I don’t let that happen.
I put my hands on her hips and drive myself in to the hilt, tearing through her virginity with all my pent-up want. Isabella cries out, her cunt clenching. She’s mine now. She’s been mine since I met her across the boardroom, but she didn’t know it yet. Her blood streaks my cock when I pull back, stains the insides of her thighs. I loosen my grip on control. Let myself stroke into her in the rhythm that my body wants.
It’s the same rhythm her body needs. I’m intending to circle her clit with my thumb. Intending to force her to orgasm around the pain.
But Isabella does it herself.
Her fluttering muscles coordinate around my cock, pulsing and pulsing, and her blue eyes stay on mine as she comes. It’s such an exquisite mix of pleasure and pain that as soon as it’s over I drag another one out of her as I reach the crest of my own release. Isabella’s tight cunt milks me through her second orgasm, and mine rushes out to meet her. She hisses at the heat, at the way I’ve buried myself deep to paint her womb with my seed. I am half over her now, and her lips are mine to take, so I take them. A shuddering kiss. Isabella is the one shaking underneath me.
She needs more.
I drag my tip through the hot spill inside her, but I don’t pull all the way out. I make her come again with my body taking up space in hers. Claiming it. If nothing else, my bride will understand this—I will take everything, every inch.
After a long moment, Isabella’s eyes close. Heavily. Against her will.
With a clenched jaw I lift her into the bed and tuck her in. There is so much more I want to take from her. So much more I want to give her. Pleasure and pain. But the wanting feels perilously close to the fevered emotions that ruined my parents.
I do not indulge it.
My wife sleeps through my leaving. I can’t fall asleep for hours. She’s everything I could have imagined in a wife. More. The problem is how much I love it. How much I’m coming to crave it. Memories of screaming and throwing things and photographers flashing cameras on the lawn haunt me. I wanted us to have a calm, orderly, mutually beneficial arrangement.
Emotion has no place in a marriage.
Chapter Seven
Isabella
Last night had to be a crazy dream.
There’s no other explanation for my lady’s maid with her head between my legs and her tongue moving over parts of me that only my husband is supposed to touch—til death do us part. People have strange dreams after big events. Once I read that weddings rank in the top ten of a person’s most stressful life events. It makes a certain kind of comforting sense.
But everything else about my new room is exactly how I remember. Blue silk sheets skim my bare skin. Translucent curtains stir over the windows. The canopy drapes gracefully over the posts of my bed. Antique furniture waits for me to sit and what?
I don’t know. Tend to my wifely duties, I suppose.
Embroider something, perhaps.
The door to my room opens, and Lila comes in. Her smile is pleasant and professional. I could almost imagine last night never happened except for the knowing glint in her eyes.
My stomach twists. It was real.
Last night happened. Oh my god, last night happened.
I sit up and pin the sheets to my chest.
“Good morning, Your Grace.” Lila doesn’t appear bothered by the fact that I’m still abed and covering myself with the sheets. She glides into the bathroom and returns a moment later with a silk robe that matches my room—white, champagne accents, a pale blue lining. Lila adjusts it over my shoulders like she’s done this every day of her life. “What would you like for breakfast? An omelet? Blueberry pancakes? Pain au chocolat? His grace has already shared with us that you do not eat meat, but we have many other options.”
“Oh, I couldn’t eat,” I manage to say.
She gives me a small smile. “Chef has been up since three a.m. baking. He wants to impress you. He’s a very emotional cook, so unless you want ratatouille every day for a week, I suggest you order a large breakfast and send back your compliments to the chef.”
“Yes,” I say promptly. “I’m ravenous. Please prepare a sideboard in the breakfast room.”
A small wink.
I’m stunned at how Lila moves us swiftly into my new morning routines without a hint of embarrassment. Everything she does is experienced and professional.
I try to match her energy. That’s what I was born to do. Bred to do.
To marry well, and be a good wife to my husband. To let Lila fuss with my hair and bring me clothes from the enormous walk-in closet and lick me between my legs until I’m a soaked, writhing mess if that’s what my husband tells me to do…
God.
I stand up from the chair at the vanity in my sparkling dressing room, cheeks burning. “I’ll go down for breakfast in a moment,” I announce, as if I’m calmly organizing my day instead of freaking out inside. “First I’m going to speak with my husband.”
“Yes, Your Grace,” she says, hesitating for the first time since we met.
My cheeks heat. “If you could point me in the right direction.”
“Please follow me,” she says, sounding relieved. Of course I have no idea where to find my husband. Before last night I never stepped foot in this house.
After an hour-long hike through plush carpet and marble and gleaming wood floors in a herringbone pattern, I’m shown in to my husband.
Francisco is working in his study. It’s a large, masculine space with miles of worn leather paneling. It feels like a throne room, and Francisco completes the illusion. He sits behind a large, hand-carved desk, a slash of sunlight across his face. The desk is made of Bocote, one of the most expensive woods in the world, with a gorgeous, contrasting grain. Everything about him is as pressed and perfect as he was for our wedding.
He’s like this all the time, isn’t he? Always in control.
A large gray dog sits at attention next to his desk. His dark eyes narrow on me. He lets out a bark, and Francisco’s eyes come up from the sheaf of papers he’s been reviewing. There’s frank possession in his gaze...and a light there, too. He’s pleased to see me. I try to be less pleased to see him. Try to keep my guard up. There are things I need to discuss with him before this goes any further.
“This is Isabella,” he tells the dog as casually as if it’s human. “My wife.”
Every time he calls me that, another shock of disbelief and pleasure runs down my spine. I like how it sounds. But I don’t like this unmoored feeling I have. The marriage to Francisco was supposed to be advantageous for my family and his. It was supposed to be simple.
The maid’s face between my legs does not seem simple.
The dog’s ears perk up as if he understands his master.
I drop to one knee. “Come here, sweet puppy.”
The dog lets out a whine of excitement and comes running up to me, giving me a big, wet lick across my face that has me laughing.
“Down, Wolf,” Francisco says.
Wolf completely ignores him and rubs his massive, furry body into my arms. Francisco mutters something about poor training and snaps his fingers. Finally the dog glances at his owner and slinks away to sit by the desk again.
Brushing the gray fur off my clothes, I make my way to the chairs on the other side of Francisco’s desk and sit, back straight, chin up. Focus. This is not about the fact that he has an adorable monster of a dog.