Page 63

He slowed. Waited.

“I want you to—”

“Make me come,” he helped.

“Aye,” she said.

Had his own desire been any less fierce, Graeme might have chuckled. She couldn’t say the word. But she would eventually. For now, it mattered not. As long as Gillian understood there was no need for pretense between them. In here, they were husband and wife in truth.

And then she cried out his name, the sweetest sound he’d ever heard.

When she came back down from that sweet place where time and place held no meaning, he finally turned her around to face him. Kissing her with all the pent-up passion he’d felt since their first meeting at Kenshire, Graeme guided his wife to the bed. He should wait, give her time to recover. But the feel of her against him, the strain of holding back . . .

He just couldn’t do it.

Not bothering to pull down the coverlet, Graeme lowered himself over her. He traced a finger from her collarbone down the center of her chest, careful not to touch any sensitive parts.

Yet.

“How do you feel?”

She sighed. “Relaxed.”

She glanced down.

“You’ve a habit of looking down there,” he teased.

“Does it unsettle you?”

There were plenty of things about Gillian that unsettled him. The ease with which they came together. His constant thoughts of her when they were apart. The idea that, despite himself, he might be falling for his own wife, a woman who’d been forced to wed him. Aye, those thoughts unsettled him. Her habit of staring at him? Not at all.

“You can look.” Graeme took her hand and placed it on him. “You can touch. I will say it every day until you believe me—in here, nothing stands between us.”

“I can do . . . anything . . . I’d like?”

He’d been hard before, but now his arousal was almost painful. She stroked him, without knowing how, priming him for what was to come.

“Dear God, woman.”

That only emboldened her.

Graeme wrapped his hand around hers, showing her, and didn’t the minx give him the biggest smile he’d seen from her.

“This is fun.”

No more.

Graeme took her hand, and the other one as well, and lifted them both above her head. Holding them in place, he guided himself into his wife, apparently much too slowly for her pleasure. With one pump of her hips, Gillian set the pace.

Well, if she wished for him to move more quickly, he’d not disappoint. He thrust faster and moved his hips to ensure her pleasure.

When she tried to pull her arms down, presumably to wrap them around him, Graeme held them in place.

“Do you want me to let you go?”

“No,” she said. “I just want—” She met his every thrust. “More.”

Graeme gave her everything he had to give, and when she peaked, he did so with her, the delicious release so powerful he nearly forgot to breathe. Gillian’s face was no longer serene. No longer detached. She was not his English queen, so beautiful but so proper. In here, she was his wanton goddess.