16 #2
He exhales slowly as if giving me a chance to change my mind.
When I simply stand there and look up at him, he growls, “Thank fuck.” He grabs my hand and tows me down the hall to the master bedroom.
“I love this dress. But if you don’t tell me how to get it off you in the next thirty seconds, I’m going to cut it to pieces. ”
Shock and pleasure have me laughing. “Laces in the back. Please don’t cut up my wedding dress.”
He makes another of those delicious growling sounds and spins me around to face the dresser across from the bed.
To face the giant gilded mirror that hangs over it.
I stare at it, hardly recognizing the woman reflected there.
She looks like a stranger, dressed in her crimson wedding gown with her cheeks flushed from desire.
I watch Eros as he moves to stand behind me, his expression a mask of concentration and impatience as he gently tugs the laces loose until the dress sags away from my body.
I should help, but I can’t stop staring at the picture we make.
“For fuck’s sake, it’s like one of those Russian nesting dolls.” Eros runs his hands over the corset, guiding my dress past my hips to the floor. Again, he goes to the laces, though this one requires a little more finesse because Persephone is a sadist and laced it up tight.
“You could just leave it on,” I gasp. The little jerking motions as he frees the laces are a strange sort of foreplay that I didn’t expect, but then I’ve never had a partner get me out of a corset before.
“No way. I want access to all of you.” The last row of laces gives, and he yanks the corset off me. I hear it hit the ground behind us.
I freeze, gripping the dresser hard enough to hurt. He saw me naked just a few hours ago, but I can’t help the stab of insecurity I feel. Corsets might look like a dream, but they leave press marks across the skin of my stomach. It’s hardly the sexy image I’d choose for tonight.
Eros meets my gaze in the mirror. The naked hunger on his face puts what few doubts I have aside. This man has no reason to lie to me, not about this. Which means he wants me just as desperately as I want him.
He wants to seduce me properly.
“Look at you,” he murmurs, closing the distance between us to press his body to my back. “You’re so fucking beautiful.”
I expect him to go nearly feral the same way he did early today.
But apparently my new husband isn’t in the mood to rush despite his determination to get my wedding dress off.
He sinks his hands into my hair, removing the bobby pins that Persephone put into place one by one.
It feels like there’s a thousand of them, and he goes after each methodically, dropping them on the dresser next to us.
He’s barely touching me, his fingers carefully moving through my hair, occasionally pressing to the tight knots at the base of my skull, but it feels like he’s doused me in gasoline and lit a match.
I can’t stop shaking. I want to reach for him, but I also don’t want this slow seduction to stop.
And it is a seduction, even if I doubt he’d label it as such.
I open my eyes, not quite sure when I closed them, to find a look of utter concentration on his face.
Every bit of Eros’s formidable attention is focused on me.
The realization is one of the headiest moments of my life.
This man is mine.
Maybe not in truth, maybe not forever, but for right now.
Once my hair is free to fall down my back in loose waves, Eros moves it out of the way and presses a kiss to my neck.
He drags his mouth over the slope of my shoulders, watching me in the mirror.
Somehow, this feels more intimate than when he had his mouth all over me earlier today.
I can see everything. My body. My need. His blatant desire burning hot enough to incinerate both of us.
His teeth graze sensitive skin, but he’s oh so careful not to mark me. I can tell even while completely overwhelmed with this experience. And that care, that thoughtfulness, only makes this moment more intoxicating. “Take off your pants,” I gasp.
“Not yet.”
Frustration adds spice to my desire. “Please, Eros. I need you.”
“Not yet,” he repeats. He cups my breasts with a rough touch, and if I didn’t know better, I’d say his hands are shaking.
Surely not. Surely Eros Ambrosia isn’t so affected by me that he’s off his game.
It doesn’t matter that the look on his face is downright reverent.
But then he goes and blows my assumptions out of the water with his next words.
“If I take off my pants, I’m going to be inside you, and if I’m inside you, this will be over too quickly. Don’t rush me.”
My body flushes hot and needy. I arch my back, pressing my breasts more firmly into his touch. I can’t doubt his words. Not when he’s told me harsh truths and soft ones. He has no reason to lie to me now. He’s getting exactly what he wants, after all—what we both want.
I tentatively run my hands up his arms, lingering over the harsh lines of his muscles. We paint quite the picture. Me, naked and soft. Him, clothed and all barely controlled strength. “Touch me.”
“I am touching you.” His voice is lower than I’ve heard it yet, rough and tight. “Or do you mean touch you like this?” He moves, bracketing my throat with one hand and sliding his other down to palm my pussy. I’ve never felt so owned in my life. I’ve never looked so owned.
No, not owned. Possessed.
I lean forward a little just to feel the strength in his palm against my neck, just to have him flex his fingers against my sensitive skin.
Eros holds my gaze as he parts my folds and pushes two blunt fingers into me, a slow and thorough penetration. I start to shut my eyes, unable to bear being exposed like this, but he makes a sharp sound. “No. Don’t hide from me. Not tonight. Not like this.”
I can’t handle the sheer heat in his eyes so I focus on his hand between my thighs. It looks as good as it feels. He idly fucks me with his fingers, strumming my need higher and higher. “Look at you,” he murmurs. “You’re so fucking perfect.”
If any other partner said those words—and they have—I would chalk it up to being caught in the heat of the moment. I know I’m attractive, but my beauty doesn’t inspire the reverence these kinds of compliments inherently carry.
Except…
Eros sounds like he means it. He looks like he means it.
He keeps working my pussy in slow strokes as his free hand moves over my body, like he can’t touch me enough.
Cupping first one breast and then the other, stroking down my stomach, over to squeeze my hip as he makes a growling sound.
“Fucking perfect .” He eases his fingers out of me and moves up to circle my clit.
“So clever and ambitious and you hide it behind this pretty face. Do you ever let down your walls, beautiful girl?”
“Eros, please.” I don’t know what I’m asking for. For him to stop, to never stop, to just make me orgasm without saying words that feel like he’s lashing me right down to my soul.
“That’s answer enough.” Eros nips my shoulder, making me jolt, and slides two fingers back into me. “Let go, Psyche. I want to feel your pussy clamp around my fingers as you come.” He presses the heel of his hand to my clit, each stroke rubbing me where I need it most.
I don’t last another sixty seconds.
I come hard, the cry barely passing my lips before his mouth is on mine, devouring the sound as he strums my pleasure higher and higher.
Wave after wave. Gods, it’s too much and not enough, and if I could think properly, I’d be terrified that I’ll never get enough.
My knees give out; he doesn’t miss a beat.
Eros guides me back onto the bed and far enough up the mattress until he can kneel between my spread thighs.
The way this man looks at me.
If I were smarter, I’d find a way to run from him. The heat in Eros’s eyes is something like obsession, and being this man’s sole focus is dangerous in a way I’m not prepared to deal with. I am strong; I’ve had to be in order to survive this long mostly unscathed.
I’m nowhere near strong enough to win a battle of wills with Eros if he ever decides he wants to break me to pieces.