His gaze plunged deeply into hers. “Trust me. We will have an excellent marriage. I promise, and you know I always keep my promises.”
Incredibly, she did trust him.
He eased into her softness. He flexed his hips and pressed further in. She felt every inch of his hardness, stretching andfilling her. He reversed direction and she let out the breath she had been holding.
She moaned his name.
She trembled with desire, and he kissed her more deeply. She bent her knees and placed her feet beside his hips until her thighs hugged his waist. His tongue penetrating her mouth like his shaft was doing. Not allowing any resistance, his powerful thighs kept her thighs parted as he slowly, slowly sank further, pushing forward an exorable pressure.
He continued teasing her, entering her and withdrawing until she was wet and open and almost delirious with desire, moving in a rhythm that was as ancient as time.
He took her mouth as he was taking her body, his tongue mimicking his delicious torture below. He slid deeper, and his tongue plundered ruthlessly. He settled more heavily between her legs, and she felt the power and strength of him.
She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to catch her breath.
He was not moving now. “Look at me, look into my eyes while I claim you.” When she looked, she saw tenderness and love as he gazed down at her.
He brushed back a tendril of hair from her cheek.
Oliver rose onto his forearms and his eyes glinted down at her, the weight of his lower body holding her immobile as he looked down and watched as he withdrew and slowly, even more powerfully, entered her.
She followed his gaze and watched as he claimed her. She felt every inch as he filled her, felt her body tighten until she arched beneath him.
He continued to move above her and her body wound tight as a drawn bow. She closed her eyes and gave herself over to passion’s power. The intimacy of the moment sharpened as he slid deep, and she felt the first stirrings of overwhelming passion.
She sent her hands sliding over his shoulders, running themacross his back until she found his buttocks. She held on as they flexed. He moved more forcibly than before. Her hips lifted to match his rhythm, the friction of their bodies sending spiraling pleasure to her very core.
“Oh, my God.” The restless flames of desire erupted within her. Erupted into a firestorm. At her first scream, he took her mouth. Their lips melded, tongues tangled, hands gripping, their bodies merging in a frantic and driving need. He thrust harder, faster, and even more powerfully. She gave herself over to him, sinking her nails into his buttocks, pulling him close, urging him deeper. She was as wild to provoke him as he was provoking her.
They were desperate for each other. Neither trying to dominate, both wanting to take this journey together. The hunger between them was as timeless as a man and a woman. She writhed feverishly, her nails digging deeper, as she instinctively matched his rhythm. He squeezed his eyes shut like a man in pain, his breathing rough as moved inside her. Thrusting gently into her melting flesh.
When she was on the brink of climax, he reached down between their bodies to find the engorged bud of her sex. Stunned, she arched against him, straining, crying out as a shattering, burning sensation broke within her.
Oliver captured her wild moans with his mouth but never stopped thrusting, using all his skills to prolong her ecstasy as wave after wave of rapture convulsed her slender body. When she bucked and writhed against him, he clenched his teeth, striving for control, trying desperately to keep his savage need in check as he lay buried deep inside her.
It was too much. A great shudder moved through his frame as he at last let himself fall. A hoarse moan ripped from his throat as he plunged into an endless raw pleasure so intense it seared.
Finally, it was over. He was shaken as he lay there in thefirelight, yet eventually consciousness returned. When he felt her trembling beneath him, a fierce tenderness engulfed his heart.
Easing his weight to the side, he pulled the covers up over them and drew her into his arms. His body wrapped around her, warming her, calming her. They lay there together, weak in the aftershocks of pleasure. After a long moment, he lifted his head. In the light from the fire, she looked like an angel, with her tangled cloud of fair hair, her pale ivory skin, her lush lips swollen and wet from his kisses.
She was lying on her back looking at the ceiling. He was lying on his side, one arm beneath her shoulders, looking at her. She was aware of his gaze the way she was always aware of it, but it no longer required management. It was just his particular way of attending to things, and she was one of the things he attended to, and she was learning, slowly, to let that be simple.
“I’m not frightened,” she said.
She had not planned to say it. It arrived the way true things sometimes did, before she’d decided to allow them.
“No?”
“I was. I thought I would be. I’ve been frightened of this specific thing—” She paused, choosing words carefully not because she needed to hide but because she wanted to be precise. “Not of you. Of choosing. Of being the one who reaches toward something and has it in her hands. I’ve always been better at surviving things than wanting them.” She was quiet for a moment. “I’ve never wanted anything before. Not since I was seven years old and wanted to go home.” She turned her head to look at him. “I want this.”
He brushed a strand of hair back from her temple, unhurried.
“Your grandmother,” she said, “told me that once I’m your duchess my world will be full of choices. She said it like a promise.”
“It is one,” he said. “She makes very few promises, and she keeps all of them.”
Megan thought about that. About choices. About the long-accumulated weight of fourteen years in which every morning had been the same morning, every door locked in the same direction, every day the precise shape that someone else had decided it should be.
