her scalding sheath, his hands beneath her bottom supporting her, he carried her to the side of the bed.
Juggling her, he drew down the covers, then withdrew from her and tumbled her onto the bed.
Swiftly he arranged her as he wished-stretched out on her stomach down the length of the bed, her head to one side, just off the pillows, her hands level with her head, one on either side. He’d positioned one plump pillow beneath her hips before he’d rolled her over. He drew her long legs down, her ankles only a little apart; she was so boneless she could barely raise her head, much less question his decrees.
He knelt at her feet and considered her, smiled at the sight of her legs still clad in her garters and stockings. Shifting, he caught a garter and worked it down, drawing the stocking off with it. He repeated the exercise on her other leg, stripping garter and stocking away, leaving her totally bare.
Then he stretched himself over her, eased himself down on her, sensed the slight tension that reinvested her limbs as she took his weight, felt it pin her.
Half supported on one arm sunk in the bed beside her shoulder, he reached between her legs, positioned his aching erection at her entrance, and slid slowly home, eyes closing as he thrust slow and deep into the slick scalding haven of her sheath.
He nearly groaned.
She tightened just a little about him, but she didn’t have enough energy left to do anything other than lie beneath him and-as he’d warned her she would-let him have his way with her.
Greedily, hungrily, eager for the contact, he let himself fully down upon her, his chest to her back, his shoulders heavy across hers.
He’d taken her from behind before, but never like this. Not with her helpless beneath him, his body spread over hers, trapping her fully under him-giving her no option but to receive him as deeply and for as long as he wished.
Her body was a cushion of feminine curves and hollows against which his rubbed, another delicious friction as he settled to ride her with a slow, steady thrust and retreat.
He’d waited for this. He was going to extract every last ounce of pleasure from it, from her. Expose her to every last facet of his need of her.
And hope she understood. Hope she saw the raw need that drove him to have her as explicitly and as possessively as this for what it was-a symptom of complete and helpless devotion.
A need to have, to possess, that went beyond sinew and bone, that, as his spine flexed in its slow, rigidly controlled rhythm and he felt her instinctively soften, then tighten about him, welled and filled him.
Expanded, then coalesced and tightened within him.
Bending his head, his chest tight, his breath gasping, he pressed his lips gently to her shoulder.
Closed his eyes and let her take him.
Let her have and know all he was. All that he wanted and needed.
Her senses swamped with glorious warmth, Letitia felt his strength all around her, surrounding her, enveloping her, holding her. Rocking her, pressing into her, stroking inside her.
He lay like a cloak over her, possessive unquestionably, yet there was more to it than that. Even with her mind floating in hazed pleasure, in the golden aftermath that courtesy of his body moving on and within hers seemed to be stretching endlessly, she felt the connection-the forging of something new, blending and strengthening what had previously been, what had in the past linked them.
Pleasured to her toes, as his fingers found hers and tangled, and he rode her, unrelentingly slow and deep, to completion, she sensed in her bones that he was giving her more-not just in the physical sense, but more of him. Sharing more of him, aspects of himself he usually kept hidden.
Her cheek pressed to the pillow, she felt her lips curve. Welcomed the escalation as he thrust harder, deeper, nudging her up the bed even though he held her beneath him. The fluctuating pressure of his groin against her bottom, never quite leaving her, a continuous tactile impression mirroring his deeper possession, struck her as frankly erotic.
She’d always loved the sensation of being skin-to-skin with him. Of being naked, no barriers of any sort, with him.
Feeling the telltale rising tension invest and harden his limbs, tighten the steely muscles holding her down even more, her smile deepened and she let her senses expand-to her surprise felt her own body stir, respond, rise again to his beat.
He thrust still harder, once, twice, then a long groan ripped from his chest as his hips slammed hard against her bottom. Pressed in as he pumped into her, his release washing through him-triggering hers.
Amazed-she hadn’t thought it possible-she felt the golden tide rise and sweep through her once again, this time gentler, yet longer and more pervasive, an extended moment of exquisite pleasure that had her gasping, struggling for breath. Deep within, she felt her womb contract, felt her body clutch and hold him.
Satiation came in hard and swift, rolling over her, claiming what was left of her mind, disconnecting her senses and setting them free. In the instant before she surrendered to the glorious drugging bliss, she wondered if her body knew more than she.
Lying slumped over Letitia, his head cradled on her breast, her fingers moving slowly, caressingly through his hair, Christian recalled his aunt’s words. Hoped he’d managed, over the past hours, to fashion a loop or two with which to reel his elusive lady in.
He’d eventually summoned enough strength to disengage and lift off her. He’d rolled her over and settled them more conventionally in the bed, but had yet to pull the covers over their cooling bodies.
He liked lying on her, their limbs damp and tangled in aftermath, and she didn’t seem to mind in the least.
Her fingers slowed. From above him, her voice drifted through the darkness. “What are you doing here, in my bed, in my arms?”
An easy enough question to turn aside with some jocular remark, yet…“I’m waiting for you to open your eyes and see me. Here. In your bed, in your arms.”
She snorted softly. “I know you’re here.” She shifted beneath him. “That’s no news.”
“No.” He lifted his head and looked up at her face. “But what you need to see is that I’m not leaving. Not this time.”
A long moment passed while she looked into his eyes. Her expression was serene, madonnalike, unreadable, then, her eyes still locked with his, she raised her brows. “Is that so?” Her tone cast the question as rhetorical. After another moment of considering him-studying what she could see-she quietly said, “You don’t own me, Christian.”
“No.” If he’d failed to grasp that before, he knew it now. “I never did.”
But as he in turn looked into her green-gold eyes, he had to wonder if, perhaps, he had owned a part of her all along, and simply hadn’t understood.
She wasn’t sure of his current tack-of him; her uncertainty showed in her eyes. “So…what do you want from me?”
The easiest question of all. “The same thing I’ve wanted from you from the first. You, as my wife.”
“Your wife?” She let another moment tick past, then asked, her tone cooler, “And what of your revenge, your strategy to pay me back for not waiting for you and marrying Randall instead?”
“You didn’t have a choice. I know that now.”
He kept his gaze locked with hers. She searched his eyes, his expression, considered what she saw. Then she quietly said, “Your head knows that. But does your heart?”
The question hung between them.
She did, indeed, know him very well.
He looked inward, found, sensed, the lingering threads of his years-old anger-yet as he looked deeper, as he searched for the truth with which to answer her, he felt those threads wither and crumble. Blow away.
What he saw, what he found…
Between them now only the truth would do.
He felt his lips curve in self-deprecating cynicism; he’d been a fool to imagine his heart had ever been, or could ever be, otherwise.
“My heart?” He refocused on her eyes, held her gaze steadily. “My heart only ever had one thought, one want. One need. Despite all, in spite of all.” He felt as if he were sinking into the golden depths of her eyes. Let go. “All
