Sold To The Dragon Princes: The Novel

by Daniella Wright

  He could feel it building deep inside her, ready to spiral outward any second, and when she cried out his name and her back arched against his bed, he reveled in her ecstatic release.

  “Oh my, Gabriel,” she whispered as she came back down. “I’d heard…I mean, the wives I’d met had told me…I had no idea,” she stumbled through an explanation.

  He chuckled, and he knew undoubtedly that no man had ever given her that, had never explored or aroused her body the way he had.

  He wasn’t done; there was so much more of Tessa he wanted to explore, but he throbbed painfully and couldn’t wait any longer. He slid up and lowered himself on top of her, not realizing that she’d moved her hand between them. Her fingers brushed against his cock, and his hips jerked in response. He gritted his teeth as her hand closed around him, moving tentatively along his hard length.

  “Tessa, I want to be inside you,” he whispered and she released him, though she seemed to do so reluctantly.

  Not wanting to hurt her, but knowing it was inevitable, he positioned himself at her entrance as he met her crystal eyes ablaze with desire.

  “It’s going to hurt for a moment, but I promise it will pass quickly.” He waited, though it just about killed him. He needed her to acknowledge what he’d said, to agree to what he was about to do.

  She nodded eagerly, thrusting her hips toward him, and he froze for the briefest of moments. He was about to bury himself deep inside Tessa—the woman he’d wanted for so damn long. And despite his admission that there would be pain for her, she welcomed him. She wanted him.

  With that thought in his mind, and staring into the most beautiful eyes he’d ever seen, he thrust forward slowly, holding himself in check to give her time to adjust to him. When he pressed against her maidenhead, he gritted his teeth and pushed forward, soothing her with gentle kisses when he saw the pain flash in her eyes. He stilled, waiting for it to pass, but already she was moving against him, driving him deeper. He looked up at her in awe as he plunged in slowly, fighting against the impending release that tightened his balls.

  He withdrew and then filled her again, setting the rhythm as she wrapped her legs around his hips and her hands continued their exploration of his body. She was so eager despite her inexperience, and so open to him that no woman would ever compare to the beauty beneath him. In one night, she’d ruined him for all others.

  Before long, his pace increased. He couldn’t hold on much longer. He reached between them, finding her clit and rubbing quickly. Her cries grew frantic in no time and her hands moved wildly over him.

  “Gabriel, I…”

  He could see she was so ready, right there, but she hadn’t expected her body to bring her to the brink again so soon. “Come for me, Tess.”

  And that was all it took. Her eyes stayed locked on his as her hips jerked and her back arched clear off the bed. He was quite certain the servants at the other end of the large house heard Tessa’s cry as she toppled over the edge. And as she spasmed around him, it drove him to the brink. A groan ripped clear out of his chest as he thrust in to the hilt once more and deposited his seed deep inside her.

  Reluctant to leave her slick warmth, he rolled off her a moment later, and it seemed like the most natural thing in the world when he pulled her against his chest, wrapping his arms around her. In the blissful aftermath of their lovemaking, he listened to her breathing as it returned to normal, and ran his fingers idly up and down her back.

  “Good night, my love,” he whispered after a few minutes had passed even though he could sense she was sound asleep, but he froze the moment the words were out.

  She was Tessa, Tess, even ‘little one’—his childhood pet name for her. He’d never once called a woman ‘my love’ even in the deepest throes of passion. No woman had ever been worthy of that word…no woman except for his Tess.

  No, it was nothing more than a mingling of childhood affection with a man’s appreciation for an eager bedmate. This had been nothing more than a physical coupling. The rest of his expectations for this marriage remained.

  As such, there was no reason for him to continue laying there with her cradled in his arms. He’d obtained the release he sought and now it was time to put distance between them. He would seek out another bedroom like he’d intended after trying to sleep next to her that first night. He slipped out of bed, careful not to disturb her slumber, dressed and strode across the room to the door.

  Still, he couldn’t help but look back at the daughter of Aphrodite. She looked so peaceful in slumber, so beautiful, so…his.

  Chapter 7

  Tessa awoke long after the sun had risen in the sky. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept so late. Remembering the night prior, a smile turned up the corners of her rosy lips and a blush colored her cheeks. After hearing countless stories of wives lying passively beneath their husbands, she’d never imagined she could be such a wanton woman. And she certainly couldn’t imagine lying passively beneath Gabriel after having experienced firsthand the wicked exhilaration of making love to him.

  His body had been hard muscle everywhere she touched; sinewy arms, chiseled chest and rippling muscles down his abdomen. She hadn’t been able to resist running her fingers through the sprinkling of hair across his chest, over the flexing muscles of his back. She’d touched everywhere she could reach, but it had never felt like enough. And when her hand had tentatively closed around his hard shaft, she’d never known anything so deliciously unique—he was hard steel encased in silk.

  But he’d stopped her so quickly when every fiber of her being had wanted to explore him further, to caress the tip of him, to run her fingers down his steely length. Her mouth had watered, remembering what Akosua had whispered to her about satisfying a man with her mouth, the same way she’d done in her dream. She’d longed to taste him on her tongue and feel him against her lips.

  But what had happened next had banished every coherent thought from her mind. The pain had lasted for but a moment, nothing like the excruciating agony some women she’d met had warned her about. And then what took its place threatened to make her entire body come apart. He was deep inside her, filling her until she thought she couldn’t possibly stretch any more. The sensation was exquisite, like nothing she could ever have imagined. He’d hovered above her, and her greedy fingers had reached for him, clung to him. A pressure had begun to mount low in her abdomen, building with Gabriel’s every thrust. Just when she thought she could take no more of it, the pressure had reached a pinnacle. And like a tightly wound coil springing free, it caused her body to fragment into a thousand shards of pure bliss.

  Squeezing her thighs against the arousal pulsing through her anew at the memory and trying to ignore the wetness she could feel there, she rolled over, but the other side of the bed was empty. Gabriel wasn’t there. Disappointment replaced desire quickly, but she couldn’t blame him. She’d practically slept the day away and couldn’t expect Gabriel to have been lazy enough to do the same.

  In a rush to lay eyes on her talented husband, she washed and dressed in a hurry and then forced herself to walk serenely down the stairs to the dining room. Brandon was there, reading over some papers as he toyed with his breakfast.

  “Good morning, my dear sister. It is good of you to join me. I feared you intended to lie abed all day,” he teased with a grin that told her he knew too much.

  A blush reappeared on her cheeks, but she endeavored to ignore his comment, sitting down at the table and paying an exceptional amount of attention to sugaring her tea. Brandon opened his mouth to speak but his comment lodged in his throat. And she could understand why. Gabriel had appeared at the doorway with a scowl on his handsome face. How could he possibly be unhappy when she still felt as if she were floating in the clouds?

  “A problem with one of your businesses, dear brother?” Brandon queried, looking as confused as she felt.

  “No,” he answered absently, focused on the ledger in his hand. “I slept in one of the guest roo
ms and the bed was lumpier than a sack of potatoes.”

  Oh. She fell from the clouds in an instant. He’d crept out of bed to find another after she’d fallen asleep. Obviously their lovemaking hadn’t been nearly as rapturous for him as it had been for her. She tried to arrange her features in a display of indifference, no doubt poorly concealing the crushing disappointment. She noticed the way Brandon’s back had stiffened at Gabriel’s comment, but he hadn’t said a word. And she was glad. It would have been too humiliating.

  Gabriel sat down at the table and the two brothers spoke about some business interest, though she had no idea about the particulars. Her heart thudded so hard, she couldn’t focus on the conversation above the pounding in her ears. She excused herself as quickly as she could, disappearing to the privacy of her bedroom. And despite feeling like the walls were closing in on her, she remained there all day. She couldn’t face Brandon after the morning’s humiliation and she didn’t want to run into Gabriel.

  Come dinner, her stomach compelled her to leave the room. He appeared more relaxed, conversing easily with Brandon at the table, and she began to nurse the small hope that she’d misinterpreted the morning’s events.

  Brandon drew her into conversation over dinner, and Gabriel even posed questions of his own about her foreign adventures. Their eyes met across the table, and she could have sworn it was desire that flared to life in his gaze, but the moment the meal was over, he left. He didn’t reappear again that evening. She laid in bed for hours after the sun had set, waiting, hoping he’d come to her. But he never did.

  Several days and then weeks passed following the same routine, Gabriel joining her and Brandon for breakfast and then again at dinner. He seemed to grow more relaxed in her presence with each day, but still she remained the only one to occupy his bed every night.

  Her dreams plagued her, bringing her to the brink each night while she slept. Every morning she awoke with an aching need so great it radiated throughout her whole body. One morning, the need had been too great. Keeping her eyes closed, she let her fingers glide down her body, seeing Gabriel’s hands in their place in her mind. She squeezed the inside of her thigh, already slick with her moisture and then slid her hand upward to the source. A blush staining her cheeks, and feeling more wicked than ever before, she rubbed her fingers against the nub of flesh Gabriel had used to drive her wild. She mimicked the way he’d moved, rubbing slowly at first and then faster as the coil wound tightly deep inside her.

  With her free hand, she teased her body, cupping her breasts and grazing her nipples with her fingernails. She was so close, but she wanted to be where Gabriel had been. So, while she continued to rub her clitoris at a frantic pace, she parted her wet lips with her other hand, slipping a finger inside her slick warmth. Again, she mimicked his movements, gliding in and out, faster and faster and crooking her finger to rub against the most sensitive place inside her. A fine sheen of sweat covered her entire body and she bit her lip hard to stifle the cry that threatened to slip out as she found what she’d been seeking, and a kaleidoscope of sensation burst outward from her core.

  Several weeks later, lying in bed alone once again after satisfying her own dark need, it dawned on her. She had never been the object of Gabriel’s desire, only an outlet when he needed somewhere to vent his baser needs. That is why he’d only come to her that one time, when he’d been unable to find the relief he sought somewhere else. And she understood why he’d taken a wife when he clearly had no interest in marriage; she was a convenience. She made it unnecessary for him to leave the manor to find his relief.

  “Oh Papa, what were you thinking?” she whispered dejectedly wondering why her father had been so insistent on this match. But her misery quickly turned to anger, and her anger to resigned acceptance. He’d made up his mind and she wouldn’t humiliate herself further by trying to vie for his affection when he clearly had no intention of ever giving it.

  At breakfast the following morning, she ignored the way her heart leapt in her chest and her body sprung to life as Gabriel appeared in the dining room.

  “Good morning, my Lord,” she greeted him coolly.

  “Good morning, Tessa,” he replied, but his voice seemed strained.

  It had become an effort for him to even converse civilly with her? She ignored the hurt the thought brought and forced her attention to the food in front of her and her conversation with Brandon. But the day continued in the same manner and it wore her down quickly. Long before was usual, she escaped to her bedroom and settled into bed, resigned to yet another lonely night with no one to see to her needs but herself.

  But she’d only just pulled the covers up over her body and slipped two fingers inside her wet core when the door flew open. She jumped, coming upright in an instant before she saw him there, standing in the doorway. He didn’t say a word; he didn’t enter the room. He stood there looking at her.

  His eyes met hers and they held her there, like the night in the barn. The heat in his gaze mesmerized her, provoking the same heat to spread through her body no matter how much she wished it wouldn’t.

  Finally, he stepped forward, closing the door behind him and crossing the room in long strides, but he stopped at the edge of the bed. “I couldn’t stay away,” he whispered, his voice strained as it had been that morning.

  It was obvious why he’d come. She should send him away, tell him he couldn’t use her like this. But her body was responding to him already. She craved his hands on her body and her fingers itched to touch him. But he didn’t move. He continued to stare down at her like he’d done from the door. His hands were clenched so tight his knuckles had turned white and she could see the way his jaw worked.

  She could show him that she wanted him, that her own body had needs as well as his, but she hesitated. Would her wanton behavior send him fleeing from the room? Would he think what she’d been doing all these nights deplorable?

  With more effort than it had ever taken her to raise her hand before, she lifted her fingers to his lips—fingers that had been deep inside her before he opened the door. He looked at her puzzled for just a moment, but then his nostrils flared and she knew he’d caught her scent.

  “Oh god, Tess,” he whispered. His voice sounded strange, as if all the air had been sucked from his lungs. Before she could try to interpret the look in his eyes, to know if he found her desirous or depraved, he opened his mouth and sucked her fingers inside, cleaning every drop of her off with his tongue.

  And then he moved so quickly, she could never have seen it coming. In a flash, he reached for her, pulling her to the edge of the bed and hard against his chest. His lips crushed hers in his fervor and his hands were everywhere, grazing over her entire body in long sweeps.

  Helpless to resist his potent desire, she clung to him, parting her lips and digging her fingers into his shoulders to keep him close.

  But he pulled back abruptly. He moved like lightning, tearing her nightgown asunder with his powerful hands. She was bare to him, and she should have been quivering in fear or pulling away in objection, but she didn’t. So much like the Gabriel who had come to her in her dreams, she wanted this more than she’d ever wanted anything in her life.

  She hadn’t his strength, but she did what she could, tearing at his shirt until the first few buttons gave way. He seemed surprised by her own fervent response, but he wasn’t stunned for long. He completed the task, ripping and tearing at his clothes until he was as naked as she and then gathering her up in his arms once more, he continued his delicious assault on her body. His lips crushed hers, his hands captured her breasts, though the tremble in his fingers told her he was exerting every ounce of control he could muster.

  “Tess, I have no idea what you’ve done to me,” he whispered as he lifted her up to draw her knees out from under her and then sit her back down at the edge of the bed.

  What she’d done to him? She’d been perfectly content in her youthful innocence before Gabriel, and now she was desperate for what she
now knew he could give her. The pleasure she’d been able to give her own body had been nothing in comparison to the all-consuming fire he ignited in her.

  He leaned down, laying her back as he captured her lips once more. She felt his steel hard length press against her for the briefest of moments, and then he was thrusting forward, stretching her, filling her. He stilled, and she instinctively knew what he was doing, giving her body time to adjust to his massive girth inside her. A low groan escaped his lips as if it was requiring a great effort to remain still.

  She lifted her dangling legs and wrapped them around his hips to gain leverage, moving against him to show him she was ready, that he didn’t have to hold back any longer. With another fierce groan he withdrew before driving into the hilt in one, smooth thrust. He leaned back as he withdrew again, standing upright and gazing down at her with so much heat in his eyes she was surprised it didn’t scorch her. His body moved in an innate rhythm as his hands caressed her.

  “You’re beautiful, Tess. So damn beautiful it frustrates me to no end.”

  It frustrated him that she was pretty? It made no sense, but then her brain was having difficulty focusing on anything but the man deep inside her and the waves of arousal that were sending her higher and higher.

  He cupped her breasts and teased the hard peaks with his thumbs, sending jolts of fire to her core. She watched him as one of his hands traveled lower, finding the bundle of nerves that sent her careening toward the brink. She moaned as her hips writhed beneath him. But his fingers stopped abruptly.

  “Show me,” he instructed her, and though he offered no explanation, she knew what he meant. But could she do it? Could she be so bold?

  Yes, she could. So long as his gaze seemed to be worshipping her body, she wondered if there was anything she couldn’t do. She let her fingers glide down her ribs, just like she’d done so many nights and mornings when she’d imagined it was his fingers touching her. This time, she watched him, following his gaze as it kept up with her fingers’ path across her abdomen. When she reached that pleasure center of her body, she rubbed herself, and his jaw fell open before clenching down so hard the muscles she saw there spasmed in protest.