Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
CASSANDRA
The Duke had sent the lady’s maid away. He wanted to undress his bride himself. He locked the door of his bedchamber, and the slide of the metal hitched in her chest. This heavy door was bolted, yet she felt as if a door inside her had been unlocked.
Her heart pounded wildly, her flesh prickled with heat, as she took in his heavy gaze in the candlelight which flickered over them. It was only moments ago that Aunt Isobel, Uncle Winslow, and Edmund had left after an afternoon of dancing, and laughter, and much wine.
“My Duchess of Oakley. At last, we are alone in our house.”
I am his Duchess.
The words settled into her like molten iron set into stone.
She was no longer overlooked or alone. No longer waiting to see what others might decide to do with her. Now she had a place and stood where she belonged.
“At last,” she replied on a whisper.
“This is our wedding night, but if you do not want to lie with me, you do not have to. What do you wish, Cassandra?” His voice was low, rough.
“I wish to spend this night with you as your bride.”
“Turn around.”
She did so, and he began to unbutton the long line of tiny buttons down her back. She swayed as he completed his task.
“Remove it.”
She tugged at the gown, and it fell to the floor.
He unlaced her corset, freed her of her petticoats, his hand sweeping under the curve of her breasts, breasts only he had ever touched.
Even though he stood behind her, she could feel his heavy gaze burning over her flesh, and it set her on fire, no matter how draughty the room was.
He pulled on the pins in her hair but left the tiara intact.
Her thick hair tumbled over her shoulders, down her bare back.
His fingers traced down her spine, leaving her breathless, over a hip, the rise of her buttocks, and landed on one of her scars on her backside. She could feel the heat of his now rigid body.
“Rowen…”
“These are older scars,” he bit out. “Your uncles hurt you?”
“Like your father, my uncles enjoyed the cane.”
“Their orphaned niece in their charge?” his voice seethed.
“They were often carried away by their baser impulses, especially Robert. Alastair protected me from him many times over the years, yet I cannot say I felt gratitude or much relief. I only felt I was to blame. My presence was…”
“Temptation itself.” He kissed the curve of her rump, but her muscles remained tight.
His teeth sank into her flesh, and she let out a moan.
“I intend on blotting those memories from your mind and your body.” His fingers slid over her hip to between her legs, and she let out a gasp, her body sinking back against him.
“Tonight I will know every inch of you, Your Grace. Every bloody beautiful inch.”
Her lungs squeezing together, she turned to face him and pressed her lips against his. Her hands went to the buttons on his trousers, but his hands cuffed hers, stopping her work.
She knew immediately what he would say. “I watched the whores do it often enough,” she whispered.
He released her hands, and she pulled down the garment to unleash his already stiff manhood.
He kicked the trousers away, and she knelt on the floor between his legs as he wrenched the cravat from his throat and did away with his shirt.
Their gazes met in the darkness, and the world stood still in that second, the blood racing hotly through her veins.
He tipped her chin with a soft touch. “You’ve seen this, too?”
She only nodded, and dipping her head, her tongue lashed at the full length of him and swirled about his already wet tip. He let out a long hiss at the sensation. “Bloody hell. I do like watching you.”
At that roughness in his voice, she took him fully in her mouth, her lips tightening over his thickness.
“Zandra…”
Warmth flooded her insides at the sound of her shortened name in his enflamed voice. It wasn’t her brother’s endearment for her from years ago. This was Rowen’s own creation uttered in the throes of his desire, desire for her.
His fingertips tapped on her cheek, and her eyes blinked. “Careful—teeth—”
She adjusted herself, her fingers exploring between his legs, stroking the taut muscles of his thighs.
He let out a groan as his hips rocked against her face, urging her on.
She eagerly met their rhythm as his scent, his moans had her in a spiral.
Her grip on his hard thighs tightened to keep her balance.
Suddenly, he squeezed her cheek, and her lips parted. She blinked as he removed himself from her mouth and cried out as his cock splattered her with its sticky liquid, across her swollen lips, down her chest. She softly laughed, and the tiara finally slid from her head.
“The sight of you covered in me.” He stroked her breasts, tugging on each of her wet nipples until they were long and hard, and she let out a cry. He swooped her up in his arms and brought her to the gargantuan four-poster bed that seemed to swallow them in the velvety darkness.
Swiping at his neckcloth from the floor, he gently wiped her face and throat with it, and she sighed, her head rolling back.
Her heartbeat raced at his savageness, at his tenderness.
Rowen brought her arms over her head. He wrapped the tie around her wrists and knotted it to a thick carved bedpost, pegging her there. She lifted her head.
“Do you trust me?” His hand kneaded a breast roughly.
“Only you,” she whispered.
Squeezing her breasts together, he licked them like an animal, and her body twisted, her legs falling open, wanting, wanting some kind of release that she knew only he could provide. A sort of perverse heavenly kingdom only he offered.
His teeth nipped at her flesh. “I will have what I did not take that day in the forest, my huntress.” Moving down her body, he sank his face between her legs.
Her back arched off the bed. “Rowen!”
This she had never witnessed before—a man kissing a woman thus. Taking her with his mouth, his tongue. Tasting her, eating of her. She surrendered to it wholly.
Kingdom of Heaven…
His tongue licking, lips stroking, fingers sliding and churning.
Overwhelmed with sensations, her body was no longer her own as it jerked in his grip.
Rowen’s hold on her tightened, not allowing for any kind of movement.
His mouth continued in its dark arts, and her fingernails dug into the bedpost as everything she was tightened and came apart.
He lifted himself over her. “Taste your pleasure, Zandra.” He took her mouth, kissing her deeply, and they both moaned. As her body relaxed against his, her husband thrust his cock into his bride in one long, slick surge.
She cried out, her fingers tightening over her bonds, her breath burning in her chest. Rowen’s hand cuffed her neck as he said, “That’s how I want to take you. One merciless charge.”
A low moan unfurled in her throat. “My hawk…I like your mercilessness.”
His eyes flashed as he bore down on her, filling her over and over, their skin slick with sweat. The noise of their bodies clamouring for more filled the room, the bed’s canopy shuddering over them. A roar whirled inside her, gaining strength, gaining speed.
Humans were no better than animals. Wild, without restraint, instinctual…
We are animals, she thought.
There was no shame with Rowen. She relished the knowledge and gave herself over to their violent tempest. To him.
His hand slid between them, and he brought his fingers to her lips, his molten gaze boring through her. “Lick.”
She did as he asked, and his breath hissed, his hips pressing against hers. He untied her hands, and they both settled on either side of the great bed and stared at one another in the failing candlelight.
The scent of their desire was everywhere, in the air, on their damp skin, the bedding that was fresh and clean no more. The fire guttered low, and the winds seemed to press against the walls. Her body sank in the ridiculously comfortable bed, Rowen’s heat at her side.
For the first time, she slept not as a girl relinquished to Fate, but as a woman who had chosen it—and would answer for it herself.