How could such a blunt, silken appendage cause the sharp, tearing pain she’d experienced before?
It couldn’t, she decided. Wouldn’t. Not this time.
Piers would never hurt her.
She knew by the reverent way he whispered her name. By the careful grip he kept on her thighs. By the power over this act he’d placed entirely in her hands.
By the way he closed his eyes, attempting to hide the vulgarity of his primal desire for her.
He didn’t have to, she wanted to tell him.
She burned just as hot, somehow. He’d brought her to such a place, had found such a needful, shameless, brazen part of her that an obsessive desire for his body overwhelmed the lingering fears and doubts she might have.
Maybe it would be different if he were above her. Or behind her. If he restrained her and pulled her hair.
But like this … with his tremendous body stretched beneath her, his lust contained by iron chains held in a tremulous grip.
All she wanted was to come apart over and around him. To slake his need and fulfill his desires.
She ran an inquisitive finger over the sensitive bulb at the top of his sex, finding a curious, silken moisture of his own making.
He turned his head to the side, his chest heaving with labored breaths, his muscles locked with the herculean effort of his restraint.
It was time. Time to release them both from their chains.
She lifted herself, placing him against her opening, spreading dewy heat on the crown of his sex.
As she lowered slightly, breaching her body, neither of them breathed.
She froze. For an eternity she trembled above him, paralyzed, unable to go forward, unable to turn back. It felt … It felt …
She didn’t know how it felt. It didn’t hurt. But neither did it feel good. Or right. Not like this, with her body exposed and his face turned away.
He thought to give her autonomy. To save her from his gripping hands and his powerful lust, and astounding strength. And she’d thought she could do it herself.
They’d both been wrong.
She retreated, letting his sex fall against her thigh.
“Piers,” she gasped, hating the desperate note in her voice. “I—I need you.” Needed the comfort of his arms around her. The protection of his body against her, even if that protection was merely from her own mind. Her own memories.
He was there the moment the words left her. Right there, twining his arms around her, his forehead pressed to hers, his breath feeding her tight, struggling lungs.
“I—I need you to do it,” she confessed in a small voice.
He stilled, a mantle of veneration settling around them as he reached between their bodies and guided himself back toward her swollen, damp flesh. He prodded at her entrance, settling there before he released his organ, both his arms burrowing beneath hers to anchor at her shoulders.
“What do I do?” she pleaded.
“Hold on to me, Alexandra,” he whispered, folding her against him. “Just be here. Just be mine.” He cupped her head to his shoulder, his own face burrowing into her hair as he urged her trembling thighs to relent.
And finally, they did.
It wasn’t as though he impaled her. Not exactly. It was more like her feminine flesh molded over the turgid length of him as she melted down and around him. But only to a point. After he’d made it so far, her inner muscles seized, locking them in a sexual battle he dared not fight.
“Holy God, woman.” He wheezed as though in pain. “You’re so … tight.”
She wanted to ask him if he was all right. To soothe and strengthen him as he had done for her, but all she could do was focus on the stretching, straining pulse of her intimate flesh as it struggled to contain the length of him. She wriggled a little, hoping it would pull him deeper, only gaining perhaps another inch.
He let out a few foul curses on a long breath. “Tell me to stop,” he begged. “Don’t let me hurt you.”
“Don’t stop,” she panted, pressing her hips down, seeking the relief she knew existed at the end of this. “Just … just … please.”
He understood her plea, and his fingers curled up and around her shoulders, pulling her down to meet his hips in one strong, lithe push.
She cried out, unable to stop herself.
“I’m sorry,” he said tightly, making to retreat.
“No.” She locked arms around him, grinding her hips down against his. “Don’t. Move.” Her order was a hissed whisper, given through a throat clogged with a million opposing emotions.
He obeyed.
At first, all she could feel was him inside of her. This foreign, fierce, pulsing shaft of unyielding flesh and heat. She stayed like that for a moment, just feeling. Experiencing. Analyzing.
No pain. No tearing. Just this uncomfortable pressure at first, which rapidly gave way to an exquisite sort of fullness.
Breath began to infuse her again as she latched on to that one fact.
No pain. Just Piers.
This man, who was so much more than what was inside of her. He was the gentle breath at her ear. The smooth skin stretched over the iron cables of his shoulders and spine as she gripped him like a woman about to fall away from herself.
The tender, banked power of the arms ensconcing her in a cocoon of comfort, supporting her entire weight. The coarse hair and dense muscle of his chest, abrading her sensitive breasts as she crushed them against him.
The softer hair of his solid legs tickling at the thin, sensitive skin of her inner thigh.
He was all of these things, and so much more than she could possibly have fathomed.
Her protector. Her husband.
Her lover.
* * *
Even though every primitive instinct Piers possessed screamed at him to move. To thrust. To fuck. He fought himself with all the ferocity of an adversary.
Because the instinct to protect his woman from any and all threats had become the strongest of all.
Even if that threat was his own primal need.
Besides. He was inside of her. Finally. Locked within a body more sweet and tight and wet than even his fantasies could have devised.
It was enough.
And it would never be enough.
It was more than he dared hope for. More than he deserved, this exquisite gift of her trust.
And still he longed for more.
If it was as far as she could go tonight, he’d understand.
If she withdrew now, she’d take a bit of his soul with her.
It was the most difficult thing he’d ever done, preparing to let her go should her fear overtake her.
Let me show you how sweet it can be, he silently urged. Let me claim you as mine, so you no longer belong to the past.
Slowly, in infinitesimal increments, she relaxed against him, around him, her sex becoming a sheath shaped to the length inside. Her grip slackened, her breath strengthening even as her muscles melted against his.
Her small, delicate hands began a feather-light exploration of his back, running along the columns of muscle bracketing his spine, dipping into the valley between.
Piers returned the caress, smoothing his rough hands over her shoulder blades, charting the dip of her waist, reveling in the silken cream that was her skin.
He wished he could see her face, and yet he wasn’t ready for her to look at him just yet. He treasured the breaths against his neck, the trust inherent in their pose. The intimacy.
“All right,” she whispered.