Yvenne flinched, the barest tensing of her muscles.
Maddek frowned down at what had caused that reaction—a faint welt he’d felt beneath his tongue. But it wasn’t a welt. A scar slashed across her upper left buttock, not unlike the stripes from the bowstring on her forearm, though thicker. Newly healed, but apparently still sensitive.
“What is this?” Carefully, not touching the scar and mindful of his claws, he traced the skin alongside the stripe with the pad of his thumb.
“The punishment from my father for sending a message to your parents. One you’d likely approve.” Each word was bitter and hot, punctuated by her heaving breaths. “Or perhaps you think I deserved worse. Both of you decided to strip me of skin for it, but you’d have flayed me and tossed me over the Syssian wall. My father only used a whip.”
Punishment. A mild one from Zhalen, compared to her knee and her fingers. Yet even this single stripe was more than she’d deserved. Any punishment was more than she’d deserved. And Maddek recalled saying what vengeance he’d planned for her—but more than his words, her reply.
If you intend to kill me, I only beg that you do it quickly. My life has been a torment. I pray my death will not be.
Too many punishments she’d known. Too much pain. So she’d chosen a husband who would see to her pleasure.
She’d chosen him. A man who’d threatened to flay her. And now a man who would give his life to protect her from any more suffering.
Yet he could not protect her from all hurt. And some he would inflict upon her.
Throat raw, Maddek bent over her tense form, guiding his cock to her virgin cunt. “Forgive this pain,” he said hoarsely. “It will be but once. Then I will keep my promises to you.”
“The promise you made to rip out my lying tongue?” She panted the question, and her back arched as she did, hips tilting up as if to invite him in.
Her walls, crumbling.
“To fuck you long and hard and deep. To make you come over and over again.” Voice harsh, he lowered his mouth to her ear, and glided the broad head of his erection through her sultry cleft, up and down, teasing her entrance with each pass. “Do you want me to fuck you, Yvenne?”
“I do,” she breathed, a whisper of sheer need.
So Maddek would, but not easily. She was so very wet, dripping with her honey, but her sheath was small and unsoftened by his fingers and tongue. Bent over her slender form with one hand braced beside her shoulder, he pushed against her entrance and only shoved her entire body forward, unbalancing her on the bed.
The moon barely peeked above the horizon.
Rearing back, boots planted beside the bed and as upright as he could stand, Maddek grabbed hold of Yvenne’s hips to anchor her in place for the brute force of a thrust that half buried his cock in hot, tight cunt. The blinding ecstasy of being inside his bride cleared in an instant when a strangled gasp tore from her lips. Then she went utterly silent, pressing her forehead to the bed.
“Only this time.” Chest heaving, Maddek tried to soothe her, sweeping his palms up and down her trembling flanks. “We will wait until you no longer hurt.”
Without a word she nodded, the gesture a tumble of upended curls that hid her face from him. Her fingers twisted in the bed coverings, fisting the white linen as if to hold herself in place instead of fleeing from the pain of his possession.
Those twisting fingers dug into his heart. “Is it too much? You are breached, but it was roughly done. We can continue later.”
She shook her head, and her shuddering exhalation eased the piercing worry in his chest. That breath said it was no longer a sharp pain, but one that was fading.
Around his cock, her heated sheath softened and tightened, softened and tightened, her honeyed walls accepting and then resisting his thick penetration. Her body’s inner struggle was exquisite pleasure that Maddek bore with gritted teeth. Every instinct roared for him to stroke into her with his full length, hard and deep, and to feel the scorching clasp of her cunt clamp ever tighter around his shaft as he made her come.
His heart thundered with the need to finish this battle in the sweetest way, with Yvenne yielding and surrendering to him. And in that surrender, Maddek would know that he’d protected her, and he’d truly had her, and he would not lose her.
But he waited. The moon vanished into the sea. The ship creaked, faint shouts from the sailors joining the cawing of seabirds, and the swaying of the floor deepened as the sails caught the faint breeze.
Yvenne’s breath became as soft as that wind. No longer did her fingers twist, though she had not yet lifted her head. Her back was not so stiff, her slender torso wrapped in thin silk. Such a pretty ass she had, a narrow flare from her waist into small, rounded buttocks. As his splayed fingers anchored her hips in a firm grip, the tips of his claws lightly dimpled skin softer and finer than the silks she wore. His gaze followed the sweet shadowed valley dividing her cheeks, then lower, to where his heavy shaft speared between her delicate folds.
He was only partially inside her sheath, yet her cunt had a stranglehold on his cock. Had a stranglehold on him. Inside her, he throbbed and ached, her slightest movements tugging and pulling at his turgid flesh.
With a long indrawn breath Yvenne raised her head, her back arching. “Deeper now.”
Command or plea, Maddek knew not. But he would have obeyed, would have given what his bride needed but for the way she rocked back onto him, as if in bold intention of claiming his cock. But for the way the voluptuous grip of her cunt both welcomed and resisted him, so that her claim became like hot suction on the length of his arousal. But for the way she moaned deep in her throat, and when it emerged from her lips that sound of pleasure was his name.
A storm of sensation his bride became, lightning that struck the base of his spine and forked to the root of his erection, then surged along his shaft. His seed boiled up in uncontrollable pulses, spilling into her sheath while Maddek grunted through clenched teeth and fought a war that had already seen his defeat. In denial he tried to stroke deeper, but the honeyed channel that had barely yielded to his stiffened cock utterly resisted his softening flesh.
Moaning again as he thrust futilely against her, Yvenne rolled her hips back. “You need not be so easy with me, warrior. If you are to plant your seed, you must plow deep. And I am eager for more.”
So eager. Her cunt was drenched in her need, greedily clutching the heavy thickness still within her.
“More I will give you,” he told her. Wearing sharp claws, Maddek could not stroke her clit, but his mouth was all he needed. “Lie upon the bed. I will feast upon your sweetness until I rise again.”
On her elbows, she looked back over her shoulder, disbelief clear upon her face. “You already spilled your seed?”
“I did not intend to. But it matters not.”