Chapter 4 #3
In the next moment, his mouth was on hers.
And at once, the shock to her senses was almost too much to bear.
Sybil wished he kissed her with anger. That icy coldness and grim indifference would have laced his kiss.
But they didn’t. He kissed her tenderly, gently.
He kissed her in a way that made it easy to forget all the hurt and bitterness that had marked their marriage.
He kissed her and made her remember what it had been like to be courted by this handsome, compelling man. Made her recall everything she had been so determined to banish from her recollection.
Her hands had a mind of their own, settling on his shoulders.
There was no more night rail to frantically clutch and cover herself, and besides, touching the Duke of Riverdale was a revelation in itself.
He was firm and strong, his muscles flexing as his lips angled over hers.
His tongue coaxed her to open for him, and she did.
The taste of him flooded over her, sweet, like the port he must have consumed after dinner with the other men.
She made a helpless sound into his demanding mouth, and he growled in turn, deepening the kiss.
Making it into something carnal and sinful.
His body connected with hers as he lowered his weight onto her.
She felt his rigid length through his dressing gown.
He settled between her legs, and she moved instinctively to allow him there, feeling too late the remnants of her night rail give way.
The smooth fabric of his dressing gown glided along her intimate flesh, tantalizing her even as she tried to be scandalized by her lack of proper attire.
It felt…good. And she wanted more of that friction, more of the pressure.
She moved beneath him, arching her back, and he kissed her with increasing ardor.
And it was different, so different. She had known his lips before, but now he kissed her in a way he had never kissed her previously.
It was dangerous, this new play of his mouth on hers.
Gone was the attentive suitor who had swept her into a brief engagement and then a sudden wedding just before it had all fallen spectacularly apart.
In his place was the rakehell, the practiced seducer.
The outside world—the house party and revelers, the hurt and anguish of the last few months—ceased to matter.
Instead, she was like the ember that sparked into roaring, crackling flame.
She lost her tenuous grip on control and surrendered to the pleasure. To the sweet luxury of his hands coasting over her body, one of them settling possessively on her hip, the other cupping a breast. To the torment of his mouth devouring hers, his tongue plundering, his teeth nipping.
The hand at her thigh moved, gliding toward her waiting center. His fingers skimmed over her folds, expertly finding her shameless wetness, circling the nub that was so very sensitive until her hips jumped and a low cry escaped her. Riverdale swallowed it with his kiss, feeding her his tongue.
Sybil could no longer cling to her principles, to her rage. Instead, she had the very real, solid male body of the man she’d married atop her, his hand between her legs, strumming over flesh she hadn’t realized was so deliciously responsive until now.
Her mother’s description of the marriage bed had been woefully inaccurate.
Sybil had feared as much. And perhaps it had been that trepidation that had rendered her incapable of finding a lover.
Certainly, it was better to believe that than to think she’d been unable to betray Riverdale for any other reason.
Especially not that he was the only man who had ever made her feel this way. The only man who could set her aflame, break her heart, make her helpless to resist him, cause her to melt at his caress…
He broke the kiss, his fingertips swirling over the bud of her sex.
He had turned down the lamps, but not enough that they were enrobed in darkness.
She could see the intricate shades of blue in his eyes as he lifted his head to stare down at her.
A dark ring around the outer edge of his irises, then stunning pale blue within, as cold as a winter’s sky.
“I’m going to take off my dressing gown now,” he said, as if warning her.
Her heart sped into a gallop. “Is that perfectly necessary?”
She was breathless, her body equally restless. He kept up the pressure on her below, all whilst conversing as if he weren’t affected by what he was doing to her. It was madness. Torture.
“Shy, madam?” he taunted, giving her a cruel grin that only served to heighten his masculine beauty. “I shouldn’t think you would be affected, having already seen me unclothed on several occasions.”
He had her there. She could hardly protest. Sybil didn’t want the arrogant wretch to know the effect he had on her; even if he suspected, she would never willingly confirm it.
“I won’t be,” she lied. “Do what you must.”
The small smirk he gave her said he saw easily through her prevarication.
But he worked at the fastening on his garment without comment, not stopping until he could shrug out of it and toss it to the side.
She had a moment to drink in the sight of him.
His bare chest was a wall of strength, dotted with dark hair, his shoulders sculpted, his stomach lean and flat.
And below that, she caught another glimpse of his erect staff, protruding, long, and thick. His fingers left her, and he gripped himself, guiding his massive cock to her center.
“Wait,” she gasped out, wriggling away from him.
He halted, stroking himself from base to tip, his expression frustrated, jaw rigid. “Sybil.”
She swallowed against a rush of uncertainty. Her body wanted his. Her mind, however, very much feared such a coupling was impossible. Riverdale was immense.
“It will never work,” she blurted. “You’re far too large.”
He laughed. “I can assure you that it will indeed work as planned.”
“Carry on with it then if you must,” she demanded. “I can only imagine you have practice aplenty with all the mistresses you’ve had.”
A muscle in Riverdale’s jaw twitched, his lips tightening. “There will be no talk of anyone else in our bed.”
Fair enough. She didn’t want to think about the endless string of lovers he had likely taken, the women he had kissed and touched.
It made her heart feel as if it were about to crack and splinter into hundreds of jagged shards, and she couldn’t bear for that to happen.
Not now. Not ever. She had to remain strong if she intended to get what she wanted.
Her freedom. If only the notion didn’t ring so blasted hollow.
“No one else,” she agreed.
And how easy it was, for there had never been anyone else for her. There had only ever been the Duke of Riverdale. What a ninny she was.
“Damn it,” he grumbled suddenly, frowning as he loomed over her, hand still wrapped around the part of him that was meant to go inside her.
“What’s amiss?” she hissed up at him, furious with herself for her inability to remain impervious to the devil she’d married.
For still caring.
For still yearning.
She would never learn.
“I need you to touch me,” he said, startling her further.
“Touch you?”
“You needn’t say it as if I were a poisonous snake,” he told her grimly.
“You are a poisonous snake,” she countered before she could stop her aimless tongue.
“The same might be said of you, madam. Give me your hand.”
She wasn’t sure she ought to. But then, if she did as he asked, perhaps this would all be over and she could go to sleep and pretend that her husband had never come to her bed and set her ablaze with his touch and his kisses.
Sybil held up a hand. “Here you are. What you wish to do with it, I cannot begin to—oh!”
Her words left her as he took her hand in his and guided her fingers around his length. He was firm and hot. And his skin was soft. An answering pang unfurled deep within her. A pang of yearning, of elemental desire. A hunger that began to grow.
“Oh, indeed,” he said. “Now cease talking and let me bed you.”
It was far from a romantic declaration, but Riverdale kissed her again, and his kisses robbed her of the ability to think.
Sybil’s lips responded to his, and her body reacted in kind, warming and aching and needing.
With his help, she stroked up and down his shaft, feeling him grow harder and longer and thicker within her grasp.
It was as if her touch brought him to life.
And in response, she grew wetter still.
He licked into her mouth and settled a hand between her legs, once again teasing her pearl, this time with greater intent.
Her hand must have stilled on him because he left her long enough to guide her fingers back into motion before returning to her bud.
This time, he seemed to find a place that was the answer to every question she hadn’t known existed.
His fingers moved with expert precision, making her hips jerk as pleasure arced through her.
She kissed him back, feeling ravenous, and stroked him as he had shown her, gratified when he moaned into her mouth and his body surged toward hers.
How glorious it was to realize her touch had that effect on him. That he enjoyed what she was doing. That it brought her rakish husband to the same place of mindless pleasure she was currently inhabiting.
He increased the pace on that bit of her that demanded his attention, and a heightening sense of pleasure swirled and built to a maddening crescendo.
Her heart pounded, her body wound tightly, and there was something she needed.
Something she didn’t fully comprehend until the moment it broke over her and sudden, acute pleasure flooded Sybil’s body, beginning at her core and radiating outward, all the way to her toes.
She was still reeling from the overwhelming effect when he gently disentangled from her, placing her hand on his shoulder. He notched himself to her entrance, a probing pressure that was entirely unfamiliar beginning there.
His head lifted as he broke the seal of their kiss again. “You will be loyal to me for the duration of our marriage, madam. I won’t countenance you in another’s bed.”
“Then I expect the same from you,” she said breathlessly before she could fully think about the repercussions of her request.
He said nothing, simply stared down at her until, at last, he nodded. “Until you give me my heir.”
“Until then,” she agreed, the fateful bargain formally struck.
He pushed inside her, the invasion so overwhelming that she stiffened beneath him, her nails digging into his shoulders as she prepared herself for whatever came next.
There was pleasure edged by discomfort as his body surged into hers in measured thrusts.
Slowly at first, shallow movements that brought him deeper until she was stretched and filled.
Their hip bones met, the weight of his body upon her heavy and yet thrilling.
Her nipples brushed against his chest as he stilled, planted within her, their union finally, at last, consummated in deed as well as word.
He began to move, pleasure mingling with a hint of pain unfurling within her.
Her inner muscles clenched on him. Sybil didn’t know what to do, but her body seemed to understand as instinct took over.
They moved together, her hips following his, the glide of his shaft within her sending Sybil back to the edge.
He took her mouth, kissing her as he claimed her with his body, and she held him tightly, her body convulsing as wave after wave of new, delirious pleasure hit, dashing away the pain.
She made a choked animal sound into his kiss, unable to stifle it as her body came undone, driven by his fierce possession.
With a groan, he sank deep, the hot warmth of his seed rushing inside Sybil before he collapsed atop her, breathing as harshly as she was.
Their marriage had finally been consummated.
And for reasons she had no wish to consider, Sybil held him to her instead of pushing her husband away, reveling for a moment in the closeness between them, the transitory illusion that happiness was truly within her reach.
Until he rolled away, leaving her chilled and naked, lying on her back in the low gaslight.
Alone.