Chapter Eleven #2
“It does,” he murmured, dropping several more kisses on my lips as if he couldn’t get enough of me before his eyes found mine again. “I dinnae want to hurt you, Astrid.”
“And if I told you I was not innocent?” I whispered, struggling to find my voice, caught somewhere between arousal and concern. “What would you think then?”
“’Twould depend on why you arenae longer innocent.” He caressed my cheek. His gaze grew troubled. “Did someone hurt you, or was it consensual?”
Of all the things I had expected him to say, it wasn’t that, and it made me want him all that much more.
“I chose it,” I confessed, knowing I could only ever be honest with him going forward.
He held my heart already, whether he knew it or not.
“’Tis nothing I want to speak of right now, though.
” I whipped my tunic off, tossed it aside, and shook my head.
“Not when there are far more pleasurable things we could be doing, husband.”
Eyeing my well-rounded breasts with appreciation, he did the same and yanked his tunic off, at long last giving me a delicious view of what belonged to me now.
Just as I had suspected, he was perfectly formed from his broad shoulders to the muscles rippling down his torso.
He had a battle-scarred warrior’s physique I couldn’t help but touch.
So, I ran my hands up his chiseled arms, over his strong shoulders, then through the smattering of hair on his chest, trailing my hand down slowly until hooking a suggestive finger over the top of his trousers.
In turn, he stroked and fondled my breasts before releasing a low growl of approval.
Latching his warm mouth over a sensitive, rock-hard nipple, he suckled so deeply that white-hot pleasure speared me.
Biting my lower lip hard to keep from crying out, I dug my hands into his hair and arched into him, rolling my hips again to try to assuage the building need between my thighs.
“Bloody hell,” Declan repeated, cursing hoarsely under his breath. He shook his head and raked his lustful gaze over me. “’Twill be far too fast this time.”
I would take it any which way he gave it as long as it was straight away. At this very moment, and I said so.
He didn’t let me down, either.
Half a breath later, my boots and trousers were gone, tossed every which way, and his near-savage gaze devoured me with stark approval. Growling with need, he swept me off the table, plunked me down on the bed, and came between my thighs.
This time, our mouths crashed together fiercely. Wickedly. I had never felt such an overwhelming desire. Such a rampant, frenzied need to feel all of another. The heat of his skin. His breath mingling with mine.
“I cannae wait another moment, lass,” he murmured against my lips, not bothering to remove his trousers, but freeing himself. “I’m incapable.”
“’Tis all right,” I barely got out before he eased inside me, not roughly but not gently either.
And it felt unbearably good.
Almost too good when sharp, relentless, untamed pleasure cut through me, forcing me to bite my lower lip again so I didn’t cry out.
“’Twas too much,” he breathed harshly in my ear, after he buried himself deeply in me.
He trembled as much as I at the intensity of the moment.
Of trying to keep quiet when we wanted to roar with pleasure.
I knew I was right that he experienced the same, too.
I felt it in the pounding of his heart against mine as he went still, letting me adjust to his sizeable girth.
Felt it in the throbbing of his cock despite not reaching our peak yet.
“No, ‘tis not too much,” I gasped, my throat thick with emotion, struggling to catch my breath.
I steered his eyes back to mine, inhaling sharply at the way gazing into their emerald depths made me feel while he was buried so deep inside me.
“Never too much.” I shook my head slowly and trailed a finger along his strong, stubbled jaw.
“Never too much of you. This. Us.” Tears leaked from the corners of my eyes at all he made me feel at that moment, not just flesh deep but soul deep. “What we will create together.”
The look in his eyes as we gazed at each other spoke to a mutual love most would have claimed that we, being enemies, would never feel for one another, especially this soon, but there it was.
Here it was.
And it burned brightly when we moved together by the flickering candlelight, with the wind whistling outside and icy drafts steaming over our blazing skin.
Wrapping my legs around his waist, I took him so deeply that it felt like we had no end or beginning.
We were one in this intense, spiraling ball that wrapped us closer together, tying us in an erotic, timeless dance that put battling one another to shame.
Yet as he moved faster, I felt that same thrill of crossing blades with him.
That same rush of adrenaline. That sense of battle lust morphing into lust of another variety as the erotic ache in my womb swelled and sharpened.
“I shouldnae,” he half gasped, half growled into my ear. He grew even harder inside me, his body tightening with unstoppable need. “I shouldnae…”
Understanding he feared letting go inside me lest I soak up his seed and swell with his child while on this journey, I couldn’t stop from wrapping my legs more tightly around him, locking him to me.
Could not help but dig the nails of one hand into the flexing muscles of his back while gripping the quilt beneath me, knowing it was far too late to stop the monstrous wave getting ready to crash over me.
For us both, it seemed because when it hit me, and I seized up, crushing my mouth against his shoulder to muffle my cry of pleasure, he pressed deep, groaned raggedly, and pulsed, pouring himself into me.
Burning up in a whole new type of ecstasy, I throbbed just as intensely, impacted so strongly by it that I shook from head to toe.
I thought nothing could compare to the feeling.
Nothing could touch it.
Yet he proved me wrong moments later when he managed a few murmured husky words.