In the Arms of a Marquess(56)

“Oh, Ben. Yes.”

She squirmed beneath him, seeking satisfaction. He reached between their bodies and swept his fingers along her womanhood. She shifted against his palm, perfect, ready. He parted her, holding steady against her entrance though he shook with the effort of restraint. Her lashes fluttered, a sound of acquiescence stealing from her throat. In feral relief Ben pressed forward, she gripped him, wet, tight—dear Kama, so tight—and he entered a paradise he vowed never to leave.

Chapter 15

OCEAN. That vast collection of salt and navigable waters in which the two continents are enclosed like islands.—Falconer’s Dictionary of the Marine

Tavy clung to Ben’s shoulders. Her whole body tingled, encompassed in his warm embrace, swimming in murky near-pleasure as she focused on the spot where he pressed inside her. It hurt a bit, but then she shifted her hips some and it started to feel good too, strange and stretched, and astounding and wonderful.

Then—abruptly—wrenchingly painful.

Ben’s palm trapped her scream.

“Dear God,” he uttered. His body went still as stone. But Tavy’s was softening already, heat gathering around his presence within her, the delicious throbbing beginning again, but even deeper and hotter than before. She dropped her head and shoulders back, and his hand fell away from her mouth. He felt good inside her. Not strange any longer. Instead, perfect.

Then there seemed to be much less of him there.

“No! Don’t go. Stop!” she exclaimed, locking her legs about his hips and gripping his shoulders.

The sinews in his neck stood out, his arms and chest muscles taut as he held himself immobile atop her.

“I could not stop now if I wished it,” he replied quite convincingly, his jaw gorgeously tight and eyes entirely black.

“Then why aren’t you moving?”

“Because, Octavia,” his deep voice sounded strained, “your exquisite thighs have me in a death grip.”

“Oh.” She loosened her knees. “Ohhh.” He sank into her, full and deep, and she moaned and at the same moment a sound of pleasure so profound came from his chest that she knew he told the truth about not being able to stop. He drew out almost completely then stroked in again, slowly. Then he did it again. And again, until she sighed with the sheer brilliance of it, understanding the rhythm and creating it with him.

Then, quite suddenly, there was no understanding. No thought. No intentionality. Only pleasure and intense need and a coiling ache so profound it seized her whole, lifting her and wrapping around her, them, so that they seemed one. She gripped him with her hands and, deliciously, inside. He took her hard and deep, deeper each time, caressing so far within it tickled and hurt and filled her up until she was thoroughly open, drowning in his driving thrusts. With her voice she begged him for more, words without shape, their skin sliding smooth and slick as they made passion. She sought him and he gave her his powerful body, kissing her mouth, caressing her breasts, blinding her with the frenzy of their intertwined need.

Desperate, she rose to him and he grabbed her hips, trapping her against the mattress, uttering urgently against her neck an oath in Hindi, then astoundingly tender, “Madhuraa.”

Sweet one.

She came in a chaos of completion, repeating his name. It was an ecstasy so brilliant, so thorough and continuous, that as she took his release deep within her, she wept.

But only for a very brief moment.

Dragging air into her lungs, Tavy let her hands and knees slide away from him and turned her cheek to the mattress. She was ruined. A maiden no longer. Unfit to wed now. Ravished by the very man who had broken her heart.

Her lips split into an enormous smile. Never in her life of chasing adventures had she enjoyed one so utterly superb.

The co-architect of her ruination moved from between her legs to sit upon the edge of the bed. He rubbed a hand across his face, his head bent. His skin glistened with moisture, his tawny strength magnificent in the firelight. Tavy stared, and her breathing puttered.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he said quietly.

She shifted onto her side and pulled her knees up to her chest, languorous warmth curling through her.

“I didn’t think you would do it if you knew. And you did not ask.”

He turned to face her, his brow serious. His gaze scanned her whole body, lingering on her lips then rising to her eyes.

“Thank you for giving me that honor.”

It was not what she expected him to say. And she could not respond with the truth, that she might very well have gone to the grave a virgin if he had not taken the honor.

For a long moment he continued watching her. Then he touched her ankle, smoothed his palm along her leg and leaned in to kiss her. His mouth was gentle, not like before but like the very first time he had ever kissed her. She wove her fingers through the short locks at the back of his neck. But she needed to touch him more, always, and she slipped her hand along his shoulders and back, and discovered again the scars.

She sat up and curled around him, her fingers going ahead. He remained still, allowing her exploration. Her breath stole out in rivulets. Across the center of his back, three rough, umber welts stretched, each a foot in length, two crisscrossing, the third dipping lower. They looked like the whip-marks one sometimes saw upon slaves in India. But Benjirou Doreé had always been a prince in that land.

“How did you come by these?”