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Outside, the sky lit up as lightning crackled. Rain beat against the window and the loud roar of thunder broke through the sky. The tremors that shook the night were inside Ambrose, too. He could feel their vibrations, warning him that the taut, tenuous grip on his control was about to shatter in so many pieces it would be impossible to assemble them again.
To hell with it.
Ambrose didn’t know what had compelled him to the concession that allowed his wife to change his mind about the fate of her sister, but he bloody well did not regret it—it had brought a smile to her face that had reached all the way to her eyes. In fact, it was odd, but he no longer felt as if a bog was swallowing him up whole.
He watched as his wife’s gaze drifted to his bed. It was large, designed for a large man. He smirked. He couldn’t help himself. He wasn’t about to let her out of that bed for a very long time.
“This is your chamber now, too.”
“You think I should sleep here . . .” She circled back to him, her tongue darting out to moisten her lips, sending a wave of lust to his cock. “Every night?”
“Yes.” He couldn’t say more than that, not with her looking at him the way she was. Innocent. Intrigued.
She had married him because she wanted a child. He’d never thought of children—he never thought he’d marry. But the moment she had confessed her desire, something warm had spread through his chest. Something that had felt like joy.
“And if I wish to sleep in my chamber?”
He took the two steps that closed the distance between them and slid his hands into her hair, tangling the golden strands between his fingers and tilted her head back. “This is your chamber,” he brushed his thumb over her lower lip.
Her face brightened with a smile.
“Really, Ambrose?” She moved even closer to him, her breasts pressing up against his body. “You know how I despise commands.”
The teasing note in her voice drew his gaze to her lips, and his self-discipline dissolved. He bent his head and lowered his mouth to hers in a deep, hard kiss of total possession. It wasn’t enough. Would it ever be enough? Would he ever get enough? He didn’t think so.
He drew back to stare at her. “You drive me bloody crazy.”
He heard his own desperation in the words but didn’t care. Hell, he wasn’t certain what he was desperate for, except that in that moment, it was unthinkable not to possess his wife in every way. His tongue danced with hers, seeking more. She didn’t protest his lack of constraint, and instead, entwined her arms around his neck and returned his kiss with equal fervor.
Wild with want and consumed by desire, he began pushing her back, guiding them both to the bed. Control was no longer an option for him, he understood now, so he just let go. There was no point in holding onto something that was shot to hell anyway.
“Undress me,” he said, his voice low and commanding against her lips.
“Must you always be so bossy?” she murmured, but there was no hesitation in her movements as her fingers instantly appeared to shove his jacket off his shoulders.
“Yes.”
He thought he heard her laugh under her breath as the buttons of his shirt came undone, and Ambrose wasted no time in ridding her of all her clothing. He tugged at her gown, and then at her chemise, until all of her garments were scattered at her feet.
One day he would undress her slowly and with all the sensuality she deserved. Just not tonight. Not after he had longed for this moment ever since the morning after their wedding night.
And Willow didn’t waste any time either. As soon as his shirt hit the floor, her fingers were on the waistband of his breeches.
Ambrose couldn’t stop a groan from escaping when she leaned forward and kissed the ridges of his abdomen.
The moment his breeches were unfastened, he tugged off his boots and stepped out of the confining material, sweeping her up into his arms.
He laid her down on the bed, the mattress dipping with their weight. He took a breath, his eyes searching her face. She was beautiful, her face flushed and eyes glazed with burning hunger. The tightness in his chest deepened and spread. Christ, what this woman did to him.
“Ambrose.”
He smiled at the pleading note in her voice. Even the simple act of her saying his name sent a tingle along his spine. Dropping his head, he trailed kisses along her neck, down to the curve of her breast. He took a nipple into his mouth, his teeth scraping against the tiny bud. Warm and delicious, that was how she tasted. His tongue licked and flicked, and then he sucked harder. She gasped and the sound was sweeter than honey.
He paused, breathing in the scent of her skin—always sweet, always flowery—and tasted some more. He loved her scent. He loved her taste.
“You intoxicate me.”
“More,” she whispered, even as her hand reached down to circle his erection. Ambrose almost went up in flames. His body shuddered, and fire raced up his cock.
“May I touch you there?”
“You ask me that now?” He groaned into her creamy skin. He thought he heard her chuckle. “Don’t ever bloody stop.”
“What happens if I kiss it?”
“You don’t.”
Or I will bloody die.
“I want to kiss you there.”
“No.” He barely managed that one word.
“Please.”
He looked up from lavishing her breasts, planning on kissing her to distraction and away from her current train of thought, but he made the mistake of meeting her gaze.
Her eyes sparkled at him. With mischief. With humor. With bloody determination.
He never stood a chance. He rolled onto his back and took her with him. She giggled in response. Shutting his eyes, he knew he should have just shoved into her right at the start because this, this was pure torture. He could feel her breath on his cock, hovering, looking, and not kissing him.
When it came, the touch of soft lips delicately brushing against the tip of his erection, he swore. It was unlike anything he had ever felt before.
“Have you ever been kissed here before?”
A strangled “no” lodged in his throat.
She kissed him again, and this time her tongue left a trail of blazing heat. Blood surged through his body. The breath slammed out of him. He was dying.
“I’ve never kissed anyone before you,” he admitted.
She stilled. The loss of her was almost too much to bear. Why had he opened his bloody mouth?
He was about to reach for her, eyes fixed on her mouth, when she lowered her lips again, this time more boldly. And she did not stop. She drove him wild, her tongue dragging up the length of him, and her soft lips covering him with kisses. He was wrong. He wasn’t dying before. This is what dying felt like. He could take no more.
Lifting her beneath her arms, he rolled her over and nudged her legs apart with his knee.
She protested, laughing. “I wasn’t done!”
“No more,” he growled.
“Did you not like it?” she asked sweetly.
“I bloody loved it, but I want to be inside you, and if you hadn’t stopped, I’d have shamed us both.”
She wrapped her arms around him. He kissed her throat, her lips, her shoulder; his mouth was everywhere as he pushed inside of her. She pulled him closer still, running her hands up and down his back.
He began to thrust into her then, slowly at first, until his body was no longer his own and his hips rocked at an unrelenting pace. It wasn’t long before she arched beneath him and cried out his name. His own release followed seconds after.
His breathing slowed long before the rapid pace of his heart. The knowledge that his wife would forever be his obsession beat hard against the wall of his chest.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
––––––––
WILLOW LEANED OVER her husband, drawing soft circles over the rope of muscle on his abdomen. His eyes were closed, and a hint of a smile tugged at the corner of his lips. From what she could see, a pink blush suffused her entire body, likely right up to her untidy mess of hair, which she was certain resembled a pigeon’s nest.
He had never kissed another woman before her.
The admission had been softly spoken, but it had hit her straight in the heart. And she would keep it there, locked tightly within, forever.
“You’re so bloody beautiful.”
Her eyes lifted to his, finding him watching her. She had to swallow to find her voice. “That is only because I’m naked.”
“You are always naked when I’m looking at you.”
Oh.
The thought of him imagining her naked all the time stole the breath from her lungs.
“That sounds rather exhausting.”
A devilish smile curved his lips. “I have quite an active mind.” He traced a finger over her calf. “Your skin is so delicate. So soft.”
Willow moaned, barely recognizing the soft purring sound that emerged from her throat. “You’re so wicked.”
This man, her husband, had in a mere week stirred her more than anyone she had ever known. God help her, her mind and body ached for him. It was impossible to shake away the images of all the wicked things she wanted him to do to her. Even knowing he was a controlling, rule-obsessed man. Even knowing he was stubborn to a fault and that it would take a small miracle to get him to change his mind about her sister, about the rules, about how she should live her life. Even knowing all that, she still craved him fiercely. And if that made her wicked, then so be it.
He was once again on top of her, one large hand cupping her breast, his hard sex nestled against her core. He teased her nipples to tight arousal.
“We cannot possibly do it again,” she murmured as his tongue circled the sensitive bud, sucking gently.
The way his eyes darkened at her declaration caused awareness to sizzle along her every nerve ending. “I beg to disagree.”
She squirmed beneath him, and he entered her in one smooth stroke. A soft gasp pushed through her lips at the pleasure that tightened low in her belly.
Willow sifted her fingers through the thick, silky strands of his hair. And she knew then, wrapped in his arms, that she could be content forever there. The challenges they faced, the disagreements they held, paled in comparison to the glory of this moment. She sketched the image of them, just like this, in her mind and tucked it away into her heart. Perhaps this could be a beginning.
Tension coiled deep as he rocked inside her, thrusting harder, and harder, until she soared over the edge.
Later, when the damp sweat on their bodies dried and the air had once again turned cool, a wandering hand traced her calf yet again. A slow smile curved her lips, mischief on its edges. “Again?”
“And again and again and again.”