The Duke with the Dragon Tattoo (Victorian Rebels, #6)(75)

She blinked up at him with dazed fascination. His sweat-misted brow. His unconcealed tenderness. But, where his hands were steady before, now they shook when they touched her.

A dark intent lurked beneath his tenderness. A hunger too long denied.

He’d reached the edge of his legendary self-control.

And now, he meant to claim her.

*

He’d meant to wait. To draw this out. To wring every last moment of pleasure he could from her body.

This was what he’d come back for. Wasn’t it? To take her. To fuck her. To claim what he’d been denied all these years.

And he was about to. God help him. Because he was a man no longer used to denying himself.

Except … He’d forgotten various and sundry things in his life, but never anything so important as what her gentleness did to him.

That was what he’d come back for. He understood now. He admitted it to himself.

It wasn’t this raging inferno of desire. This rutting instinct. Not entirely.

It was the small hand delicately exploring the surface of his chest. The softness of her beneath him. The sweet, feminine fragrance of her. The heavy-lidded satisfaction bedazzling her sapphire gaze. The trusting, lazy half-smile she offered him.

The absolution she offered so freely.

He knew he’d lose himself in her body, but he’d never expected to become so thoroughly absorbed in her pleasure.

Gods, was it exquisite.

He held himself levered over her for a tense moment. Paralyzed by a radiant, infuriating arousal. It battered at him with all the frenzy of madness, pulling his muscles taut.

He could do it now. Surge inside of her, take her virginity in one quick thrust. She’d be his then. He could pound into her all of his pain, his past, and his passion.

But … Some astounding part of him refused to move. Choosing, instead, to luxuriate in her insanely tentative exploration of him. Her hands smoothed down his arms, tracing engorged veins pressed against his skin by flexed muscle. Dainty fingers tickled along his ribs, and it took all of his hard-won stoicism not to flinch or twitch.

Or smile.

Her hands paused at his hips and they both ceased to breathe. Indecision blinked into her eyes, warring with curiosity.

He had to stop this. If she touched him now, he’d lose himself. One way or the other, and neither option was desirable.

A primitive fear became a surge of satisfaction as her thighs parted wider for him, making that infinitely sweet cradle for his hips.

Neither of them needed to use hands to guide him. Their bodies found exactly the right position. His cock slid into place, parting her soft folds. He bent to her, surrounding her with his strength, hoping to lend it to her. Sorry for her pain. Wishing he could kiss it away somehow. Or take it upon himself.

He placed his hands on either side of her head, kissing her as he pushed into her gently resisting flesh with infinite slowness.

She gasped and he froze. Their kiss became two people sharing panting, openmouthed wonder.

“More.” It was the only word she’d spoken since they’d begun. It would be the only word spoken until they finished.

He fed her inch by agonizing inch. Her hot, wet flesh closing around him, drawing him inside, inviting him to take his pleasure there. It was beyond even the bliss he’d spent a lifetime imagining.

He dimly wondered, as he watched her eyes widen in direct proportion to his penetration, if only someone who’d experienced the depths of suffering he had, could truly appreciate an ecstasy like this.

He was glad, in a way, that he’d not known it would be this good. This sweet. That he’d feel this much.

Because maybe he’d not have waited until this moment. This perfect moment.

The moment Lorelai Weatherstoke became his.

For the first time in his life he felt both freedom and power. Both surrender and strength.

She moved with him, then, practicing shy little thrusts upward. Twitches and rolls of her lithe body sent him spiraling out of control as she reacted to every sensation and his every movement with raw, almost giddy amazement.

Her little gasps of discovery stroked not just his body, but his ego, as well.

She was enjoying this. Enjoying him. On top of her. Inside of her.

That thought unleashed something within him he’d not expected. A patience he’d never known. An overwhelming tenderness he wanted to both embrace and escape. It held his monster in check as he initiated her untried flesh in long, slow, deep strokes. It allowed him to shore up his threatening release until her head pressed back into the mattress, then began to strain from side to side, her eyes squeezed closed.

Maybe he’d be able to coax two orgasms from her body before he gave in to his own.

Once the hoarse cry escaped her, and her feminine muscles began to tighten in rhythmic pulses, he was forced to admit his folly.

She pulled him with her into a transcendent place. One made of harsh breaths and incoherent moans. Time coalesced with the storm, as a flash of lightning lanced the night, blinding them as its equal speared through their joined bodies. The pleasure just as hot and searing. The bliss just as blinding. And the emotions as binding as a contract one signs with fate.

He’d been lost so many times. For so many years. But, he realized, when he lost himself inside of her, he found something few men ever would.





CHAPTER NINETEEN

Lorelai assumed she’d feel more like a woman after her first time. More grown-up, or something, which was a ridiculous expectation to have for a woman her age.