Chapter 16 #5
He drew out, then pushed in again, and the motion was so intimate, so intriguing that her eyes went wide in surprise.
God preserve her, there was more. His slow, careful movements enchanted her, though they seemed to cost him some effort.
Indeed, when his head swooped down and his lips seized her breast, his mouth plundered and drew hard on her where his lower body still only coaxed.
But his patience soon had the desired effect as her body began to adjust to his size and then even relish it. The exotic yearnings he’d roused earlier returned with a vengeance, making her writhe beneath him and clutch at his waist to get more, feel more, have him deeper inside her.
He needed no more encouragement than that. Increasing the pace, his body thundered rampantly above her, around her, inside her. The bed soon shook with the violence of his thrusts, yet she urged him on with low wanton moans.
He dragged his lips from her throbbing breast to whisper, “Querida, you’re mine. Mine only.” The leaping firelight made his midnight eyes and urgent expression seem almost demonic as he rocked wildly against her. “I won’t let you go now. Not ever.”
She shook her head from side to side, wanting to deny his claim even as she embraced it. Like a sultan possessing and never being possessed, he held her in thrall with silken chains.
But oh how sweet the chains. The more she struggled, the more she grew entangled in them until she couldn’t think except to think of him, couldn’t breathe without breathing him in.
He’d invaded her and now would conquer her, too.
And she welcomed the conquest, damn him.
Welcomed him inside her, as he’d known she would.
The ache rose again in her loins, pounding in her heart, driving her to buck beneath him. “Good ... Lord ... Ian ... yes ... yes!”
“Let it come ...” he ground out. “Let it come, Felicity.”
She could hardly do anything else. The unexpected explosion wracked her, ripping a cry from her lips as her body pulsed around him.
Seconds later, he drove himself to the hilt inside her and cried out in Spanish, mellifluous words she didn’t understand but comprehended all too well, for they mirrored her own exhilaration.
For a moment, he hovered over her with eyes closed, his head thrown back and his lips still parted on their cry. Then the unholy glimmering of the fire revealed an intense satisfaction that crept over his features, softening them ... erasing the tension that had kept his brow rigid until now.
“Ah, querida,” was all he whispered before he withdrew, then rolled off to sink beside her on the bed. Tugging her on top of his spent body, he curved his arms around her to plaster her to him from chest to loins.
She settled against him with a long sigh and laid her cheek upon his sweat-dampened chest. A lovely contentment spread through her exhausted limbs. She could hear his heart thunder in her ear, feel his slowing breaths riffle her hair.
No wonder he’d been so confident he could seduce her into doing his bidding. Seduction was a potent weapon indeed. It certainly explained the vast number of fallen women running around London.
If only she could stay here like this ... with him ... could delude herself that a marriage between them might work ... If only ...
She groaned. If only was for children who played pretend, not for young ladies who wanted more from their husbands than financial security and babes sired in lust. Ian hadn’t once spoken of love. How could he? He didn’t even know what it was, having never known it himself.
A draft chilled her naked skin, and she shivered. Ian stretched out a hand to grab the coverlet, then pulled it over them and tucked it around her shoulders with such tenderness, it made her want to throw all caution to the winds.
Yet nothing had changed.
No, that wasn’t true. Everything had changed.
Now she had the most pressing reason of all not to marry him.
If he made love like this to her every night, he would reduce her to a drooling, lovesick paramour in a matter of weeks, while he continued to hold his heart—and his soul—in reserve.
That possibility was too horrible to contemplate.
Pushing up off his chest, she stared down into the relaxed face of the most maddening—and tempting—man she knew. “Ian—” she began.
“Shh,” he murmured, pressing a finger to her lips. “We can talk later.”
Beneath her, she felt him stir again, and her heart fluttered like a flirtatious coquette in response. Drat the man, it wouldn’t be a matter of weeks. Days, more like.
Who was she fooling? She wanted to be his lovesick paramour this very minute.
With a self-satisfied smile, he drew her head down to capture her lips, and as he began to kiss her with lazy enjoyment, she melted all over him like butter spread on toast. Oh, well, she thought with a sigh when heat shot from his mouth through her body and straight down to her loins.
She might as well seize one more chance at doing this with him tonight.
There’d be plenty of time tomorrow for resisting him.