Blasted by lust, Remington lay with one foot hanging off the bed, the other tucked under Eleanor’s thigh, and he stared into her eyes.
She stared back, as defiant as if he weren’t still inside her, pressing as deeply as he could.
What did it take to possess this woman? She was exhausted; he could feel it. Her body trembled beneath him, and she had climaxed in rolling waves of passion that had pulled him along like a great undertow. Yet already she challenged him, silently demanding that he yield to her as she had yielded to him.
That was not going to happen. She wasn’t the wife he’d won, and she needed to be taught the penalty for duping Remington Knight.
He would do that as soon as he recovered his strength. Right now, he could scarcely summon enough energy to lift himself off her before he crushed her.
Yet he hated to exit her body. Tonight, he had done everything in his power to mark her as his, and yet…and yet…he wanted her again. In some sane corner of his mind, he knew that was ridiculous. She had been untouched. Despite his preparation, he’d hurt her. She couldn’t accept him again, yet it seemed as if this woman, with her diffidence and flashes of bravery, could so easily slip away from him.
Equally ridiculous was to imagine he could manage the act again. He had climaxed so violently that tears of pleasure had come to his eyes. He’d emptied himself inside her. He, who could pleasure a woman five times a night, had nothing left with which to fill her again.
Carefully, he separated himself from her. At last, as if she could hold them open no more, her eyes closed, and she gave a faint moan as her tissues reluctantly released him. His chest heaved as he rested beside her. He needed to cover her with the blankets, for despite the now-blazing fire, it was cool in here, he’d just driven the woman to orgasm, and the shreds of her nightgown were no protection against the chill.
He gazed on the expanse of fair skin beside him: the peaked breasts, the flat stomach, the ruff of hair that hid the entrance to paradise. Her legs were slightly apart, open and inviting, and he saw a dark smear on the pale skin of her thighs.
Blood.
He’d wanted a de Lacy sacrifice on the altar of his vengeance. He’d gotten it—although not in the way he’d imagined.
Her eyes were closed, her expression serene—and that irritated him. He’d just endured a ground-shaking event. She had to have been impacted, too.
He wanted to take her and shake her, demand she show how deeply their joining had influenced her. Instead he found himself sliding his arm under her shoulder and leaning over her.
Her eyes opened. She looked stupefied, and he enjoyed a bone-deep satisfaction. Yes, she’d been overwhelmed.
She stared around, then down as if astonished to find herself in such a state. Her gaze slid up his body, and all that she had learned came blazing to life. Oh, yes, she had liked what he’d shown her, for in the depths of her eyes he saw interest and awareness. She wanted him again, just as he wanted her.
In a soft tone, he said, “I’m going to get you out of this gown.”
Automatically, her fingers rose to cover her breasts.
He wanted to tell her it was far, far too late for modesty. Instead, he brushed her hands aside and eased the sleeves down her arms. As the shattered silk and lace slid off her hands, she caught at it, then let it go.
“I’ll buy you another.” Because he wanted to see her posed before him again, the firelight flickering behind her. She was his, to dress as he wished, to obey his will.
Blood marked the nightgown, too, and he placed it on the foot of the bed. Barbaric, yes, but he would save the evidence. Tonight had not been the triumph he had imagined, yet oddly, it had been more satisfying than his greatest fantasy.
“We’re going to move up on the pillows,” he told her. Sliding his other arm under her legs, he lifted and shifted her toward the head of the bed, covered her with the blankets, then slid in beside her.
“Go to sleep,” he murmured, and his eyes closed.
She pressed her palm over his heart. “Already?”
His eyes opened. He stared at her. What did she mean, already?
Her voice was sultry, knowing, and she challenged him with a look. Sliding off the other side of the bed, she moved into the darker shadows of the room.
“What are you doing?” He could see her pale form moving but could discern no particulars.
“Preparing myself to worship my master,” she said.
Master? Hm. He rather liked that.
“The concubines told me that a virile man would wish for many rides in an evening.”
Ah. Now he understood. She wanted to put the lessons she’d learned in the harem to use. “It’s not necessary tonight. We can have many rides…soon.”
Going to the fire, she dipped a cloth into the pot on the hearth and wrung it out. “The concubines taught me how to revive a man’s flagging interest, also.”
“My interest is not flagging!”
She cast him a sidelong glance, a glance that flirted and enticed.
For the first time in what seemed like years, his sense of humor stirred. “You little witch. Did the concubines happen to mention that challenging a man’s capabilities was one way to revive a man?”
“They might have,” she said demurely. Her body gleamed as if, shielded by darkness, she’d washed herself.
He surveyed her as she came toward him, holding the cloth in a basin. She was outlined by fire, her hips swaying seductively.
His certainty that he was done for the night began to fade.
She put the basin on the bedside table. Taking three of the pillows, she placed them behind him. Then she leaned against his chest and plumped them into a cozy, relaxing mass. With her hand on his shoulders, she pressed him back. “Are you comfortable?” she asked. “Can I get you anything? A drink? No?” She slid the covers away from him so shyly, she might never before have seen him naked. “Then if I may, my master, let me cleanse you after your exertions.” She didn’t wait for his permission, but with the warm, damp cloth, she began to bathe his genitals.
Sweat broke out on his forehead. With three pillows behind him, he could watch everything, and the sight of her pale hands on his swarthy skin was strange, erotic, glorious. Her fingers were warm, and she handled him tentatively, but her mere touch on his balls, on his cock, made him want to writhe and groan. The cloth reached over and around, and his skin cooled as she drew it away. He gritted his teeth in pleasure and anticipation, and his shaft grew and swelled, proving without a doubt that, brainless thing that it was, it did not realize he had come his last drop.
She placed the cloth on the basin, then slipped onto the mattress.
The sight of her, smooth, bare, blushing, kneeling between his hairy legs, was male and female in its essence. Power coursed through his veins, yet as she reached for him he was helpless. She rested her hands on his knees, then slid them up the inside of his thighs. Her fingers caressed his balls as if fascinated by the textures, then wrapped around his erection. Holding the length against her palm, she used her thumb to circle the head.
A thick, white drop oozed from the opening, and his testicles tightened in anticipation. He wanted inside her again.
“You’re very large, my master. No wonder my body struggled to accommodate you.” Her soft, wondering tone encouraged him to grow yet more.
Yet her words made him remember…she was right. Damn it, she was right. She could barely take him the first time. She could not do it again. Someone in this little twosome had to show some responsibility, and apparently, it was him. Harsh with disappointment, he said, “You can’t accommodate me again tonight.”
She smiled slightly, her gaze on her hands as she smoothed the drop over and around, using it as an emollient. “There are other ways to satisfy a man.”
This woman, this inexperienced woman, gave him more pleasure than ever he had imagined—and he had imagined a lot. Now she was offering a delight of which most women had never heard. For a marvelous second, he was tempted…but no.
Responsibility. He had to show responsibility. “Not tonight. If you torment me tonight, I’ll have you on your back and your legs in the air.”
She rose onto her knees. Taking his hand, she guided it between her legs.
He wanted to think, to be sensible, but how could he when this woman guided his own fingers into her? She was damp and slick, and his fingers slipped right in. Red lust obscured his vision.
When it cleared, he saw her smiling at him. “As the concubines taught us, I cleansed myself, then applied an oil to ease your way, should you again wish to…have me on my back with my legs in the air.”
She had prepared herself to receive him. At the mere idea, he had trouble getting a breath.
“Or perhaps,” she said, “I could mount you. In this manner, I could control the motion. Then it would be impossible for you to make me uncomfortable.”
Mount him? Control the motion?
Gently, she drew his fingers away, eased herself down on his chest, and smiled into his face. “In the meantime, you must rest and recover from your previous efforts, while I try to revive your flagging interest.”
She thought she was so damned amusing.
Actually, he might think she was amusing, too, if she wasn’t resting on him, her breasts pressed to him as she searched out his nipples and tasted them. Bit them. Sliding down, she kissed his belly, his thighs. Everywhere she stopped, her smooth lips caressed his skin and heightened his desire, making his loins beat with the rhythm of his heart. He recalled what Eleanor had said just two nights ago. A woman can bathe a man’s genitals in her mouth. Was that what she had planned? And would he survive the ecstasy if it was?
He had never wanted anything so much in his life.
But he knew that was a lie, because more than that, he wanted Eleanor. He was as struck down with bliss as ever he’d hoped to make his bride. It was as if he were a lad, a virgin again, overwhelmed with the novelty of occupying a woman.
And what a woman! Eleanor had made a royal fool of him all across England and soon, when the story was carried on his ships, all across the world. If she had happened to anyone but him, he would have admired her.
Clasping his hips in her hands, she leaned down and licked the length of his cock, from the base to the head. The rasp of her tongue brought him right off of the bed.
In a demure tone he didn’t believe at all, she asked, “Did I hurt you, my master?”
“No,” he said hoarsely. “Please. Go on.”
Delicately, she slipped her lips around the head and sucked it into her mouth. She seemed amazed, for she used her lips to apply different pressures, then circled him with her tongue, over and over, roughly, then more gently.
“Deeper,” he whispered. “Harder.”
Lifting her head, she said, “Master, I did not give you advice when you rendered a like service for me.”
He wanted to laugh, but he couldn’t move the right muscles in his face. “I humbly beg your pardon.”
“Another day, I’ll ask what you like best. For now, if it pleases you, I wish to experiment.”
“Yes. That pleases me. Experiment.” He watched as her head dipped again, and he felt the sweet, wet warmth close on him. “The worst you could possibly do is wonderful.”
Sliding her mouth all the way down, her tongue moved around the length of him.
The pressure built inside him. His discipline roared away. The vision of her as she had looked when he was inside her arose in his mind: mindless with ecstasy, desperate for climax. He loved having her bathe him in her mouth, but more than that, he loved giving her pleasure.
And abruptly, he had to have her.
Taking her under the armpits, he lifted her away. She cried, “Wait!” but he had no more patience.
He placed her atop him, opened her, positioned himself to enter her—then, using the last of his waning restraint, he waited.
She lost her show of confidence. No longer the handmaiden but an almost completely inexperienced female, she trembled. Her face flushed, with embarrassment or excitement, he didn’t know. Taking a fortifying breath, she held herself above him, her spine straight, her chin lifted as if she faced some unfamiliar ordeal. Tucking her tongue in the corner of her lips, she held his cock and slowly pressed downward.
He entered her, and she was still so tight. So tight. But the oil smoothed the way, and again, in slow increments, he was enveloped by her. Her heat. Her body.
She was nervous, he could tell. Her hands clenched his arms, her legs flinched, and inside she tensed, as if fearing the repeat of the pain.
But he let her set the pace. She rose and she fell, never quite taking all of him. Her thighs worked beside his hips. Her breasts bobbed gently above him. Her shorn hair floated around her pinkening cheeks.
He wanted so badly to take over, to show her how to move, to pump his hips and bury himself inside her. But the torment was somehow even better, knowing he could conquer her at any minute and didn’t.
Little by little, her trepidation slipped away and fascination filled her face. The best stroke, for him, was when she finally pushed herself all the way on him, and he was bathed in her essence. Catching her, he held her still, for just a moment, to savor the intimacy, to taste the knowledge that soon another magnificent orgasm would shake him.
Then he let her go.
She smiled. She actually smiled at him, now, as if everything about him delighted her.
And he, who wanted to smile back, could not. He was too stricken by the lightning of divine delight.
She experimented: she swirled her hips, she slid up until he was barely inside her, then down so he was lodged in her all the way. Her hands caressed his chest and belly, and even reached between them and grasped his organ, and worked her fingers on him as she rose and fell.
He responded. He couldn’t help it. He groaned aloud. He shook with the effort of holding back his climax. And finally, he took his turn. He ran his fingertips over her skin from her shoulder blades to her waist, giving special attention to the sensitive underside of her breasts. He rocked his hips, scarcely moving them at first, concentrating on putting pressure against that feminine nub, which was so sensitive.
The absorption she showed in this new activity changed. She no longer tried out new movements; she concentrated on the simpler rhythm, rising over him like a Venus rising from the waves. Every time he reached her deepest point, he watched as her eyes opened and closed, lashes fluttering as she absorbed the sensation of having him inside her.
Small moans broke from her with each of his thrusts. Inside, she was molten heat and rough silk, drawing from him a response that built too quickly. The thought flitted through his mind that a few short minutes ago, he’d been convinced he couldn’t again rise to the occasion. Now he was having trouble holding back. This wife of his had bewitched him—and he rejoiced in the spell.
She begged, “Please. Remington. Please.”
Did she even realize what she begged for?
“Now,” she whispered. “Please. Remington. Now.”
Oh, yes. He wrapped her in his arms and rolled her over. Holding her close, he moved powerfully on her. With each stroke, he moved more strongly, more quickly, letting the gusts of passion lift them both, and when she cried out in his ear, when she shuddered with completion, he released his fever—and came again, as intensely as if he had never taken her at all.
She panted in his ear. She trembled in his arms. She was as weak and helpless as he could have ever desired, and he found his anger had slipped away—but his infatuation had not. Even though she had betrayed him, he still thought about her, wanted her, more than he’d ever wanted another woman.
Would he forgive her? When he thought about the death of his hopes, he knew he would not. Yet in her arms, he didn’t think of hopes, only of pleasure, pleasure so great as to overwhelm his senses.
Maybe pleasure would be enough.