Eleanor’s heart began a slow, strong thumping. Her chest rose and fell as she tried to get her breath. Remington wanted her. He had every right to take her, to use her as he pleased, and she had no doubt that if she ran, he would chase her down.
But her knees felt too weak to move, for…she wanted him, too. If only she didn’t feel this cowardly uncertainty about joining with this man. He was dangerous in a way she didn’t yet understand. Dangerous to her.
“Come here.”
Two nights ago, she had heard his voice caress smoothly, but he didn’t bother with such subtleties now. “Come here,” he repeated, pulling her toward him, “and pay the price for your deceit.”
Stumbling forward, she looked down at him. Why should she struggle? The first time she’d seen him, he’d caught her in his web. She had never wanted to escape. Yet to take this man into herself would involve a surrender of being, and she might never get herself back.
“You little fool.” He pulled her into his lap, tugged her gown up, arranged her to face him, bare legs tucked on either side of his hips. “It’s too late to have second thoughts now.”
He was right about that. Beneath her strained a man enraged by his fate, driven by lust, and it was up to her to tame him.
Yet he was dressed. She was not. She was vulnerable. He was not. The material of his breeches rasped against the tender tissues between her legs. With his hands on her hips, he fitted himself into the notch between her thighs. Beneath his breeches she could feel the stiffness of his manhood, and when he moved her back and forth, the throbbing she had experienced from his mouth on her began again.
Placing her hands on his shoulders, she steadied herself. His face was right before her, and his eyes watched her unceasingly. She tried to hide her expression; she didn’t want him to think he could arouse her with a touch.
But it seemed that he could, for that constant, back-and-forth movement made her hands grip him more tightly.
“Do you remember the things you said to me the other night?” he asked.
It was tempting to lie, to say no, but she couldn’t concentrate. Not while he rocked her back and forth. “I remember.”
“You said you wanted to take out my cock and bathe it in your mouth.”
Her desire was growing. Breathing was difficult, thinking worse. She was moving on her own, now.
He shifted one hand to cup her bottom, to encourage her hips, while the other traveled over her skin to her breast. “I didn’t let you do that.”
“No.” He used his fingertips to circle her breast, defining the shape with his touch.
“I bathed you with my mouth, instead.”
“Yes.” The memory of that pleasure contributed and combined with this pleasure until she could scarcely tell where one left off and the other began.
“I put my finger inside you.” He laughed a little.
“Inside your pussy.” His hand slid beneath the silk of her gown, along the warm, dark cleft of her bottom. He circled the entrance to her body. “You were damp then, too.”
She tried to press her knees together, but he was between them and she accomplished nothing. Nothing, except the effort further inflamed her senses.
His finger slipped inside, exploring deeply, rasping the tissues in a slow and steady motion. “You’re so tight. When I push my cock inside, you’re going to let me in slowly. Then I’ll settle in, and nothing you can do will dislodge me.”
She had trouble forming the words. “Will I want to?”
“I think so. You’re a strong woman, and I’ll be in you, making you mine.”
A strong woman. He thought she was a strong woman.
“Will you like to have me control you, set the pace, teach you delight?”
She didn’t want to think. She wanted to float along on a flood of passion.
“Tell me,” he commanded. “Do you want my possession? Do you want to know that no other man will ever have you? Do you want me every night, inside you, reinforcing my claim until you live in a world bounded by bliss, and all you can think of is me?”
The way he said it—it sounded like a threat, not seduction.
Yet at the same time, his hand caressed her breast, while the other moved inside her.
He observed her every expression, capturing her thoughts like an eagle captures its prey. “Tell me.”
“I want you. That was why—” Before she could finish, to explain why she had married him, he pulled his finger out.
Disappointment took her, and she whimpered.
Then slowly, he worked his finger back in. But this time she shuddered. The sense of intrusion increased. The pressure increased, and she froze, afraid to move—for pain threatened.
“Two fingers. I’m making a place for myself.” He smiled, baring all his teeth. “But it seems as if I’m doing all the work. Why don’t you…”
She held her breath, wondering what he would require.
“Kiss me.”
Kiss him? So insignificant an intimacy, yet so important. Face to face, mouth to mouth, exchanging breath…
“You kiss very well,” he murmured. “You kiss like a woman in love.”
She sucked in a startled breath. He didn’t know that. He couldn’t. He’d accused her of marrying him for his money, and to her surprise, she preferred that to the truth—that she wanted him, loved him with all her silly heart.
No, she didn’t want him to realize that, for that would make her vulnerable to every torment he chose to dole out.
She could tell—he was thinking. Maybe he was realizing he had touched on the truth. That wouldn’t do.
So, taking handfuls of his shirt in her fists, she leaned forward. At the last minute, he closed his eyes, giving himself over to passion. She pressed her lips to his. His unshaven chin scraped at her tender skin. She probed with her tongue. He tasted of mint and brandy, manly and delicious, and as she kissed him, she showed him the love she dared not confess.
Again he tucked his hand under her bottom and lifted her. His lips moved on hers, his words were a breath in her mouth. “Move on me.”
“But your fingers…” He scattered little kisses across her face, but not even that could distract her. “It might hurt.”
He pulled away enough to smile mockingly. “And it might be ecstasy. Move.”
Carefully, she lifted herself, lowered herself. The motion was right, somehow, the ache of fullness easing.
She lifted herself again, aware that excitement worked its way along her nerves—
And he said, “That’s enough. There’s no more time.” Abruptly, he took his hands away, clutched her against him, and stood.
She caught a glimpse of his face before he turned away from the light, and his expression frightened her. All the time they’d spent together had been a lie. He wasn’t a civilized savage. He was simply a savage, and he would feast on her now.
Wrapping her legs around him, he strode toward the shadowy bed.
She clung for fear he would drop her, and when he laid her on the cool sheets, she shivered. “Mr. Knight…Remington, please.” She lifted herself on her elbow as he peeled himself out of his shirt.
Muscles corded his shoulders and rippled across his chest and down his abdomen, a fine froth of blond hair, like cream on a golden peach. The firelight licked him as she longed to do. He unbuttoned his breeches, and as he dropped them, she turned her head away.
“Afraid?” His voice was smoky with mockery. “You should be. I’m angry. I’m angry at you. And I don’t hurt women, so I’m going to force you to climax again and again.”
“Perhaps the concubines were not clear in their explanation. Is climax supposed to be disagreeable?” As she mocked him, she looked at his face. Yet as hard as she tried to focus only on his expression, still she saw the strength of his long flanks, the ripple of his muscled belly…the length and breadth of his erection. The smooth skin was blushing, the cap was light purple, and it was long, so long. “Oh, my.”
Climbing on the mattress, he positioned himself between her legs.
Irresistibly, her hand was drawn to his spike of manhood. Brushing her fingers from the tip to the base, she reveled in the ridges and veins, the strength beneath the silky skin. “In the harem, I saw paintings and statues, but this is really magnificent.”
He braced his hands beside her shoulders and closed his eyes, his arms shaking as she explored him.
The concubines were right. Men liked to be touched—and she liked touching him.
When he opened his eyes and stared down at her, there was nothing of ice in their shadowed depths. They burned. He burned. Taking the neck of her nightgown carefully between his hands, he tore it. The fine lace resisted, but the silk gave way with a thin, violent sound.
Silk and lace, expensive and beautiful, and he’d torn it away as if she didn’t deserve it. She wanted to strike him. “Why did you do that?”
“It was in my way.” He pulled the shredded pieces back.
He looked at her body, and seeing the gleam in his eyes, she realized he meant it. He’d torn her nightgown because it had been in his way—and that was a lesson she should remember.
“You’ve never had a man before. You don’t know what I can do to you. How I can make you feel. How I can withhold pleasure, and how I can give it.” Holding himself above her, he lowered his head and suckled on her nipple.
Sensation replaced shock. She arched beneath him. Clutching at his hair, she held him there, wanting him to feed with a strong suction that sent her halfway to heaven.
He moved to the other breast, circling her nipple with his tongue, teasing her, denying her. His breath whispered against her skin as he said, “Your skin is like satin, sensitive, gorgeous satin.”
Did he realize what he was doing to her with a simple compliment?
She pressed her hips up toward him, wanting his weight on her. Wanting more than that.
He descended atop of her, and everywhere their skin touched was a flash point of heat. Her breasts nestled in the hair on his chest. The weight of his hips pressed her into the mattress. His manhood nestled between her legs, and for the first time she understood why he had used his fingers to arouse her.
Because now she knew what it was to be full, and she wanted to be filled again—in any way possible. What had seemed natural before, to be empty, to be solitary, now seemed lonely and anguished.
Pushing herself against him, she sought relief from the isolation.
But he didn’t oblige her. Instead, he took her face between his hands and held her still. “Tell me what you want me to do.”
She whimpered. Tell him? Didn’t he know?
“Tell me,” he said. “Instruct me. I’ll do whatever you crave, but you have to say the words.”
Now she understood what he demanded. He demanded that she capitulate mentally as well as physically. He demanded that she think about what they were doing and give him permission to do…whatever he wanted to do. In her whole life, she had never sworn at another soul. She did now. “Bastard!”
“You’re wrong. My parents were married before I was born.” His thumbs met under her chin and nudged her face toward his. “Possibly even before I was conceived. Eleanor…”
It was the first time he’d called her by her own name, and she well understood the significance of that.
His hips rolled in a languorous, inciteful wave. “Eleanor, tell me what you want.” They rolled again.
Deep in her womb, she felt need building.
“You’re not going to win. You’re going to do as I wish. Surrender, Eleanor. Surrender.”
He was right. He knew too much, understood her body better than she understood it herself. With a sigh, she yielded. “I want you…please…” She wrapped her legs around his hips. Tried to position herself to receive him.
His hands slid down to her breasts, cupped them, caressed them. “Please, what?”
He had perfected the art of torment. “Please, Remington.” She used his name deliberately, appeasing him. “I want you inside me. I want you to take me away…for a while. I want you to make good on your promise to give me pleasure.”
He chuckled, deep in his chest, and she felt the rumble in hers. “Demand that I fulfill my promise, will you? I knew you were a clever girl. Now you’ve proved it with your challenge. Very well.” With one hand, he spread her nether lips and positioned himself to thrust.
But he didn’t blunder so crassly. He held his hips away. He touched her only with the head of his manhood, and that with no force. No hurry. She needed…she needed movement, struggle, speed to ease this ache, and he was slow and careful.
“Hurry,” she begged. “Oh, please. Hurry.”
He laughed, a quick laugh, and didn’t increase his speed at all.
She rolled her head against the sheets. She grasped his hips and dug herself into his flesh.
“A little more, then.” His rod pressed harder, entered her, stretched her, and what had been a slight discomfort became pain.
“Wha…?” She struggled to sit up. “But you prepared me!”
He held her hips still, managing her with his greater strength and size. “My fingers aren’t long enough.”
“Or wide enough!” she flashed.
“Did you think this would be easy?” Slowly, he pulled back, easing her pain.
She relaxed, sighing. “I thought it would be satisfying.”
Straight away, he was back again, stronger, giving no quarter.
She tensed. He was occupying her as if she were a conquered country. Regardless of the advice she’d heard, the words the concubines had spoken, she wasn’t prepared for being taken. Invaded.
And he didn’t stop. He didn’t care about her virginal reluctance. His body quivered as he moved, and in the shadows of the bed, she saw his face in leaps of flame. His brows knit, his lips were folded together. The fire etched his cheekbones and jaw in sharp lines, and he stared down at her as if he could see her every thought—her rebellion, her uncertainty, the gradually eroding control she had over her body, emotions, mind.
The mattress swayed beneath her. The scent of him surrounded her: warm, sensual. The pain grew as he worked his way inside, and she put the back of her hand to her mouth to stifle a moan.
Just when the anguish was at its height, he paused and held himself very still. It was as if he were bracing himself for some great event.
Then he surged forward.
Something snapped within her. She rose off the mattress, ready to fight her way free.
But now he dominated her with his power. His groin rubbed against her, inciting sensations all too briefly abandoned. This time, as he withdrew, she caught her breath on a bright spark of desire, and when he surged back, that spark became a blaze. She thought she might like this, might with time adjust, but he didn’t give her time. He set a pace that demanded and explored, and she found herself struggling to keep up. She was like a ship on the ocean, catching surge after surge, ruthlessly driven toward some unknown destination and at the mercy of the elements. It wasn’t that the burning within her didn’t matter, but pain and pleasure mixed until she couldn’t tell where one ended and the other started.
Remington would enforce his will on her, and she, who had never known a man, would pay the price for deceiving him.
She was in a different world, where everything was strange; his weight, his scent, the way he handled her, as if she were his to do with as he wished. The rhythm he set was quick, yet smooth, and her tender tissues yielded to each intrusion, then released him with reluctance. Her body knew what her mind only suspected; this claiming was as old as mankind, yet unique to them. Brought together by fate or happenstance, it didn’t matter. Their two bodies fit and formed one.
Bracing her heels on the bed, she moved her hips in his rhythm. Her hands slipped across his shoulders.
The concubines had told her it was the woman’s duty to ensure the man’s fulfillment.
Eleanor didn’t care a ha’penny about his fulfillment. Not now. Not when each thrust grazed the deepest part of her and pleasure, the pleasure he’d promised her, rushed toward her on the winds of possession.
She embraced him, hands slippery with sweat, his or hers, she couldn’t tell. His muscles stretched and tensed with his movements.
No grandeur of travel or art could compare with this excitement, and she gloried in every moment.
Each moment, it seemed he grew heavier, more domineering. As the speed of his thrusts increased, he said in a guttural voice, “Yield to me.”
“What?” Yield? No. No, how could he ask that she think? Now? Tonight? To yield, to surrender, when all she wanted was to reach that pure level of sensation that would sweep her away.
Sliding his hands behind her head, he cupped it, enfolding her, all of her, in his essence. He looked into her eyes, held them, challenged her. He kissed her with his tongue, pushed his manhood inside until it touched her womb. He filled her with himself, and he commanded, “Eleanor, give me what I want. Yield…now.”
And as if she had awaited his command, her body convulsed in glorious climax. It started deep in her womb and spread heat through her veins, through her skin, through her breasts. Her legs and arms clutched at him, trying to draw him deeper inside—when he could go no deeper. Love and fear, triumph and passion swirled through her until she was moaning and sobbing. “Remington. Remington.”
And at last, he loosed his own passion, his head thrown back, his eyes closed, ecstasy etched on his features.
Together, their passion gathered force, driving them to a sweet madness that went on and on, fusing them together, creating one person, one soul.
Together, the madness faded, and at last they came to rest on the mattress in the master’s bedchamber.
Still he held her head in his hands. Still he looked into her eyes as if weighing the depth of her surrender. Still he was hard and thick inside her while she…she was exhausted, amazed, overwhelmed. She had given him everything, all her passion, all her love.
But there was no use in telling him that. He wouldn’t believe her, because he believed nothing but the worst of her.
But she would get her revenge.
She hadn’t spent a fortnight in a harem for nothing.