She smiled at him as she wrapped her arms around his neck and leaned in to kiss him. “So do I. So let’s celebrate.”
Chapter 17
Nathan kissed her briefly, but Abigail was surprised when he pulled back almost immediately. He placed a hand on her shoulder and urged her onto her back. She followed that silent order and rested back her elbows to watch him. He placed a hand on each thigh and she shivered at that intimate touch. When he gently pressed, she opened to him and he let out a great, almost relieved sigh.
“So pretty,” he murmured before he extended a trembling finger and stroked it across her sex.
She sucked in a breath at the jolt of sensation the press of flesh on flesh created. It was a remarkable thing, for he had touched her like this before but it still felt new and exciting and wonderful. She wanted more and at last she was going to get it.
But he seemed in no hurry to possess her. He stroked that same finger back and forth across her entrance, smiling as she arched against him. And when she thought she might go mad from the teasing, he bent his head and licked her.
The garbled cry that escaped her lips was hardly human. She gripped the coverlet in her fists, turning her face into her shoulder as he pleasured her. And oh, he did pleasure her. He sucked her clitoris, he swirled the tip of his tongue around it, he groaned against her wet sex like this was as much a pleasure for him as it was for her. Her hips rose to meet him. He cupped them in both hands, his fingers digging against her flesh as they spiraled together toward shattering climax.
When she reached it, she cried out his name, no longer caring if the household heard it. He continued to suck and tease her through the ceaseless waves of pleasure, and it was only when she flopped back against the bed, panting with pleasure, that he lifted his head from between her legs and smiled. His lips were slick with her release, his eyes bright with triumph and desire.
She stared at him in wonder. So often he looked every inch the proper duke. Certainly he had looked so today when she entered the church and looked down the aisle to him. He was serious and pulled together and sometimes even stern. She had seen a glimpse in the last few weeks of something beyond that external presentation.
He teased, he wagered, he laughed. He drew her in with all those things, no matter how hard she fought the tide. And when he touched her, it was like she dropped yet another level deeper. Now, in the privacy of their bedchamber, he looked like a wicked rake, celebrating a conquest. He looked like a man whose body she wanted to learn over weeks and months and years to come. A man who would make her pleasure a study, like it was the most important subject in the world.
“You look at me like you’ve never seen me before.” He chuckled as he moved up her body.
She scooted fully onto the bed, resting her head on the pillows and shivering as he took a place beside her. He lay on his side, his head propped up on his hand, watching her.
“I can hardly see at all thanks to that display,” she said with a laugh of her own.
“That was the goal. But now I have another.” His smile faded and the rake turned into a rogue, a pirate bent on claiming.
She touched his chest, dragged her hands lower across his stomach, across his bare hip. He shuddered as she took him in hand and stroked his cock once, twice.
“Christ, you’ll unman me before we’ve even begun,” he grunted, but he didn’t pull away from her. He surged against her palm, seeking what she could give.
“I wouldn’t want that,” she whispered.
He loomed over her, kissing her so she could taste her release, pinning her back on the bed as he covered her. She opened her legs to him willingly, her heart racing as they aligned for the next part in this dance they’d been playing at for weeks.
He stared down at her, his gaze holding her captive as he nudged her entrance. And then he was sliding home, slowly and gently, but ever forward. His eyes never left hers, and she caught her breath at the intensity of it all. The sensation mixed with the expression, joined to their fact that their breath had settled into the same rhythm. She was stretched by him, but there was no pain, only pleasure.
He held still when he was buried to the hilt. He leaned in to kiss her, this time gently. “My God, you feel good,” he murmured.
She flexed around him. “So do you.”
He squeezed his eyes shut and groaned in pleasure, and she flexed again. This time when he opened his eyes, there was danger there. Beautiful, captivating danger.
“You and your games,” he whispered. Then he drew back, almost all the way from her body, and thrust. She lifted into him, gasping in pleasure.
Animal was the only way she could describe what happened next. She dug her hands into his shoulders, he crushed his mouth to hers and they moved together. A war of their bodies, a race to release. His hips ground against hers with every thrust and she reached for him at the same time. Her body, still tingling from the last release, found its way easier the second time. She climbed the mountain as he pounded into her mercilessly, and at the top she arched her back, clawing at him for purchase as wave after wave of pleasure stole her control. He pressed his mouth to her throat, scraping his teeth there, whispering lurid, dirty encouragement as she came and came. And when she felt she could take no more, when she was weak from him, only then did he drive into her, faster and harder, his neck flexing and his breath short.
He roared in pleasure, pouring himself deep within her, and then collapsed against her, their sweat slicked bodies still trembling from what had just happened. She clung to him, changed by this, changed by him—there was no denying it.
But she knew she would have to control it, just as she controlled everything in her life. Even if it broke her.
Nathan lay on his side, facing Abigail. She held his gaze, but he could see the little shifts in her body, feel the tension in her. He smiled in the hopes it would soothe her.
“So…were we good at it?” he asked.
For a moment she looked confused, and then he saw the memory of what she’d worried over earlier return. “Yes.” She laughed. “I’d say we were.”
“Excellent,” he whispered as he traced his fingers up the line of her naked side. “I like being good at this with you.”
Her smile softened, and for a moment all the tension fled. He saw a glimpse of something he had never expected, hadn’t thought to want in the whirlwind of the past few weeks. He saw a future, with playful sparring and passionate nights. He saw Abigail at his side in the good and bad times. He saw children with her smile, his eyes. He saw a life where there was no wall between them.
And it was beautiful.
She cleared her throat and rolled onto her back, and the vision faded as she pulled away.
“Abigail—” he began.
She slid to the opposite side of the bed and got up, searching around the floor for her dress. “Yes?” Her tone was falsely bright.
“Abigail, look at me.”
She did so, though it seemed reluctant. “Yes?” she repeated.
“Talk to me,” he said softly. “What just happened?”
She shrugged. “Nothing. We made love and this marriage is now legal.”
He arched a brow. She huffed out a breath. “And it was very good. I enjoyed myself. But it’s not that late, and we’ll have supper soon. I think I’ll go explore my chamber, perhaps take a hot bath. We’ll see each other in a few hours.”