Chapter Nine
“I’M NOT IN the bedroom!” Joy gasped as Axel pounced on her.
She pushed her hand against his shoulder, not sure what had possessed her to provoke him like this. A desire to see if she could get a reaction out of him? Gain the upper hand in some way? No chance of that!
“You chose the bed, Honigbiene. Lie on it.” He tipped her, pressing her to the lacquered top of the Louis Quinze replica, shoving the small lamp out of the way so it fell with a dull thud to the floor.
This was what she had wanted, she realized, as he filled his hands with her. The way he claimed her made her feel wanted.
Even so, the hard desktop had her arching in protest. “It’s cold!”
“You’ll warm it.” He used his weight and leverage and the cup of his hand on her breast to keep her in place while he buried his lips in her throat.
Her skin felt so sensitive, the desktop was almost painful, as was the friction of his trousers between her thighs.
“Axel,” she gasped, cradling his head in her hands.
“Too fast?” He lifted his head and kissed her, but his wicked hands were on her breasts, teasing her nipples until she twisted beneath him, unable to bear the tendrils of heat sparking from her breasts to her loins. “This is all I’ve thought about since the moment I laid eyes on you.”
She sobbed out a noise of acquiescence, pleased with that confession, but she was bombarded by so many sensations she didn’t know how to cope with it all.
The brush of his tongue swept against hers.
The faint stubble on his chin rasped her skin.
The knit of his pullover slid against her chest and stomach and beneath her hands as she clutched at the flexing muscles of his back, sending her plunging straight back into the eroticism of their encounter on the plane.
She jerked her face to the side, trying to catch her breath.
He moved his seductive lips to her ear, wafting a wicked chuckle against her cheek. “Open your eyes, Honigbiene.” He licked beneath her ear, over to her throat.
She dragged her heavy eyelids open and turned her head to look up at him.
“No. There.” He turned her face to the side again. “That woman has been driving me insane.”
They were reflected in the mirror mounted on the pillar. She was essentially naked with one breast exposed, nipple standing high, beaded with arousal. The other was hidden, possessed by his hand, the tip soon captured by the hot suction of his mouth.
She cried out as dangerous, thrilling sensations shot into her pelvis.
As though he knew exactly how fiercely she yearned for his touch there, his hand swept down her waist and hip and thigh, caressing behind her leg until she lifted it to his waist, allowing his clever fingers to follow the crevice to where her thong was damp with arousal.
She groaned and wriggled again, but he was too strong to evade. Too enticing to resist. He mercilessly sucked her nipple while tantalizing her needy core.
A gruff curse left him. “I want to eat you up.” He straightened and easily lifted her hips, pulling her underwear free so she was naked to his gaze.
Before she could close her thighs, he was hooking her legs over his shoulders while dropping to his knees at the edge of the desk.
“I don’t—” Her voice was lost in a groan as he used his thumb to caress and part her folds.
“Let me have this,” he said with a catch of intense craving in his voice. “You don’t know how badly I need this.”
She had never responded to oral, but she’d never responded to being felt up before, either, and he’d nearly killed her with an over-the-pants fondling.
Her flesh remembered exactly how adept he was. She was already achy and needy and soft. Shaking in nervous tension and painful anticipation.
It was beyond blatant, the way he was looking at her.
Talking to her in a soothing way as if he had some kind of pity in him when he clearly had none.
Not the way he was toying and avoiding, then spooling out the expectation in her with a soft “hah” of his hot breath against her most sensitive flesh.
“Axel, please,” she groaned, somehow remembering, “Bitte.”
He rewarded her with a slow, benevolent lick.
She could have screamed, it was such a tortuous relief.
She turned her head, but her vision was blurred with lust. Her hand was trying to form a fist in his hair, but the strands were too short.
She could only catch the silky tufts between the fingers of one hand while she gripped the edge of the desk above her head with the other.
She braced one foot on the shelf in the wall and the other dangled off the edge of the desk.
It was the height of debauchery. She had completely abandoned any sense of propriety. Of self. In the mirror, she watched the rock of his head as he lewdly pleasured her and it turned her on. All of this turned her on so much, she could only groan in ragged ecstasy.
He teased her with the addition of a finger, then a second, and found a rhythm that paired his penetration with the sweep of his tongue. She knew she was making the most lascivious noises, filling the room with them as she dug her foot onto the shelf and lifted her hips into his pleasuring.
Maybe she was even saying “please” again. Over and over because the coil of sexual tension in her was so tight she thought she would explode from it.
Then she detonated, and it was as powerful as before. More. It went on and on because he did not let up. Her powerful climax rolled into a fresh, intense arousal that made her sob in frustration. How could it be so good and not enough?
Gently he withdrew his touch and left a wet bite against the inside of her thigh.
She instinctively tried to pull away, but she was utterly wrecked.
She had the vague thought that she ought to close her legs or tell him she wanted a real bed.
Something. But she was too weak to move, and she’d fallen too deeply into the well of lust to do anything but watch as he peeled off his sweater.
He withdrew a condom from his trouser pocket before he opened his fly and dropped his pants enough to bare his ass and his erection.
Since when did she think that organ was beautiful? But that most brutally masculine part of him, turgid and aggressive, made her ache with yearning. She watched him apply the condom and had to swallow an agony of need.
“Say yes, Schatz. I will die if I can’t have you right now.”
“Yes,” she gasped and started to crook her knee, but he drew her legs up so her ankles were on his shoulders.
His cheeks were flushed, his expression intense as he guided his thick length to the sultry flesh that was still tingling with sensitivity. Still pulsing with greed.
As his hardness began to fill her, he hugged her legs, keeping her still for the careful pulse of his hips. The shallow, testing strokes sent delicious spikes of heat through her whole body, making her shake and groan.
“Good?”
“So good.” She bit her lip and clutched the edge of the desk again, holding herself still for a deeper thrust that told them both she was more than ready.
“Now, my pretty wife.” He caressed all around where he was penetrating her, awakening her into a fresh flood of heat and yearning. “I want every last person in Paris to hear you scream my name when you come.”
They did.
* * *
I confused sex and love before.
Had it been sex like that? Because Axel could see how it rewired the brain.
That was a disturbing thought, mostly because he didn’t care to think of her with her ex, giving that other man even a fraction of her extraordinary passion.
His animosity wasn’t jealousy, precisely. It was a deeper, more justified contempt toward someone who had taken advantage of her when she’d been struggling with grief, tricking her into financially supporting him.
Was he any better, though? Axel wasn’t bankrupting her, he reminded himself. Quite the opposite. And he wasn’t lying to her about how he felt, either.
He still found himself brooding on whether he was treating her fairly. What more could she want, though?
I don’t love you. How could I?
And why in hell would he feel a compulsion to give her more than he already had?
Because that sex had been outstanding.
After defiling the desk, he’d carried her in here to tear up the bed. She was magnificent. Strong and flexible, and she had a stamina and sexual appetite to match his own. Her sensuality ran deep enough to bury him. She wasn’t afraid to push back. Or demand.
Ringing cries of ecstasy from her had been as satisfying as his own incredible orgasms. It had been spectacular. Euphoric. He wanted to envelop her and hide her from the world. Mine. But he also wanted to worship her. Celebrate her.
He reminded himself that he was breaking a long fast. The physical relief and sexual triumph from that alone was profound.
But he instinctually knew sex wouldn’t have been this intense with any other woman.
What was it about Joy? Purely chemistry?
Or was he drunk on the way their marriage had given him the upper hand with Otto?
That was a prickly thought, but there was some truth to it. Certain exultant emotions were riveted into this act that he didn’t care to examine right now, because his battle with Otto wasn’t finished. Axel was merely enjoying a moment of respite while he gathered his forces for his next move.
Joy was a key member of his assault. That was why Axel was so eager to spoil her, he reasoned. He wanted this marriage to appear watertight.