Something sad flitted through her eyes, but it didn’t linger. She looked at him evenly. “If a future husband is upset that I have no hymen, then he may go to hell.”
“He may,” Jarrell agreed. “But it is a consequence, and one we should consider first.”
She gave him a look that many wouldn’t have dared to give a duke, and his chest was about to crack open with all the things he felt for this woman. “I’m not a fool,” she informed him. “I’ve been considering it since the moment I woke up here. Since the moment I ran away in the first place.”
He’d underestimated her again. “Of course,” he murmured. “I just want to be careful with you, that’s all. Careful with your future. It should be your own, and no one else’s.”
He heard his own words then, could imagine her saying them to him instead.
His future could be his own too.
She tilted her head enough to kiss his fingers, which were still tangling gently through her hair. “Trust me. Please. In a few hours, you will escort me away from here—and to the beginning of the rest of my life. I don’t know what will happen after that…but I do know we can have this. We can have right now.” Her eyes were imploring, her cheeks flushed with need. Her words undeniably true.
He wanted to believe her. He wanted to believe that they could have this moment, they could have right now—that they deserved it precisely because a real future was impossible between them. She would want to leave, and he’d already made plans to. Neither of them would be at Far Hope for long after tomorrow.
In the end, the choice was made much, much easier: she found his hand and guided it under the blanket, pressing his fingers right to the heart of her.
Right to the place that she’d so shamelessly rubbed against him. Right to the place where he’d kissed her so deeply that she’d reached her peak against his greedy mouth.
The place he’d pay any amount of money or pain to be inside of right now.
She was so wet that his fingertips were immediately slicked with her need, and she was so warm that she could have rivaled the fire behind her. And the softness . . . the silky-soft curls and the plush give of her lips . . . the satin of her inner petals…
He already knew the succulence of her, had already tasted her sweetness and felt her delicate warmth against his lips and tongue. But this—the supple heat, the sheer squeeze of her—he had no preparation for this, no defense. For sixteen years, he’d starved himself, and now here was a feast of the highest order, his for the taking. No longer could he deny the marauder within, the raiding pagan.
She would be his.
She would be his.
Without her prompting, he slid his finger as deep as he could, deep enough to seat his palm against her little berry and press against it as he explored her. She gave a long, low sigh and practically melted in his arms, her thighs sprawling open to give him access, her head coming forward to rest on his shoulder. Underneath her plush bottom, his organ was harder and thicker than ever, demanding entrance into the tight heaven he was exploring.
He’d denied himself too long, and may God forgive him for what he’d do next.
With a growl, he withdrew his hand to unfasten his breeches, making quick work of the falls and also of his shirt, needing to feel as much of her soft skin against his as possible. “Up on your knees,” he ordered, giving himself a rough pump as she speedily complied, remaining astride him but lifting herself a few inches off his lap. The blanket he shoved out of the way, pooling it around her hips and pulling it free from her shoulders. He tugged it impatiently to the sides too, needing to see her cunt.
If he was to break his promises, if he was to indulge, then he would not do it by halves. He would not deny himself a single sight or sound or taste. This one night would have to last him the rest of his lonely, exiled life, and he planned to have his fill.
Once her sex was on display for him, he cupped her, curling a possessive hand around where she was soft and wet. This was to be his. Those delicious breasts in front of him—firm but full, tipped with sweet berry-pink peaks—those were his too. He leaned forward to take a nipple into his mouth, and he relished her gasp as he sucked on it. He relished the unconscious push of her into his hand, as she instinctively sought pressure. Invasion.
He gave it to her, returning his finger to her entrance and slowly sliding inside. He only gave her a moment to adjust before he added a second one, her answering moan shredding what was left of his control.
He needed to fuck.
He needed to fuck this slick little opening; he needed to get inside it and rut; he needed to fill her until neither of them could remember a time when they weren’t joined.
“You’re going to put me inside you,” he said, releasing her breast as he pulled his fingers free. He licked them clean. She tasted good. Like cream with a dash of something earthy and sweet.
“Reach down—yes, like that, wrap your fingers around me—”
His words were cut short as her slender fingers sheathed his root. Her hair, which was every shade between platinum and bronze in the firelight, slid over her shoulders to brush against her breasts as she looked down. Her long eyelashes left fan-shaped shadows on her cheeks, and he couldn’t see her eyes as she took in the sight of him, but he could see the slow, wondering part of her lips. The way her tongue peeped out to taste her lower lip, as if she was thinking about tasting him. He nearly lost it then and there, and she hadn’t even started.
“Good, now put it in,” he said, his voice gone guttural. “Just the tip of me, at first. If you want to stop then, we can.”
“Yes, Ajax,” she whispered. She aligned him with her sex, lowered those plush hips, and—
“Fuck,” he swore viciously, feeling her. The slick, wet kiss of her. It was only the press of his head against her folds, but already he didn’t know if he could keep still, keep himself from sweeping her off to the bed and shoving into her like a beast.
She placed one hand on his chest, her other still gripped tightly around him. He felt her knees spread as far as they would go in the chair, and then—Jesus—God—more, she was taking more. He looked down and nearly perished; the plump head of his cock was nearly inside, and the clutch of her, the unforgiving clasp…like he was being wedged into heaven itself.
He wanted to punch his hips up into her. He wanted to thrust, to take, to have that fist-like silk all over him from base to crown. He wanted to find the end of her sheath; he wanted her so filled with him that she milked him as she came. He wanted her swollen bud rubbing against him as she rode him, taking him deep, so fucking deep . . .
“You’re trembling,” she observed, looking up at him. She was so beautiful like this, with her cheeks pink and her eyes bright. With her pretty mouth not in a frown of forbearance but a pout of pure, untrammeled need.
“You’re trembling too,” he said. He could feel her quivering, see her stomach contracting as she adjusted to the stretch of his member. “Does it hurt?”
He did not want to hurt her. Well, not this way at least—he couldn’t deny that he wanted to discipline her sweet little bottom and redden the curves of her breasts with his stubble. But this was a different kind of pain. Jarrell well remembered the first time he’d been fucked by another man; he’d ejaculated hard in the end, jetting his spend all over his chest while a decadent Michaelmas ball whirled around him, but it had taken time for him to relax around the intrusion, to feel the discomfort melt into a sharp, raw pleasure.