The Lady By His Side Read online

  Had he ever had?

  He’d always thought, being dark haired himself, that blondes were the right foil for him. Virtually all his lovers had been blondes; the few who hadn’t had been redheads. He’d never taken a brunette as a lover, but as he—his senses—drank her in, he had to wonder if some part of him had always known, always recognized that she, black haired, was his one true lover—his perfect mate—and consequently he’d shied from taking any like her, any his senses might see as a substitute for her, to his bed.

  He was already so ferociously aroused, if he thought about it, he would be in pain.

  Unable to summon either strength or will to stop her, he watched as she knelt on the bed and—with that grace that was so much a part of her—in a crawling prowl, came up the bed toward him.

  He assumed her aim would be to lie by his side, but then she shifted, slid a leg over his hips, and sat on the sheet across his waist.

  He closed his eyes and only just bit back a groan. Behind his head, he held his wrists in a death grip to stop himself from reaching for her. The warm, alluring pressure of her weight over his waist and upper belly, the firm press of her inner thighs against his sides, was temptation incarnate.

  She had him trapped—physically trapped. He couldn’t move. And there was nothing he could do.

  “Hmm,” she purred—and it was definitely the purr of a cat surveying her own bowl of cream. “Where to begin?”

  The question sounded distinctly rhetorical—which calmed him not at all. Her hands hadn’t yet touched him.

  He cracked open his lids; his gaze fell on her breasts. The luscious mounds, pearlescent in the silvery radiance of the moon, their peaks tipped with rosy pink aureolas and nipples, made his mouth water.

  She’d straightened, and her hands rested on the sleek muscles of her widespread thighs.

  He hauled in a tight breath and forced his gaze up to her face—to her perfectly sculpted chin, to the fullness of her lips…eventually, to her eyes; he trapped her gaze as she raised her eyes to meet his. “You’re a virgin.” He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a virgin beneath him—sometime in his schooldays?

  She blinked her eyes wide. “I know.” Her lips slowly curved in another of those amused female smiles—the sort women used when they knew they had the man in question exactly where they wanted him. Helpless. “I’m fairly certain you’re up to dealing with that little matter for me.”

  Then the damned woman swayed, sensuously shifting the globes of her derriere so they brushed the head of his straining erection.

  He couldn’t stifle his groan. Again, he closed his eyes, clutched his wrists. His jaw felt as if it would crack.

  Why am I resisting?

  He’d known the reasons before she’d walked into the room, but they escaped him now. Was there any sense in prolonging his resistance to something that was clearly—whether there or in London—going to be?

  “Antonia…” His voice was almost gone—so deep, so rough, it was more growl than diction. He dragged in another breath—and realized he didn’t have any idea what he wanted to say.

  Then he felt her weight shift.

  Is she pulling back?

  A wholly contradictory panic assailed him.

  He opened his eyes.

  As she put her hands on the bed on either side of his shoulders and leaned close.

  Much closer. From a distance of mere inches, her gray eyes met his. Fearlessly, she held his gaze.

  And catlike, dipped, so her breasts—delectably warm, deliciously weighted silken mounds—caressed his chest as she closed the last inch and breathed over his lips, “Sebastian…”

  Then she covered his lips with hers, and he was lost.

  Utterly and completely vanquished.

  Not by her but by the primitive force she unleashed in him.

  That she was there—patently recognizing that she was his, by her own wordless declaration accepting that truth—and offering herself so blatantly to him… There was no way he couldn’t seize.

  His hands whipped from behind his head, clamped about her hips, and he rolled, bringing her down to the bed beside him.

  Then he rolled further, and she was beneath him.

  The movement had trapped the sheet between them; he considered that a bonus given she was, as he’d reminded her, a virgin. This engagement would have to be slow, even though every impulse he possessed hungered. Wanted. Now. This second.

  Ruthlessly, he seized control of the kiss—and kissed her ravenously, rapaciously, with a plundering voraciousness he couldn’t tame.

  Didn’t want to. Saw no need to. This—him and her like this, rolling naked in a bed—had been written in their stars.

  As if confirming that, she matched him to a large degree; only his years of experience distinguished their efforts—in their intent, in the strength and sheer power of their desire, they were otherwise well matched.

  And there was, he discovered, as her hands found his chest and stroked, caressed, and then blatantly possessed, nothing wrong with her imagination. Or her inventiveness.

  She caught his lower lip between her teeth and tugged, then nipped, sending a surge of sheer lust to his groin.

  Not that that part of his anatomy needed further urging; he ached to join with her, but…first things first.

  Antonia had always wondered how she would feel in this position—naked with a man’s weight pinning her to a bed. As it was…she couldn’t stop smiling. Even as she answered his searing kisses with fiery kisses of her own, even as her fingertips sank into the broad sweep of muscles banding his chest, and she battled to hold onto her whirling wits, her lips were curved, and inside, she was grinning.

  With effervescent joy and not a little satisfaction. She’d wanted this; she’d played her hand and risked an embarrassing scene—had gambled on his desire for her being strong enough to break free of his restraint and answer her call—and he’d proved her right, and she’d won.

  But oh, my Lord, this was better than she’d expected—even better than her wildest fantasies. The scalding heat, the earthy promise, the spiking sensations were all heralds of a deepening intimacy. Above all else, the elemental power—the raw possessiveness—that flexed beneath his skin, that invested his every muscle, that, although still under his command, strained to snap its leash, called to her inner wildness as nothing else ever had.

  Well matched? No—they were more.

  Perfect complements.

  Even as the concept flashed through her mind, distracted to the limit by so many novel sensations—the erratic, abrasive brush of the wiry dark hair adorning his chest over the fine skin of her already sensitive breasts, the ruthlessly commanding pressure of his lips, the all-too-evocative probing of his tongue, the flexing of his fingers as they gripped her hips and held her down—she suddenly understood her own instincts.

  Understood why she’d been so set on pressing on with this engagement here and now.

  Because the marriage she wanted with him was one of perfect complements. Not precisely equals, but balancing halves.

  They were different, had different strengths, and although their weaknesses were few, they differed in those, too.

  With his hands drifting upward from her hips, cruising over her sides, she couldn’t corral her wits sufficiently to ponder her new insight. Yet as those distracting hands closed possessively over her breasts, one goal shone, compulsively demanding, in her mind.

  She needed to establish the necessary framework in which that perfect complementarity could flourish—here, now, in this bed.

  In this arena, one in which he was regarded as an expert, and she had no training. No experience.

  But if she didn’t succeed here, didn’t set their course correctly tonight…

  Even as his fingers played, and she felt her spine bow, tensing in response to the most exquisite pleasure, even as her wits deserted her, she committed herself to her goal.

  But wresting control from him in this sphere was ea
sier thought than done. Every time she tried to focus on him, he distracted her—with a touch, a caress, each laden with such blatant demand, such domineering possessiveness that her mind seized, caught on the cusp of wanting to protest and wanting to savor.

  Time and again, savoring won; he steadily swept her into deeper sensual seas, and rather than cavil, she urged him on.

  Sebastian hadn’t expected anything else; she had instigated this, had climbed naked into his bed and insisted they take this road—here, now—and his inner self had never been of a mind to argue. But even as he indulged his fascination with her breasts, with the superfine skin with a texture that was a cross between peach-silk and satin, even as he finally bowed to his inner demons’ ranting, wrenched his lips from hers, bent his head, and tasted one delectable curve, he was conscious of an elusive novelty, of something being different.

  He’d been along this road so many times, it was impossible not to notice the deeper thud in his veins, the evidence of something beyond mere desire. With any other woman, such an encounter would have been about nothing beyond pleasure, an appeasement of a mutual desire that, although it might flare hotly, was destined to burn for only a short time.

  With Antonia…that quest for pleasure—hers even more than his—remained, but beneath that pulsed another drive, one he recognized as having elements of possessiveness.

  Of a need to claim. To brand her as his and no other’s.

  With a woman, a lady—a noblewoman—like her, thinking in terms of ownership was as futile as it was archaic.

  That said…

  As he bent his head and took one rosy, tightly puckered nipple into his mouth, licked, laved, then suckled—and she clutched his head and moaned—he was acutely aware of an impulse to mark her, but reined himself back.

  He reminded himself she was new to this, and this time, her pleasure would be his first reward.

  He set out to claim it—to distract himself from that surging, underlying emotion by reducing her to gasping surrender.

  Beneath his expert ministrations, she writhed and clutched. He achieved the gasps, but instead of surrender, those gasps came with increasingly insistent, increasingly explicit demands.

  She seemed intent on pushing him, on testing his control. With her hands, with her lips and tongue, with the untutored undulations of her body beneath his, she persisted in driving him on.

  Driving him just a little insane.

  He didn’t realize just how truly enthralling the web of desire she’d cast over him was, not until her greedy, grasping hands slid evocatively down his back, long fingers reaching for the waistband of his silk trousers, but lying as they were, she couldn’t quite reach—something he’d made sure of—yet in instinctive response to that unvoiced demand, he rolled to his side and whipped off the offending garment, even as she eagerly thrust aside the sheet, the last barrier screening their hips and legs.

  Only then did he remember that they were supposed to be going slowly.

  Too late. Even as the thought bloomed in his brain, she hooked a hand around his nape and hauled him into a searing kiss—as she twisted and brought her body and long legs flush against his.

  The sudden contact, burning skin to burning skin, sent fire leaping down every vein.

  Then their legs were tangling along with their twining tongues, and with blatant provocation and flagrant invitation, she arched against him.

  Something in him broke, shattered, then her other hand slid between their hips, and she cradled his erection in her hot palm, then closed her fingers—in incendiary possessiveness and unadulterated demand—about him.

  And her conquest was complete.

  Not a single thought—not a single glimmer of self-protectiveness, of any need for caution or restraint—remained to deflect the driving need to be inside her. To join with her and ride with her into ecstasy.

  He couldn’t breathe other than in shallow drafts, and he didn’t think she was any better.

  Need consumed them, hot and demanding, and they fumbled and shifted and rolled and writhed.

  Fire burned wherever they touched; their bodies flamed with near-incandescent passion.

  With their lips locked, he raced his hands over her one last time, then he gripped her upper arms, rolled her onto her back, and came up on his elbows over her.

  His hips pressed hers to the bed; he had to use his weight to corral her. But her hand hadn’t released his erection, and with every caress, she stole his breath, his wits, his very will.

  Roughly, he caught first one hand, then the other, then drew back from the kiss long enough to haul her hands over her head and, with one hand, anchor them in the pillows.

  Her black hair a silken mass cast over the white pillows, she lifted beneath him, twisting to see.

  With his free hand, he caught her chin, drew it down, bent his head, and took her mouth—this time, without the slightest finesse.

  Not that she seemed to care; every ounce of demand, of command and scorching hunger he poured into the kiss, into her, she returned in full measure.

  Further heating them both.

  He’d never in his life felt so consumed, so driven.

  But they both needed this, it seemed.

  Plundering her mouth, holding her to the kiss, he released her chin and skated his hand over her breast—paused to knead and claim again, first one mound, then the other—then he sent his palm gliding over her desire-dewed skin, tracing a path downward to where a patch of black curls hid the delicate folds of her sex.

  He wasn’t surprised when she gasped at his first touch, or that she shifted and squirmed as he wedged her thighs open, parted her folds, and learned her secrets.

  Antonia’s mind felt overwhelmed. So many sensations—so many startlingly new. So much to absorb. But this, this intimate exploration, was something she’d heard of, but had never fully comprehended; she’d never grasped how intensely pleasurable it would be.

  His lips remained on hers, languidly supping, and while all but instinctively, she returned the slow caresses, her focus had shifted, registering and recording each glide of his fingers, each stroke, each intimate probing.

  Then he circled the nub of flesh at the apex of her thighs, and her nerves sparked, and heightened tension shivered through her.

  That tension sank deep, seeming to pool in molten waves in a cavern low in her body.

  She’d barely adjusted to the latest sensations, to the sparking pleasure as he touched her just there, when he kissed her more deeply, temporarily deflecting her attention, and with his thumb riding against that nub of sensitive flesh, he slid one long, heavy finger deep into her sheath.

  Her nerves leapt. Her senses constricted, locking on the intrusion. She lost all awareness of the world beyond the bed—beyond them, him and her, in the heated darkness.

  That he knew what he was doing, she had not a single doubt. In climbing into his bed, she’d already made the decision that she would trust him with her body; she already trusted him with nearly everything else. So she drew breath through the kiss and let him show her—let him open her eyes to the extraordinary pleasures of lovemaking, of such intimate sharing.

  And that heated tension—born of need, of hunger and yearning—changed, coalescing into a spiral that constantly shrank, cinching tighter into an ever hotter knot of need that the rhythmic glide of his finger in her sheath only heightened. Tightened.

  Then he shifted the hand between her thighs, pressed more firmly with his thumb as he reached deep into her body—and the spiral imploded.

  Fractured and shattered.

  Her spine bowed, and she cried out—the sound muffled between their lips.

  Pleasure—sharp, exquisite, excruciatingly intense—flashed down every nerve, followed almost instantly by a sensation of suffusing heat and a feeling of blessed ease—of release.

  She sighed into his mouth, and her spine eased back to the bed. Pleasure and that sudden loss of tension seemed to reach to her toes.

  Yet
inside, in that heated cavern, she still felt strangely empty.

  He drew back from the kiss. She sensed him studying her face.

  Her lids were too heavy to lift, but she let her lips curve. “Very nice,” she murmured. “For the first course.”

  He huffed out a laugh that sounded ridiculously breathless.

  “So…what’s next?”

  He dropped his forehead to hers. “You’re going to be the death of me.”

  “Le petit mort? I certainly hope so.”

  He groaned. She realized he was…quivering, his muscles quaking as if they were under enormous strain…

  “We don’t have to. Not yet. We could wait until later—”

  “No. Now, Sebastian.” Of that, she was quite sure.

  She opened her eyes as he shifted, easing to her side. His grip on her wrists loosened, and she slid her hands free and lowered her arms.

  He looked into her eyes.

  She wondered if he knew his were molten—the usually cool green was anything but. His irises glowed as if banked fires burned inside him.

  Despite that, he met her gaze levelly and said, “You’re slender, and I’m not. The first time is going to hurt, no matter what. Are you truly sure?”

  She didn’t bother answering—not with words.

  She reached for his erection—and found it as hard as iron. He hissed in a breath and closed his eyes. She ran her fingers up the impressive length, then swiped her thumb wonderingly across the baby-fine skin stretched across the broad head. A pearl of liquid rubbed onto her thumb—and he wrapped his fingers in a brutally tight grip around her wrist.

  She didn’t release him, but shifted instead, raising one leg and wrapping it about his hip, opening herself to him as she guided his erection to the cleft between her thighs.

  He exhaled in a rush, then released her wrist, gripped her hip and her raised thigh, and anchored her as he obliged and eased, slowly, into her channel.

  Just a little. Just past her entrance, not enough to breach her.

  She caught her breath and let her lids fall as the sensation rolled through her.

  His eyes still closed, Sebastian rocked shallowly, savoring the gentle clench of her inner muscles as the scalding slickness of paradise’s vestibule coated the head of his erection.