THE DRIVE TO the house passed quickly and silently.
For Margot, silence was the only possible option. Pressed into the corner of the car, she was just too angry to speak. But inside her head angry accusations were whirling around like a flock of seabirds.
How dared he do this?
How dared he unilaterally change their plans? Ignore everything that they’d agreed, trample over her feelings and wishes?
She’d agreed to marry him on one condition—that she could speak to her family before rumours of their wedding became public knowledge. It was the only condition she’d set, and even though she was doing everything he’d asked he still hadn’t managed to do that one thing for her.
Her jaw clenched painfully. How could she be so gullible? All that rubbish about being happy to tell her grandfather in person, letting her believe that they were going to fly back to France, when all the time he’d just been pretending so that he could do what he’d said he’d wanted to do right at the start—watch her family suffer.
She glared at him, her cheeks flushing with colour. He was selfish, thoughtless and utterly untrustworthy.
Her fingers curled into the fabric of her dress. All her life it had been the same, the people who were supposed to love her had just done what they wanted, put their needs above hers, and then expected her to put up with it.
No, not just put up with it, she thought savagely. They actually expected her to smile in public while in private they turned her world upside down.
But then selflessness was not part of her family’s DNA. Or apparently her new husband’s.
Beside her, Max stretched out his legs—a man without a care in the world. A man who was apparently either oblivious to or unconcerned by her silence.
She clenched her teeth. It wasn’t that she’d expected him to be thoughtful. Given that he was blackmailing her into marrying him that would have been insane. But surely the whole point of this stupid arranged marriage was that there were rules…boundaries. They’d made an agreement and now Max had broken it.
Her hands tightened in her lap. It wasn’t the unfairness of his actions that was so upsetting. Nor did she really care about ego. This was about her grandfather and her brother, and how they would feel when they woke up tomorrow and discovered that she’d sneaked off behind their backs to get married.
Her heart contracted. There was no way she could get in touch with her grandfather. She couldn’t risk waking him with news like that—not when his health was so precarious. And while she could try ringing Louis…really, what would be the point? It was the last night of his holiday. He was probably out celebrating and having fun with his friends. If she spoke to him now it would ruin everything.
Her heart gave an angry thump.
If Max had done what he’d agreed they’d do, and they had flown back to France, she would have been able to make things right.
She’d had it all planned. They would go straight to the chateau and Max would wait downstairs while she took breakfast up to her grandfather. His favourite breakfast: café au lait and eggs benedict—a legacy of his time in America—but using a slice of tartine instead of muffins. Then she would sit on the chair beside his bed and take as long as was necessary to reassure him that she hadn’t turned into her mother.
It wouldn’t be easy, but she knew that she would make him understand. And once he was dressed and composed they would go downstairs together, and everything would be fine.
She swallowed. Now, though, Max had made that moment impossible. Now her grandfather would wake to the news headlines that his beloved and utterly reliable granddaughter had been lying to his face and had eloped.
He would be heartbroken. And there was no doubt in her mind that, whatever he’d just told her about wanting to surprise her, that had been Max’s intention all along.
‘I know how much you care about what people think, Margot.’
Her skin felt hot, her cheeks burning with humiliation that she should have been so stupid as to trust him. Stiff, angry words were bubbling in her throat and she turned towards him, her eyes seeking his in the cool darkness of the limo’s interior.
But before she could open her mouth to unleash her fury she felt the car start to slow and realised that they had arrived at Max’s house.
She watched him step out into the sunshine, and then somehow she was taking his hand. There was a small round of applause and, glancing up, she saw that they were not alone. A group of people—presumably Max’s staff—all wearing white polo shirts and cream-coloured shorts were standing in two lines on either side of the stairway leading up to the house, their friendly faces beaming down at her.
But it was not their smiles or even the brightness of the sun that made her blink. It was the building behind them.
Her heart bumped against her ribs. Theoretically, she knew the extent of Max’s wealth. But, gazing up at the beautiful white modernist villa, she finally understood just how hard he must have worked, and despite the fury simmering inside her she couldn’t stop herself from admiring the way he had managed to create this life for himself.
Was it really so surprising, though? Even when she’d first met him it had been clear that Max was no average employee. It hadn’t been just his good looks that had made him stand out from everybody else. He’d been bright, focused, creative and exceptionally determined.
Her mouth twisted.
No doubt the same ruthless determination that had made him such a successful businessman made it equally easy for him to disrespect her wishes. She needed to remember that the next time she felt like admiring him.
Inside the villa the decor was modern, almost austere, and only a subtle change in flooring from bleached wood to the palest pink marble signalled the transition between inside and out. But even if the change had been signposted with flashing neon lights she would barely have noticed the difference, for her attention was fixed on the terrace where, beside the bluest pool she had ever seen, a beautiful glass table was set for two beneath a gleaming white sail-like canopy.
Gazing past the table to the ocean beyond, Margot swallowed. She had forgotten all about eating, and she was simmering with so much suppressed rage that she’d completely lost her appetite anyway. But this was her ‘wedding breakfast’, and of course to accompany the meal there would be—
‘Champagne, darling?’
Max stepped forward, his eyes resting on her face, the irises so startlingly blue and green that she had a sudden vivid flashback to the first time they’d met, and how it hadn’t felt real. Not just the dual colours of his gaze, but the fact that he was there, in her kitchen, this extraordinary, arrestingly beautiful man, talking and laughing and smiling…
Her spine stiffened. And now he was smiling at her again. Only not as a dangerously handsome stranger, but as her dangerously handsome, self-serving husband.
‘I chose it especially,’ he said softly. Leaning forward, he twisted the bottle towards her so that she could see the label. ‘It’s the Duvernay Grand Cru from the year we first met.’
Her lips curved into a stiff smile as she took the brimming glass. ‘How considerate of you,’ she said tightly.
There was a pulsing silence, and then he gently tapped his glass against hers.
‘You see—it’s almost like your family are already here, giving us their blessing.’ His mocking gaze flickered over her face. ‘And, really, what better way could there be to mark the start of our married life than a glass of champagne from our estate?’
She stared past him. ‘Oh, I can think of one or two scenarios.’
He laughed. ‘Why do I get the feeling that all of them involve me being in some kind of mortal peril?’
Shaking his head, he lounged back against his seat.
‘I meant what I said in the chapel, Margot. As of now, you’re my wife. For better, for worse…for richer, for poorer.’ He gave a slow smile. ‘Or, given our particular agreement, maybe that should be for poorer, for richer.’
For a moment she considered throwing the contents of her glass in his face, but just then one of his staff stepped forward with a selection of canapés, and instead she took a mouthful of champagne.
It was a good year, she thought dispassionately. An almost perfect balance of citrus and cream, with a just a hint of raspberry.
Her muscles tightened. Her grandfather had always said that a great champagne was like a love potion, but it would have to be a remarkable vintage indeed for her to forget that their marriage was a business merger in everything but name. And that Max was a total snake in the grass.
Through a combination of polite, if a little stilted, conversation and carefully timed smiles, she managed to get through the meal. Then the still smiling staff started to melt away, and finally they were alone.
Instantly she pushed her untouched cup of coffee away, her fingers twitching against the table-top.
Max stared at her with a mixture of mockery and resignation. ‘The monsoon season is over for this year,’ he said softly, lowering his gaze so that his eyes were suddenly in shadow. ‘And yet I sense a storm is brewing.’
‘Damn right it is.’ Instantly her bottled-up resentment rose to the surface, like the bubbles in her family’s legendary champagne. ‘If you think I’m staying here for two weeks with you, acting out some pantomime of a honeymoon, then you must be insane. We had a deal. I have kept my side of that deal, and I expect you to keep yours. So, unless you have a reason for changing our plans other than sheer bloody-mindedness, I suggest you get hold of your pilot and tell him that we will be leaving for France tonight.’
‘Or what? Are you going to swim home?’
She glared at him. ‘If it means getting away from you, then, yes.’
He didn’t reply—just stared at her so intently and for so long that she wanted to scream. And then finally, in a gesture that seemed designed solely to aggravate her, he shrugged carelessly.
Margot glanced at him helplessly. She felt as though she would burst with rage. Was that the sum total of his response? Was that seriously supposed to be some kind of answer?
‘What does that mean?’ she snapped. She could hear her overstretched nerves vibrating in her voice, but she didn’t care any more. ‘You’re not in some nouvelle vague film, Max. This is real life. My life. And I am your wife—legally, at least—so could you at least do me the courtesy of actually saying something?’
Raising an eyebrow, seemingly unperturbed by either her words or her tone, he gazed at her impassively. ‘Okay—it means that any deal we made most certainly did not include you flouncing off to the airport to catch the first flight home after we’d exchanged our wedding vows.’
His expression didn’t shift, but she felt a sudden rise in tension as she mimicked his tone. ‘Well, any deal we made also didn’t include you and me building sandcastles for two weeks.’ She glared at him. ‘I mean, what exactly do you think we’re going to spend our honeymoon doing?’
There was a tiny quivering pause, just long enough for her to realise the full, horrifying idiocy of what she’d said, and then the air seemed to ripple around her as her words continued to echo into the sudden silence.
What she had been trying to say was that as theirs wasn’t a regular kind of marriage, their honeymoon was hardly going to be all moonlight walks and long afternoons in bed.
Only it hadn’t sounded the way she’d intended. In fact it couldn’t have sounded any worse.
Her throat felt suddenly scratchy and dry as, leaning forward, he gave her an infuriating smile.
‘Oh, I expect we could probably think of something to pass the time…’
She wanted to deny it. But the trouble was, he was right—and, no matter how much she wanted it to be otherwise, it didn’t change the fact that her body still ached for the wordless, exquisite satisfaction that he alone had given her.
Rigid with mortification, her cheeks flooded with colour, she glanced past him, cursing herself, cursing him, and cursing her father for putting her in this impossible position.
If only she could just flick a switch so that she could stop feeling like this. If only it was just thinking. If only she could just separate her body from her brain. But as her mind filled with images of her and Max moving in blurred slow motion she felt her breath quicken.
Suddenly her heart was pounding, and she could almost taste the adrenalin. She felt like a gladiator, waiting outside the arena, poised and ready for combat. Only this time it was herself she was fighting. Her desire for Max was dangerous and, as she knew from experience, the kind of passion they shared came at a price. It trampled over your pride, crushed your dreams and cleaved your heart in two.
Ignoring the clamouring demands of her body, she lifted her chin. ‘I know we could. But that doesn’t mean that we should.’ She swallowed, struggling to find the words that would stop her feeling, stop her needing. ‘So if that’s why you broke our agreement then I’m sorry to disappoint you, but unlike you I have principles.’
His eyes glittered and, sensing the anger unfurling beneath his apparently calm demeanour, she felt her stomach clench. But he had no right to feel angry. He hadn’t been bullied and manipulated. He hadn’t been made to perform like a puppet on a string.
She took a breath, desperate to divert the conversation to less dangerous territory. ‘Besides, in case you’ve forgotten, you’re supposed to be saving my business—and you can’t do that if we’re both here cavorting about on a beach!’
Her heartbeat scampered. Even now that Max was co-running Duvernay she still felt horribly responsible. She had already been worried about taking more time off work so soon after going to Monte Carlo, but she had been expecting to be gone for just a few days, not two weeks.
His lazy gaze didn’t shift from her face, but the air felt suddenly fat with tension.
‘Luckily for you, I can multitask,’ he said coolly.
Max stared at her. He was good at multitasking, but right now he was struggling to hold on to his temper at the same time as trying to justify why just one kiss had overridden his meticulous and completely non-negotiable plan to return to France immediately after the wedding.
His temper wasn’t improved by Margot insisting on talking about Duvernay. She was acting as if he was just some troubleshooter she’d hired to fix her damned business instead of her husband. And she had accused him of being unromantic!
He gritted his teeth. Maybe they should have gone home. Everything had been in place. His private jet had been waiting on the runway and he had personally signed off on a carefully worded statement to the press about his sudden marriage to Margot Duvernay. All that there had been left to do was make a phone call—a call he had been wanting and waiting to make for so long—and then finally he would have been able to flaunt his new wife to the world.
Only as he’d brought his mouth down on hers and she’d leaned into him everything had changed.
Holding her body, feeling her frantic, unguarded response, he had been engulfed by a raw and ferocious need that had blotted out all logical thought. There and then he’d decided that the rest of the world could wait. Finally Margot was his wife. She was his, and—for the foreseeable future, at least—he was not going to share her with anyone.
But he was not about to admit that out loud, and certainly not to Margot—particularly when all she seemed bothered about was her wretched business.
‘I don’t leave things to chance,’ he said. ‘I have people reporting back to me and everything’s running smoothly.’ He lounged back in his chair, letting his long legs sprawl out in front of him. ‘Why are you making this into such a big deal? You wanted traditional, and a honeymoon is a wedding tradition. I’m just ticking all the boxes,’ he lied.
Margot looked at him resentfully. It was true that she had wanted to keep the wedding as traditional as possible, but only for the benefit of her grandfather and Louis. And she had never so much as hinted at having a honeymoon.
A honeymoon!
Her brain stumbled, tripping on a thought of just exactly how she and Max might spend their honeymoon. Sunlit hours passing into darkness, hands splaying against warm, damp skin, bodies shuddering, surrendering to one bone-dissolving climax after another—
Her heart was pounding.
‘Then I suggest you untick them,’ she said curtly.
His gaze didn’t so much as flicker. ‘I must say I’m a little surprised—I wasn’t expecting wedding day nerves,’ he said lazily. ‘And there was I, thinking you were only marrying me for my money.’
She gave a humourless laugh. ‘You’re deluded.’
‘And you’re overreacting,’ he said coolly.
‘Overreacting?’ She shook her head in disbelief. ‘If you don’t understand why I need to get back then you must be even more insensitive and self-serving than I thought.’
Her brown eyes narrowed.
‘Perhaps you were raised by wolves. Or maybe you don’t have any family,’ she snarled. ‘Or maybe, like every other unfortunate soul who crosses your path, they prefer to keep well clear of you. Frankly, I don’t much care.’
Watching his features grow harder, she felt a quiver of unease. But so what if she’d offended him? If someone basically lied, and then lied again, why should she be nice about it?
She took a deep breath. ‘But I do care about my family. You knew I wanted to tell to my grandfather in person. You knew it, and yet you completely ignored my wishes.’
He let his gaze rest on her accusing face. ‘Your life. Your wishes. You seem to be forgetting that this isn’t just about you. It’s about us. But then you never really got the hang of us, did you, Margot?’
Margot stared at him unsteadily, the air thumping out of her lungs. How was this her fault? He wasn’t the one who’d been tricked and manipulated, lied to and misled.
Her body was quivering with anger and frustration. Was this how it was going to be? Every conversation filled with pitfalls and traps, like a game of snakes and ladders where a stray move or two could send them tumbling back into the past.
Suddenly her eyes felt hot, and she blinked frantically. She was not going to cry. She was not going to let him know that he could hurt her. But she also wasn’t going to sit here and listen to his stupid, self-righteous accusations—not after everything he’d said and done to her.
‘That’s because there was no us, Max.’ Her breathing jerked, for even as she said the words, a part of her was hoping he would deny them. But of course he didn’t. He just continued to stare at her, his face expressionless, his eyes still and steady.
She cleared her throat. ‘There was me, and there was you. We were different people. We wanted different things then, and we want different things now. Nothing’s changed.’
His eyes lifted to hers. ‘Except that now you’re my wife,’ he said slowly.
Mesmerised by the possessive note in his voice, she was suddenly holding her breath. And then almost immediately she felt a chill come over her body. Was she really that shallow? Surely this conversation encapsulated everything that had been wrong between them, and explained why their relationship could never be what it should. Sex acting as a substitute for tenderness and sensitivity? Aged nineteen, she hadn’t really understood the difference, or maybe she’d thought it would be enough.
But now she did—and it wasn’t.
‘So what if I am?’ she said, finally finding her voice. ‘You’ve made it clear that I don’t matter to you. You don’t respect me or my feelings, or care about my opinions. And you sure as hell don’t understand relationships. Or is this really what you think marriage is supposed to be like?’
She broke off, hating the emotion in her voice. Suddenly she couldn’t bear it any more. There was no point in talking to him. Standing up, she took hold of her wedding ring and tugged it loose from her finger.
‘Here—you can have this back. You see, it doesn’t matter how many rings you give me, Max, or even how many bits of paper I sign, I will never truly belong to you.’
She tossed the ring onto the table and then, clutching the fabric of her skirt, she turned and walked stiffly towards the villa.
Somehow she found her way to her—their—bedroom. It was decorated in the same style as the rest of the house, all pale wood and neutral-coloured walls. Cool, contemporary, masculine.
Except the bed.
She gazed in stunned, wordless disbelief at the beautiful four-poster bed, a lump building in her throat. On the other side of the room the doors to the deck had been left open, and the canopy of muslin above the bed was quivering in the warm tropical breeze. Beneath the canopy, the white sheets and pillows were strewn with the palest pink and white petals. It was ludicrously, perfectly romantic.
Her pulse was suddenly racing, and warmth stole over her skin as, dazedly, she stepped closer to the bed. Reaching down, she let her fingers drift over the crisp white sheets. Kicking off her shoes, she felt her heart contract. Everything was such a mess.
Ten years ago this would have been everything she wanted, and she wished with an intensity that was painful that she could just forget the past and—
And what? What exactly was she supposed to do and feel now?
There were hundreds, maybe thousands of books and blogs outlining wedding etiquette, and probably even more devoted to achieving a happy marriage. But what were the rules for Max and Margot? The first time she had loved him unconditionally and he had wanted her money. Now he wanted her business and she needed his financial support.
She felt suddenly close to tears again.
Being married to Max was just so much more complex than she’d imagined it would be. In her head, she’d pictured something like her grandparents’ marriage—traditional, formal. They had married young, not for love but for dynastic reasons. But despite that unpromising start they had grown to care for one another, and there had always been respect and trust. How were she and Max ever going to get to that stage?
Her body tensed, and she sensed that she was no longer alone. Somebody had come into the bedroom, and without turning she knew it was Max. She didn’t have to see him. The connection between them was so intense she recognised him simply by the prickling heat creeping over her skin, and the way the compass point inside her began to quiver.
She couldn’t help herself. Turning, she felt her body still as she watched him walk slowly towards her.
Don’t come any closer, she thought, her breath catching in her throat.
‘Why not?’ he said softly, and her pulse began to race as she realised that without meaning to do so she must have spoken out loud.
‘There’s no reason for you to do so,’ she said, flattening the emotion out of her voice. ‘You’ve got the marriage licence and the share certificates, so you have everything you want.’
He stopped in front of her, and for one endless moment they stared at each other, wide-eyed, their bodies barely inches apart.
‘Not quite everything.’
Jolted by the roughness in his voice, she tried to answer. But before she had a chance even to think about what words to use, let alone form them into a sentence, he took another step closer.
She tried to move, to put some distance between them, but her body was rooted to the floor. The air felt suddenly heavy and tangled, as though the monsoon he’d mentioned earlier was about to break inside the room. Heat was chasing over her cheeks and throat, and then her stomach flipped over as he reached out and, taking her hand, gently slid the wedding ring back on her finger.
‘I came to tell you that you do matter. And I do respect you.’
She stared at him. He looked tense, serious, not at all like the teasing, self-possessed man who had dominated her life for the last few days.
‘And I do care about your feelings and opinions.’
He paused, and she realised that his hand was still holding hers. It was lucky that he was, for she felt suddenly strangely unsubstantial, as though at any moment she might simply float away.
‘Although, given how I’ve behaved, I can completely see why you would think the opposite.’
Margot stared at him, confused. There was strain in his voice—not anger…uncertainty, maybe—and although he hadn’t actually said he was sorry, his words had sounded almost like an apology. Whatever she had expected Max to say, it hadn’t been that, and she wasn’t sure how to reply.
But the part of her brain that was still functioning prodded her to respond, and so she said the first word that came into her head. ‘Okay.’
His eyes bored into hers and she felt her legs wobble, for there was no mockery or hostility in the blue and green of his irises, and no anger in her heart. With a mixture of panic and yearning, she realised that without the restraining presence of their mutual animosity he was too close, that his mouth—that beautiful, temptingly kissable mouth—was dangerously close, and that she was starting to feel dizzy.
Dizzy with…
His hand slid around her waist, and even as her fingers curled into her palms she felt the floor tilt beneath her feet. Every ounce of reason and self-preservation she possessed was telling her to move, to push him away. This—them—was a bad idea. She needed to stop it from going any further. Stop it while she still could.
Lifting her hand, she pressed her fists against his chest, meaning to push him away. But somehow her fingers weren’t responding. Instead they seemed to be uncurling and sliding over his shoulders, and she couldn’t seem to stop herself from gazing at his mouth.
She was giving out all the wrong signals, and yet they felt right—more than right. They felt inevitable and necessary.
‘Okay…?’ His brows drew together, the muscles in his face tightening with concentration. ‘Okay, and now you want me to leave? Or okay, you want me to stay?’ he asked hoarsely.
Somewhere inside the wreckage of her brain, it occurred to her that his breathing was as uneven as hers. There was a long, simmering silence. She inhaled shakily. Her body was throbbing with a desperate yearning to feel his soft mouth on hers, to give in to the teasing pleasure of his tongue—only she knew that to tell him that would be foolhardy and self-destructive.
She knew she should lie to him. But she was so sick of lying. Everything else about their relationship might just be for show, but this—this need they felt for each other—was real so why fight it?
‘Margot…’
She was suddenly too scared to meet his eyes, scared that he would see the indecision and the longing in her face.
But, lifting a hand, he cupped her chin and forced her to look at him, and the dark, blazing intensity of his gaze made her breath catch.
‘I want you,’ he said hoarsely and, lowering his mouth, he brushed his lips momentarily against hers. ‘I’ve wanted you ever since you walked into that boardroom. I want you so badly I can’t think straight. I don’t even know who I am any more. All I know is that my body burns for you…’
He hesitated, and she could sense that he was steadying himself, that he would stop if she asked him to.
‘But you need to tell me what you want.’
She stared at him dazedly, her blood humming, an ache of desire spreading out inside her like an oil spill, and then finally she slid her fingers up into his hair and whispered, ‘I want you too.’
Lifting her chin with his thumb, he stared down into her eyes for so long that she thought she would fly apart with wanting him, and then slowly he lowered his head and kissed her.
She could hardly breathe. Gently, he parted her lips, pushing his tongue into her open mouth, tasting her, his breath mingling with hers as his fingers slid over the lace of her bodice.
Her skin was growing warm, and an ache that felt both hollow and yet so heavy was spreading out inside her. His fingers were moving ceaselessly, brushing against her breasts, slipping around her waist, and then lower to the curve of her buttocks. She moaned against his mouth and instantly felt his body respond. His fingers grew more urgent, and suddenly he was pulling at the buttons down the back of her dress, and as each button came loose she felt something inside her open up too.
‘Max…’ she whispered, and her own fingers dropped to the waistband of his trousers and began to tug at the fabric, pressing against the hard outline of his erection.
Max breathed out unsteadily. As his fingers slipped beneath the bodice of her dress he felt his groin harden. Her skin felt impossibly smooth and, lifting his mouth from hers, he buried his lips against her neck, seeking out that pulse at the base of her throat. He felt her stir against him, blindly seeking more, and suddenly he wanted more too. More of that skin, more of her mouth, and more of that pulsing heat that he could feel beneath her dress.
Breaking free, he took a step back and yanked at the collar of his shirt. Ignoring her hands, he tugged it over his head and then, his eyes holding hers, he reached forward and released her shoulders, watching dry-mouthed as the dress slid slowly to the floor.
Underneath she was naked except for a pair of rose-coloured panties tied at the sides with ribbons. Gazing at her naked breasts, he felt his skin catch fire. She was so beautiful—more beautiful than he’d remembered—and, stepping towards her, he tugged her body against his, feeling her nipples harden as they brushed against his bare chest. Lowering his head, he sucked first one and then the other into his mouth, almost blacking out as he felt her squirm beneath his tongue. And then she was pulling at the buckle of his belt, her hands clumsy, her breath suddenly uneven as she freed him from his clothes.
‘Margot, Margot—slow down,’ he begged. ‘Just wait.’
But she wasn’t listening, or maybe she was ignoring him. Suddenly he didn’t care. Pulling her against him, he lifted her and not quite steadily lowered her onto the bed. Leaning forward, he yanked the ribbons of her panties free, and then she was clutching at his shoulders, pulling him closer, guiding him inside her.
Margot gasped. Looping her arm around his neck, she gripped him tighter, her hips rising, her body opening to meet his thrusts, her hands digging into the muscles of his back. She was shaking with eagerness and relief, for there had never been anyone like him and she knew there never would be. With him, there was no need to think. Everything was pure instinct, and each knew exactly what the other wanted and needed.
As the heat building inside her fanned out like a solar flare she was arching upwards, her thighs splaying, her body gripping him inside and out, until she could hold back no more and she shuddered beneath him. She felt his hands tighten in her hair, his body tense, and then, his breath quickening, he buried his face against her shoulder and, crying out her name, thrust inside her.