Gray took a deep breath, and then stiffened all over. “Isabel,” he breathed, his eyes drifting open. He stared at her with impossibly blue eyes framed with wet lashes, and made no effort to cover himself.
“Did you enjoy your evening?” she bit out.
His lips pursed at her tone. “Did you?”
“No, I did not, and I blame you entirely.”
“Of course you would.” The silence stretched out, the air between them thick with things left unsaid and a desire that went unappeased. “Did you fuck him, Pel?” he asked finally, his voice gruff.
Her gaze roamed over the length of his body.
“Did you?” he repeated when she said nothing.
“Hargreaves was deep in his cups, and miserable.” While Gray spent a pleasurable evening in some woman’s bed. The thought so enraged her, she threw the towels in his face, and spun on her heel. “I hope you fucked enough for all of us.”
“Bloody hell. Isabel!”
Hearing a splash, she began to run. Her bedroom was near, she could make it…
Gray caught her by the waist, and lifted her feet from the floor. She flailed, kicking and elbowing, slipping in his wet grasp and her satin night rail.
“Cease,” he growled.
“Release me!”
She reached back, and yanked on his wet hair.
“Ow, damn it!”
He stumbled, then dropped to his knees, pressing her facedown upon the floor and covering her body with his own. Her gown was soaked in the back, her breasts flattened into the rug. “I hate you!”
“No, you don’t,” he muttered, stretching her arms over her head.
She squirmed as much as she was able with his weight atop her. “I cannot breathe,” she gasped. He slid to the side, keeping one heavy leg across hers and her arms pinned. “Desist, Gray. You have no right to accost me like this.”
“I have every right. Did you fuck him?”
“Yes.” She turned her head to glare at him. “I fucked him all night. In every way imaginable. I sucked his—”
Gray’s mouth took hers so hard she tasted blood. His tongue slid into her mouth, thrusting in a brutal rhythm, his lips slanting across hers. He held both of her wrists in one hand, while the other reached for the hem of her gown and yanked it upward.
Her blood raced through her veins, her heart pounded furiously against her rib cage. Incited beyond bearing, she bit down on his bottom lip. His head jerked backward with a curse.
“Unhand me!”
Her night rail was trapped beneath her, halting its upward progress, and Gray moved his weight to finish the job. The slight ease in pressure gave her room to buck, and she did, knocking him off guard. She scrambled on her hands and knees.
“Isabel,” he snarled, lunging toward her.
He caught the trailing end of her gown and held it tight, causing the thin ribbon ties at her shoulders to rip away. She crawled right out of the ruined garment, intent on reaching her room. Hope flared the moment before her ankle was caught in a vicelike grip. Kicking out with her free leg, she fought desperately, but Gray was too powerful. He climbed over her, subduing her arms, and shoving his thigh between her legs.
Tears of frustration coursed down her cheeks. “You cannot do this,” she cried, writhing, fighting against the craving within her more than she fought against him. As she struggled, the heavy heat of his erection was an unmistakable weight against her buttocks.
He once again pinned her arms over her head with one hand. The other brushed gently down her side, and then between her legs. He parted the folds of her sex, slipping two fingers deep inside.
“You’re wet,” he groaned, his fingers drifting through the evidence of her excitement. She twisted her hips in an attempt to escape his probing. “Calm down.” Gray buried his face in the back of her neck. “I fucked no one, Isabel.”
“You lie.”
“That is not to say that I failed to make the attempt. In the end, however, I only wanted you.”
She shook her head, crying silently. “No. I do not believe you.”
“Yes, you do. You know a man’s body well enough. I could not be this hard if I had been coming all night.”
His fingertips, slick with her cream, found her clitoris and circled over it. Her spine arched helplessly, her blood slowing and becoming sluggish with her desire. He was everywhere, completely surrounding her, his hard body caging hers to the floor. A finger dipped inside her until it was buried. She shivered all over, and drenched his hand.
“Hush,” he soothed, his voice low and thick by her ear. “Let me ease you. We are both overwrought.”
“No, Gray.”
“You want this as much as I do.”
“I don’t.”
“Who is lying now?” His finger left her, his damp hand clutching her thigh and lifting it out of the way. His arm slipped under her head, his biceps pillowing her cheek, his palm cupping her left breast. “I need you.”
She attempted to close her legs, but then the tip of his cock was there, just at the slick rim of her sex. He stroked it against her, and pinched her nipple. She whimpered as lust misted her skin with sweat.
“You are hot and creamy for my cock.” The edge of his teeth grazed her shoulder. “Tell me you don’t want me.”
“I don’t want you.”
His chuckle rumbled against her back. The thick head of his shaft entered her, stretched her, the pressure just what she needed, but still not enough. Her hips moved without volition, straining to take more, but he pulled back enough to keep just that tiny bit of him inside her.
“No,” he admonished, suddenly much more in control, as if the carnal connection soothed him in some way. “You don’t want me.”
“Damn you.” She ground her face against his arm, wiping away her tears.
“Tell me you want me.”
“I do not.” But a moan escaped her, and her hips swiveled restlessly, massaging him inside her.
“Isabel…” His teeth sank gently into her shoulder, his hips shifting to slide his cock deeper. “Stop that, before I blow without you.”
“You wouldn’t dare!” she gasped, the thought of being left in this agony was horrifying.
“Continue, and I will be unable to help myself.”
She moaned her misery, and buried her face in his arm. “You want to breed me.”
“What?” He stilled. “What the devil are you talking about?”
“Confess,” she said hoarsely, her chest tight. “You have returned for an heir.”
To her surprise, he shuddered against her. “Ridiculous. But I know you will not believe me, so I promise not to come in you. Not until you want me to.”
“You are corrrect. I don’t believe you.”
“You shall drive me mad, stubborn wench. Cease making excuses, and simply admit you want me. Then I will give you this.” He gave her a shallow thrust. “And not my seed.”
“You are horrid, Grayson.” She wiggled, desperate to stroke herself to orgasm.
“Actually, I am very good.” His tongue entered her ear. “Allow me to prove it.”
“Do I have a choice?” She shivered, her skin sticking to his with their sweat. “You will not let me go.”
Gray sighed, and hugged her to his chest. “I cannot let you go, Isabel.” He nuzzled against her throat, and swelled inside her. “Christ, I love the way you smell.”
And she loved the way he felt, thick and hard, his cock as large and virile as the rest of him. Pelham had trapped her with this—this heated, drugging pleasure that made a woman want to languish in her bed and be fucked endlessly. A slave to desire.
She was too weak with craving to protest as his fingers found her clitoris and massaged the surrounding skin stretched wide to accommodate him.
“I am thicker at the root,” he murmured wickedly. “Imagine how that will feel while I pump it into you.”
Her eyes closed, her legs spreading in silent invitation. “Do it, then.”
“Is that what you want?” His surprise was patent.
“Yes!” She thrust her elbow into his ribs, and heard him grunt. “You hateful, arrogant cretin.”
Reaching up to lace his fingers with hers, Gray gave a low growl and began to thrust in shallow digs. He forced her to feel every inch, made her stretch to his width, acknowledging his power and possession. She cried out her pleasure and relief, the feel of him so devastating to her heightened senses.
It was a claiming, one she could say she fought until the very end.
Clenching her hands with his, Isabel surrendered to her new addiction with a sob of despair.
Chapter 7
Gerard grit his teeth as he worked his cock into slick, swollen tissues. Crushing Pel to his chest, he struggled to keep his wits while every cell in his body was focused on the heated pleasure of her cunt and the panting cries she welcomed him with. He burned all over, even the roots of his hair, his drying skin misting with sweat until it was damp again.
“Oh Pel,” he crooned, pushing her leg aside so he could pump deeper. “It feels like heaven inside you.”
She writhed beneath him, the gyrations of her hips a stimulation he could barely stand. “Gray…”
The breathy plea made him shudder hard against her. “Damn it, cease wiggling before I lose what little control I have.”
“This is control?” she gasped, arching her hips up in silent demand. “What are you like when you have none?”
He released her hands, and hugged her slim body to his.
Many times in his life he had been witless with lust. Many times he had given those baser impulses free rein. Never had the need been as fierce as it was with Isabel. Her flamboyant beauty, blatant sexuality, and lush curves were made for a man as primitive in his desires as he was. She had been too much for him four years ago, though his arrogance would never have allowed him to admit it. Now he was worried he would be too much for her. And frightening her from his bed was not an option.
Releasing her hands, he thrust his hands beneath her, and rolled, bringing her over him.
“W—what?” she gasped, her unbound hair falling over his face and shoulders, drowning him in her scent. His cock grew impossibly harder.
“Ride me,” he growled, his hands releasing her as if she burned him. Her ripe body draped over his was nearly his undoing. What he wished to do more than breathe was to pin her beneath him, and shaft her tight cunt without mercy until he was well and truly spent. And then do it again. But she was his wife, and deserved better than that. Since he could not trust himself to take the lead, he had to trust it to her.
Isabel hesitated, and he thought for a moment that she would change her mind and refuse him again. Instead she set her hands to the floor and raised her torso. She slid down, taking more of him inside her, until the drenched lips of her sex kissed the base of his cock. His hands fisted as she moaned plaintively. The positioning of her body angled his cock deliciously.
“God, Gray. You feel so…”
Squeezing his eyes tightly shut, Gerard sucked in his breath at her unspoken praise. He understood what went unspoken. There were no words for this.
Perhaps it was simply that she had aroused and rejected him repeatedly, as no other woman ever had. Perhaps it was because she was his wife, and that added bit of true ownership increased the moment’s poignancy. Whatever it was, sex had never been like this, and they hadn’t even begun.
“You must move, Pel.” Opening his eyes, he swallowed hard as she extended her arms straight behind her, the ends of her hair pooling on his chest. He wondered how they would do this. Would she dismount and face him? Watching her come would give him great pleasure, but the thought of separating his cock from her was nigh unbearable.
“Must I?” she purred in a taunting tone, and while he could not see her face, he knew her look would be sly. She lifted one hand, her weight settling more firmly on the other arm, her ass cradled by his loins. He lay frozen with bated breath as she reached between her legs, first giving his drawn up balls a teasingly soft squeeze before stroking higher.
Oh hell. If she masturbated on his cock, he would explode.
“Are you going to—?” he began.
She did.
He grunted as her cunt clenched tight as a fist around him. “Bloody hell!”
Clutching her hips in almost panic, Gerard held her slightly aloft as he thrust upward violently, fucking through her gasping depths like a man possessed.
“Yes!” she cried, her head falling back, burying his throat and mouth in fiery tresses. All the while her body milked his cock, luring his seed, the pulsating spasms nearly brutal in their intensity.
It went on forever, her first heated release, but he bit his lip bloody and held on. Only when she went limp in his arms, did he yank himself free, coming hard, spurting scalding streams of lust and longing across her thigh and the rug.
He had wanted to take the edge off.
They had barely scratched the surface.
Pel lay back over him, gasping for air, and he cupped her breasts and kissed her temple. The scent of her mixed with sex was intoxicating. He pressed his nostrils against her skin and breathed it in.
“You are a horrid, dreadful man,” she whispered.
Gerard sighed. Of course, he would have to marry the most obstinate woman in the world. “You rushed the business. But I shall be certain to lengthen the process the next time around. Perhaps then you will be more agreeable.” He levered them both up to a seated position.
“Next time?”
He could tell she was poised to argue, so he reached between her legs and stroked her clitoris with a soft glide of his fingertips. When she moaned, he grinned. “Yes, next time, which will commence momentarily, once I have cleaned us up a bit and moved this arrangement to a more comfortable venue.”
She scrambled to her feet, spinning to face him, a whirl of auburn hair and flushed, creamy skin. Staring up at her, Gerard was struck by the absolute carnal perfection of her form. Purely, beautifully naked, Isabel Grayson was a Venus, a siren—full-breasted with generously curved hips, and a wide mouth framed by full kiss-bruised lips. His cock responded with admirable haste. Isabel’s eyes dropped to it, and then widened.