The Raven Prince (Princes #1)(39)

He was big—very big. Of course he was big. He was a big man all around. She just hadn’t realized how big. Anna quivered in feminine anxiety, but he gave her no time to balk. He was pushing, pushing his large male presence into her, and she was giving way. Submitting.

She could feel the round, smooth crown of his erection pressing into the inner ring of muscles that guarded her keep. His chest vibrated with a groan. He braced himself up on stiff arms, flexed his buttocks, and drove his entire length home. She moaned at the wonder of it: to feel his masculine flesh inside her, warm and hard and now. Oh, goodness it was heaven. She lifted her legs and wrapped them high over his hips and was a little startled to feel the fabric of his breeches rubbing against the inner skin of her naked thighs.

Then he pulled his penis almost all the way out and shoved it back into her, and she forgot about his clothes.

He thrust into her again and again. Hard and steady. His chest and head arched up and away from her in the darkness while his hips kept in constant, mindless, pleasurable contact. She reached up to caress his face, but he gently knocked her hands aside and bent his head to nuzzle her ear. She could hear him breathing fast now as his rhythm began to break. She ran her fingers through the hair at the back of his head and tightened her thighs about him, trying to make this moment last. He groaned into her ear, and his buttocks suddenly flexed hard beneath her heels as he convulsed and poured himself into her.

She arched, wanting to receive all that he could give. If only it would never stop.

But it did, and he was done. He collapsed down, his breath and his body spent. She caught him and held him close, and then she shut her eyes to engrave this moment on her memory. She felt the rough brush of his breeches against her legs and each and every ripple of his muscles as he breathed. She listened to his unsteady breath in her ear. It was a wonderfully intimate sound, and tears pricked at her eyes.

For some reason, she felt bizarrely maudlin. The emotion startled her. This had been the most glorious experience of her life, but it had also been totally unexpected. She had thought it would be a simple physical release, but instead it had been a wonderful kind of transcendence. It made no sense to her, but she hadn’t the clarity of mind to puzzle it out.

She pushed the thought aside to examine later. Right now her legs were spread wantonly wide, sprawled where they had fallen when he stopped moving. He was still in her body, pulsing now and then with the aftershocks. She closed her eyes and savored his heavy, hot weight on her. She felt the wet warmth of his seed and could smell his sweat and the pungent scent of sex. Odd how she liked the scent, and she smiled, feeling completely relaxed as she turned her head to brush her lips against his hair.

He shifted his weight and withdrew from her body. He went slowly, and she felt each of his movements as a spreading emptiness. The feeling kept growing as he rose off the bed and buttoned the front placket of his breeches. All too soon, he reached for his coat and walked to the door.

He opened it, but then paused, his head lit from behind by the light in the hall. “Meet me here again tomorrow night.” The door closed quietly behind him.

And Anna realized it was the sole time he had spoken to her that night.

Chapter Ten

In the middle of the night, when all was black, Aurea was awakened by passionate kisses. She was drowsy and could not see, but the touch was gentle. She turned and her arms wrapped around the form of a man. He stroked and petted her so exquisitely that she didn’t even notice when he drew the nightgown from her body. Then he made love to her in a silence broken only by her cries of ecstasy. All night he stayed, worshipping her body with his own, and as dawn neared, she fell asleep again, replete with passion.

But in the morning when Aurea awoke, her lover of the night before was gone. She sat up in her great, lonely bed and searched for any sign of him. All she could see was a single feather from the raven, and she wondered if her lover had merely been a dream….

—from The Raven Prince

Edward threw down his quill and pushed up his spectacles to rub his eyes. Damn. The words just would not come.

Outside his London town house, in a not very fashionable neighborhood, he could hear the sound of delivery carts beginning to roll up and down the street. The front door banged, and a song drifted up to his window from the maid sweeping the steps. The room had lightened since he had risen from his bed, and he leaned over to blow out the candle guttering on his desk.

Sleep had eluded him the night before. He’d finally given up in the wee hours. It was strange. He’d just experienced the best sex in his lifetime and thus should have been completely exhausted. Instead, he’d spent the long night thinking about Anna Wren and the little whore he had taken to bed at Aphrodite’s Grotto.

But was she a whore? That was the problem. The question had gone around and around in his head all the night long.

When he’d arrived at Aphrodite’s Grotto the evening before, the madam had simply said that there was a woman already waiting for him. She hadn’t indicated whether the woman was a working prostitute or a lady of the ton, out for an evening of illicit pleasure. He hadn’t asked either. One didn’t ask at Aphrodite’s Grotto. That was why so many patronized the place: A man was guaranteed anonymity and a clean woman. He hadn’t been curious until after he’d left.

On the one hand, she’d worn a mask like a lady eager to conceal her identity. However, sometimes the whores at Aphrodite’s Grotto wore masks to give themselves an air of mystery. But then again, she’d been so tight when he’d entered her, as if she had been a very long while without a man. Perhaps that was his imagination, remembering only what he’d wanted to feel.