doesn’t feel like shock,” he answered her, his voice a gravel-filled growl.
She took his other hand, and cupped it at the apex of her thighs. “And here? Does this feel like shock?”
He was stunned by the heat that emanated from her. She pressed the heel of his palm more firmly against her and a soft moan slipped from her throat.
“No,” he answered again. This time his voice was even raspier than before.
“Then allow me to make love to you, my king.”
“You are certain?”
“Yes.”
He looked up and met her gaze, met the fire that burned in her eyes, saw the flush of need that stained her cheeks.
“Undress me then,” he commanded.
She made quick work of the buttons of his shirt, peppering his skin with small strokes of her fingertips, light licks of her tongue. He’d never allowed himself to be this passive before in his life—never allowed anyone else to hold the upper hand. But it felt right with Ottavia and somehow, instinctively, he felt he had to allow her to take the lead. By the time she’d rid him of his clothing it felt equally right to let her push him back on the bed and to allow her to climb over him.
Her thighs straddled his and her small hands stroked his body. Everywhere she touched, and even everywhere she didn’t, felt alive in a way he hadn’t experienced before. She took her time, exploring his body as if the male form was new territory to her and the fall of her hair across his skin added new levels of torment and titillation. Each featherlight caress of the dark curls made his nerves sing with need. Even the drift of the fabric of her nightgown was a torment. He bunched his hands in the material that pooled on her legs. It was as soft and warm as the skin of her inner thighs.
He had waited so patiently for this moment. Now that it was here it felt doubly precious, especially given the experience they had shared this morning and the agreement they had signed. She was alive and here, in his arms, in his bed, in his future. Willingly. It was, he realized, what he’d wanted from the moment he’d set eyes on her, and he was a man who always got what he wanted. The reality, however, showed every sign of surpassing his expectations.
This—every touch, every kiss—felt like a gift because it came from her. Without coercion, without a silent agenda. It was two people with a need for one another. A need that drummed through his veins with every beat of his heart.
His hands slipped under her gown, his palms burning as they grazed the curve of her hips. Through the buzz of desire that clouded his brain he identified that Ottavia stilled in her movements for just a few seconds. Her body in that brief moment was taut, as if she anticipated something unpleasant. But then she relaxed, her body easing again as he kept his touch light, his movements gentle.
She was a conundrum. A woman who oozed sensuality and confidence and yet her touch, her reactions, were those of a woman eager but uncertain in the bedroom. She bent and pressed a kiss to one of his nipples, her teeth teasing his skin, her breath hot and moist. Desire coiled tight inside him and he fought the urge to spin her onto her back. To shove her nightgown up higher until he could see all of her and then plunge into that part of her body that beckoned to him with a call that spoke to the primal need he normally kept buried deep inside.
His body shook with restraint as her hands, her mouth, drifted closer to his aching shaft, and when she captured him, stroked him, kissed him, thought and reason abandoned his mind and he could only give himself over to sensation.
Ottavia shifted, pulling her nightgown off in a swift movement that finally laid her body fully bare to his gaze. She was so beautiful she made his eyes ache. Her skin held a light tan, her breasts were full, her nipples dark and tightened into points that begged for him to touch, to tease, to taste. He skimmed his hands up her rib cage, cupping her breasts with a reverence he’d never felt before.
She shuddered and closed her eyes, leaning into the palms of his hands. A groan of need came from her and when she opened her eyes again she looked directly into his and he felt as if he was looking deep into her soul. The knowledge hit him like a bolt of lightning. His proud and beautiful courtesan was offering herself to him. All of herself. It was almost enough to send him over the edge, but he clung to his control with everything he had inside him.
She shifted again, this time lifting her hips and positioning her body over his. Rocco held his shaft, positioned it at her entrance and expelled a harsh breath. He wished he could speak, tell her what she was doing to him, but he recognized her need for silence right now in the look in her eyes as, with her gaze locked with his, she slowly lowered her body.
Rocco surged, meeting her halfway, filling her, feeling her body expand and accept him. She was exquisitely tight and it took the remnants of his control not to withdraw and rush upward again.
“You feel...” Her voice trailed away, lost for words.
“I feel you,” he replied, his voice thick with restraint.
She smiled and moved, her hips undulating, driving him to the brink of madness.
“This is too much. I feel too much,” she sobbed.
“Not yet,” he ground out through gritted teeth. “It gets so much better.”
He reached for her. His fingertip tingled as it brushed the hair at the apex of her thighs, as he caressed her, feeling for the bead of nerve endings he knew would allow her to fly free of the restrictions that still held her earthbound.
She gasped as he brushed her clitoris, crying out as he pressed and swirled the sensitive bud until her entire body shuddered and clenched. Her internal muscles became almost unbearably tight around him, squeezing in an orgasmic rhythm that was his undoing. He couldn’t hold back a second longer. His answering cry was raw, unfettered, as his climax ripped through him, his hips bucking as instinct overcame reason.
* * *
Ottavia lay sprawled over Rocco’s chest, listening to the steady beat of his heart. She’d always sworn she’d never allow another man to touch her, but she hadn’t counted on a man like the one who now slept beneath her.
Lovemaking such as this had been beyond her imagining. Realistically she knew her body had always been capable of pleasure such as this, but she had never trusted another soul with herself the way she trusted Rocco.
She’d come a long way from the terrified fourteen-year-old girl who’d woken up to find her mother’s lover’s hand across her mouth and his body pinning her against her mattress. She’d come a longer way from the excruciating pain of him forcing his body onto hers—tearing into her, destroying her innocence—and even further from the shock, the next day, of her own mother’s betrayal when she’d overheard her negotiating a price to drop the charges for what he’d done rather than allowing the authorities to pursue him.
What she’d experienced now was nothing like the invasion of self she’d endured back then. There had not been a second where she’d felt powerless or frightened. The only similarity she could think of now was that she felt vulnerable. Not because she was afraid of Rocco, as she’d been of the man who’d raped a defenseless girl, but because she finally understood that Rocco was the man who had finally claimed her heart.
She’d protected herself for so long. Guarded her spirit and her body with equal ferocity. And, when she’d given herself just now, she’d given all of herself.
Deciding to make love with Rocco had been the most difficult choice in her life to date, but she’d known without doubt that she couldn’t go on the rest of her life without doing so. After the incident this morning, she had to experience all that life had to offer her—especially when it was hers for the taking wi
th a man like him.
Rocco was different from any other man she’d ever met. Of course, he’d been born to a life of power and privilege, and he wielded that power as easily as most men breathed, but there was so much more to him. He cared—genuinely cared—about his people. For a man like him, one so used to command, to allow her to control virtually every aspect of what had transpired between them tonight, it defied everything she’d ever expected.
Emotion rocked her. She, the woman men wanted but could never truly have, had finally fallen in love.
Eleven
It was too much. She carefully lifted her weight from Rocco’s slumbering form and slid from the bed. Picking up her discarded robe and pulling it on, she went into the bathroom.
She stood in front of the mirror, studying her face, searching for some monumental change in her appearance that possibly matched the immense shift in her mind and heart. How cruelly ironic that she should fall in love now with a man who had contracted her for marriage as easily and matter-of-factly as he’d contracted her as his courtesan.
Ottavia began to pace the bathroom floor. How had she allowed herself to get into this state, to fall in love? How had the commanding man, blissfully asleep in the other room, managed to work his way under her defenses and into her heart? It mattered little now, she decided. It was done. She’d given herself, and it had been her decision and hers alone. He hadn’t been the first man to try to inveigle his way past her barriers, but he would most definitely be the only one to succeed. She knew without a doubt that she could never give of herself to another, what she had freely given to him.
Even so, the idea of returning to the bed with him was more than she could contemplate right now. Wired and wide-awake, she wondered if a soak in the bath might help calm her overwrought mind. She turned to the massive oval bathtub, turned on the taps and drizzled in a liberal dose of fragrant foaming oil. Soon the rich scent of roses filled the room. Once the bath was full she stepped into it, closed her eyes and inhaled deeply the scent. Ottavia began to feel herself relax.
It was done. She’d made her decision to lie with her king and it had been truly the most magnificent experience of her life. There’d only been that one moment, when he’d first held her hips, that she’d begun to experience the briefest of flashbacks, but his grip had been loose, not painful—his hands warm and gentle, not clammy and grasping.
She was so deep in her thoughts, she didn’t hear the bathroom door open, didn’t feel the lap of water as Rocco slipped in beside her in the massive bath. But she did feel his strong arms slide around her body and lift her onto his lap.
“I woke to find you gone. I didn’t like it,” he murmured against the top of her head.
“I wasn’t far.”
“Thank goodness. Ottavia, I have something I need to ask you.”
“Ask away,” she said, leaning back against him and accepting that, with him, she truly had nothing to fear.
He was a noble man. An honorable one. She could never have agreed to marry him otherwise. And he’d given her pleasure on a scale that had almost blown her mind. No wonder people became slaves to sexual pleasure if it felt like that. Arousal suffused her body, making her feel languid and more aware of Rocco’s body behind hers.
“It isn’t an easy question. But I wondered...”
She shifted and turned so that she faced him, her eyes searching his face. All she could see was indecision in his gaze. It shocked her. She’d never seen him anything but confident.
“Rocco, what did you wonder?”
Even as she asked the question she felt a frisson of unease trickle through the back of her thoughts.
“Are you, I mean, were you a virgin?”
Shock plunged through her. Had she been so fumbling, so inept in her lovemaking, that he’d suspected he was her first true lover? She wouldn’t lie to him, she couldn’t. Not to the man who held her heart even if he didn’t know it. She drew on all of her experience and pulled her lips into a smile and forced a laugh.
“Not for many years,” she said as lightly as she could manage.
Relief filled his eyes. “That’s good. I would have hated for your first time to be less than perfect for you.”
Tears sprang to her eyes and she looked away, but obviously not quickly enough. Rocco’s hand shot out and gently grasped her chin, turning her back to face him.
“Tears, Ottavia? Why?”
“I—” She frantically reached in the recesses of her mind for something appropriate to say, but instead all she could feel was the overwhelming care that emanated from him.
That he would say such a thing, even think it, cut straight to her heart. Her first, and only time up until tonight, had certainly been the polar opposite of perfect and hearing those simple caring words from Rocco made her wish that somehow she’d fought harder, longer, anything to have prevented what happened—to have saved herself for this night and this man. Logically, she’d accepted a long time ago that the assault had not been her fault, but logic was hard to hold on to in a victim’s mind.
She leaned forward and kissed Rocco sweetly on his lips.
“You are a good man, Rocco.”
He pulled her closer to him, kissed her in return, his hands sweeping around her back and sliding up and down her spine in a caress that lit a new fire deep inside her. A fire that cleansed and burned away old fears, old memories, old hurts. She kissed him back, her arms wrapping around his shoulders, her fingers tangling in the hair at the nape of his neck.
His arousal was a tangible thing beneath her and she moved against him, her body slick with rose oil and water. She ached to feel him fill her again as he had before, to send her soaring back to the dizzying heights of pleasure and satisfaction that he’d brought her to before. Rocco’s hands slid around to the front of her body, first cupping her breasts—his fingers pulling gently at her nipples—before he pulled his mouth from hers and bent his head to first one peak and then the next.
Sensation spiraled through her, tugging at her core with an invisible thread that wound tighter and tighter, binding her to him in ways she’d never imagined possible. And then she felt his fingers at that central point of pleasure, felt them circle and press and circle and press. Bit by bit she began to ride a new wave, higher, faster, until a starburst of delight radiated from where he touched and spread to her extremities. She slumped against him, boneless with pleasure. Beneath her she felt his muscles coil and bunch and with a sweeping movement he had lifted her in his arms and was stepping from the bath. He set her on the marble top of the vanity and she gasped as the cold marble contrasted with her wet, slick, overheated skin.
“What—?” she began, then stopped as he spread her legs wide and positioned himself between them.
His erection stood hard and proud between them. She reached for him, wrapping her fingers around his length and stroking him firmly, marveling at the texture of his skin and the steely hardness that lay beneath it.
“Are you ready for me?” he asked, his voice deep and low, his amber eyes burning with a hunger that she knew deep down inside she could satisfy.
For so many years she’d thought she was a woman in control. She’d had no idea what control meant until now. It was there in every line of the man before her. In the veins that stood out on his neck, in the rigid posture of his body, the taut muscles of his stomach and arms. He waited, for her.
“Yes,” she whispered, guiding him toward her, the coldness of the vanity forgotten in the heat of his gaze and the sheer need reflected there. “I want you now.”
Her breath hitched as he entered her, her eyes sliding closed on the jolt of pleasure that shook her. She braced her arms behind her.
“Open your eyes, Ottavia,” Rocco commanded.
She did as he said and once again, her eyes locked with his. He slid in a little farther, sending
more zaps of sensation along her nerve endings, before withdrawing just a little. He repeated the move, over and over, until she was on the verge of begging him to go all the way. The sheer intimacy of looking into one another’s eyes, their bodies joined as one, rocked her, and she caught her lower lip between her teeth—desperate to hold back the sound that built within from escaping.
“Look at us,” he instructed. “Look at where we are joined.”
Again, she did as he’d instructed and the moan she’d been so desperately holding back escaped from her. Rocco picked up his pace, his grip on her thighs tightened, his face and chest suffused with color. The wave inside her built and built as with each stroke he drove deeper, more completely inside her.
“Touch yourself,” Rocco ground out, reaching one arm around her waist to support her. “Touch yourself as I touched you.”
Her fingers were tentative at first, her touch light, but she quickly found a satisfying rhythm that worked with his movements and within minutes she was hurtling toward completion once again. The second her inner muscles spasmed she felt him release, felt the massive tremors that passed through his body and into hers. It was more than she’d ever anticipated could happen between a man and a woman. More personal, more spectacular—quite simply, more.
When Rocco pulled out of her she made a small sound of protest but that was all she was capable of. She was spent, lethargic with satisfaction. Rocco grabbed a towel and gently cleaned her before he wiped them both dry. Then he swept her up into his arms and walked back into the bedroom, turning off lights as he went. He placed her gently on the bed. She rolled onto her side and he slid in behind her, one arm around her waist, his broad strong hand resting on her belly.
“Now, we sleep,” he commanded.
Contract Wedding, Expectant Bride Page 12