Chapter 7 #2
They didn’t have much time, true, but if he didn’t concentrate it would be too fast. It would make him crave her even more.
He didn’t want her to understand how irresistible she truly was.
That would have her believing there could be a happily ever after, and with him, that was a bad bet.
He’d save her from his mother’s fate. He wanted no grieving widow collapsing at his grave.
Her mouth lifted from his and he took a gulp of head-clearing air. She let go of his arms where she’d imprisoned them above his head and slid back down his body, her lips searing his skin everywhere with kisses. He couldn’t let her taste him again—he’d be undone.
He reached for her and pulled her gently but firmly back up his body. A scowl mingled with passion on her face and she opened her mouth to protest, but the words dissolved into a moan as he sat up and swirled his tongue around a taut nipple, sucking it deep into his mouth.
He leaned against the headboard, his mouth never leaving her breast, and pulled them both into a sitting position.
He exulted in the convulsive arch of her body, the firm grip on his shoulders, nails digging, urging him to engulf her other breast. He took it in with a passion, feeding off her response, remembering the heady aphrodisiac of her taste and feel.
Her thighs straddled his hips. The heat of her flesh on him hardened him still further. Hearing her ragged breathing, the eager moans purring from her throat, feeling her tremors of excitement against the rigid hardness of him, he wondered how he could ever have let her go.
She’s back now, he thought. And you’re never leaving me again. He froze for an instant. Could he stop her if she ever chose to invoke her out-clause and take his children with her to England? She wouldn’t if he gave her what she wanted—love.
Love. Could he trust her? She had lied to him once. Deceived him. And then she left.
Abby sensed his hesitation and took advantage. She wrested control from him. She rose above him and slid slowly down the full, thick length of him. She shuddered as he filled her.
Charged with a wild energy, he surged upward, driving deeply into her. Totally in command now, she began to move and he was helpless to slow her rhythmic surging. He battled to disguise his intense pleasure at her wild cries of satisfaction.
Dante was hard-pressed to maintain his control.
She was wild and wanton above him. He tried to silence her enraptured cries with a kiss meant to make her slow down, make it last. He wanted this to last forever, imagined them taking their pleasure in a sensual feast prolonged to exhaustion.
He was determined that their first coupling since she’d left would obliterate his continual need for her.
Until their physical relationship was on his terms.
He felt her inner thigh muscles pulsing and his control fled altogether.
Each movement was white-hot, an anguished entreaty to finish it now, fast and fiercely.
His body matched her urgency, demanded that he roll her beneath him and bring the storm of sensation to its conclusion.
Abby shook her head, riding him harder, faster.
“For once in our marriage you will allow me…”
The censure in her tone sent a stab of unease to his gut. Dante acquiesced. He arched against the headboard, his hands molding her hips, trying to slow her pace.
Abby could hardly believe Dante had surrendered to her.
Never in their year together as husband and wife had he allowed her to even imagine owning what went on in their bedroom.
He had always ruthlessly dominated, pushing her to a fever pitch of passion, denying his own needs until she had been completely satisfied.
Just once she wanted to see him lose that rigid self-control, to be so lost in her that he gave into his feelings.
Dante inside her felt too good.
“Come for me, Abby,” he murmured, his face pressed between her breasts, his hands trying to hold her still above him.
Instead, she lifted herself higher up the length of him, then slowly sank down again so her muscles clutched around him.
His deep groan thrilled her. He arched upward and thrust deep, driving to repeat the maneuver.
She sank down, wanting absolute possession of all he could give her.
He was moving with her now. She rocked, twisted, and teased him, feeling waves of pleasure break over her.
Abby had never known anything like this.
It was intoxicating—addictive—she was driving him, commanding him…
her whole body keyed to reading his response, feeling his acute tension, knowing she was responsible for this crack in his control.
Now. It was now. She could feel her own peak approaching.
She gripped his sides with her thighs and urged a faster rhythm.
She longed to take his mastery from him, especially in the place he thought he ruled supreme—their bed.
She wanted to make him lose himself in her and bring him to a place where their union was based on mutual need, not a piece of paper.
She trained every muscle, every nerve, and every movement on making it happen, determined to excite him to fever pitch, caressing, pressing, goading with her thighs, muscles, and hands.
She took his mouth in a furious kiss, dueling for supremacy with his tongue.
She won. She rained kisses down his neck, tasting him, marking him with little love bites.
He labored to catch his breath and she exulted in the tightening of his muscles, his thighs becoming rock hard as he thrust deep within her, the ride becoming wild. She heard her own voice crying uncontrollably for him to come…
And the animal roar in response, rising from deep in his chest, when he finally went taut, lifting her up off the bed as he strove for release, filling her to the hilt as he spilled himself in great racking spasms, making her almost scream with pleasure as wave after wave of rapturous release swept over her—her own following his, pulsating through them both, melting her around him.
The afterglow of triumph buoyed Abby. She hauled herself upright and watched lovingly as Dante’s body slumped against the pillows, utterly spent.
Victory felt astonishing. One heady taste of control and she was hooked.
Her body still thrummed with pleasure— pleasure she’d taken, not received.
The word “submit” was banned with relish from her vocabulary forever. Now they would be about equality.
“You’d best go shower or we’ll be late for lunch.”
His cool tone and dismissive words chased away her contentment. When she didn’t move and remained sitting atop him, too stunned to speak, he added, “If you’re not going first, I will.”
He lifted her off him and laid her on the cool sheets. He still hadn’t looked at her.
As he headed toward the bathroom, he called over his shoulder, “That was most enjoyable. I hope you’re in the middle of your cycle or you’re unlikely to get pregnant.”
Victory crumbled under his cruel indifference. How could he not be moved by what they had just experienced? Their joining had been better and more fulfilling than ever before.
Her eyes welled with tears. It would seem she had won a victory but not the war.
Perhaps women taking initiative was something most of Dante’s previous lovers did.
What they had shared was nothing special to him—only to her.
Sometimes she wished she hadn’t been a virgin when she’d married Dante.
She would at least have something to compare their lovemaking to.
He had an unfair advantage, which he used with ruthless intent.
“It’s not fair,” she mumbled under her breath. She angrily swiped the tears from her cheeks. She’d die before she’d let him see how much his callous disinterest hurt.
Abby took a deep breath and told herself to toughen up. If she was to survive their deal, she couldn’t fall to pieces every time he snapped at her and pushed her away.
She was now his for better or worse. She stood up, squared her shoulders, and headed toward the bathroom. She sure as hell was going to ensure it was for the better.