Page 44 of Marrying the Enemy

“It’s a game, Evie.”

“It’s our marriage.” She was shaking, wildly aroused and furious and reacting to the enormity of being tied to him when he was so arrogant and imperious. “If I can’t trust you here—” She waved at the bed.

She suddenly wanted to cry, which felt like the greatest humiliation of all. She pushed the heels of her hands into her eye sockets, devastated in a way she couldn’t articulate.

His clothing rustled. It sounded as though his belt hit the floor.

She dropped her hands to see him sprawl onto his elbow on the bed. He wore nothing but his wedding band. He was ridiculously beautiful, all lean muscle and tanned skin except for that pale strip across his hips, accentuating that he was unabashedly aroused.

A fresh wave of weakness attacked her along with a fresh flood of heat. She hugged herself, sliding her bra strap back onto her shoulder as she did.

“I said I’m yours, didn’t I?” He was wearing his most remote expression, but for some reason it caused a pang of empathy in her chest. “Take what you want. Or walk out if you’re that mad.”

She bit her lips together, fearful they were quivering like a child’s. “I don’t know how to handle this.” She threw that at him in a ragged accusation, as though it was his fault that she reacted like this. “The way you make me feel is too much, Dom.”

“I keep telling you, we do this to each other. We have to stop hating each other for that.” He held out his hand. “Come here.”

She hesitated, but if she walked out now, the nascent threads of trust between them really would break. She had made this bed and longed to lie in it. With him.

She skimmed away the last of her clothes and joined him on the bed. He was still rock-hard and it only took the brush of his hands on her to reignite her own passion, but she curled into him on instinct, seeking more than sex. Comfort. Shelter.

He closed his arms around her and pressed his lips to her hair. “You’re safe here, Evie. Always. I promise you that.”

Physically, yes. She believed him. Emotionally? Not yet. Maybe never, but that wasn’t his fault, either. He might play erotic games, but he didn’t play mind games. He wasn’t making empty promises to lead her on.

That was the part that really scared her, though. She didn’t know how to cope with the way he made her feel. She was afraid that she could fall in love with him. Maybe already was and she wasn’t even sure why. Because of the way he made her feel when he set adoring kisses on the side of her face? He was still a Blackwood. A stranger.

Yet he shattered her defenses with the warm crush of his mouth and the scintillating pleasure of his touch innocuously tracing the rim of her ear.

She abandoned her misgivings and turned her face into his throat, rubbing her cheeks against his skin like a cat sharing scent, marking him in her own way. She stretched out so she was long and lithe against his tensile strength and danced her fingertips down his spine then traced the line between his tight buttocks.

This time when he drew a sharp breath and caught her hand and pressed it to the mattress above her head, she only gave a moue of contrition and kissed the point of his chin.

“I’ll be good,” she promised.

“You’re always good.” He kissed her, once, twice, then shifted down to collar her neck with kisses. His lips trailed down, covering her breasts reverently, pausing to catch each of her distended nipples and rolling them with his tongue. He kissed her all over, down to her lurching abdomen and across her hips. He rubbed his lips against the inside of her thigh, breathing hotly, “So soft.”

The pinprick joy of his kisses moved to her center where he easily brought her back to the fever pitch of a moment ago. When her muscles were strung wire-tight, she clutched her fist in his hair and moaned, “Dom.”

He lifted his head.

“I’m not on the pill,” she told him.

“What does that mean?” He opened his mouth on her inner thigh and sucked. Hard. “Should I wear a condom?”

“Only if you want to. And why do you do that?” She jerked away from the suction of his mouth against the top of her thigh. It hadn’t really hurt, only threatened to, but she would have a small shadow of a love bite there tomorrow.

“If I get you pregnant, that’s it, Evie.” He rose to loom over her, hard knees pushing her legs apart so he could settle the hot thickness of his erection against her aching loins. “We’re in this forever. Do you understand that?”

She nodded, even though she didn’t think there was any way to fully comprehend the scope and magnitude of tying her life to this man.

In a single flex and surge of his body, the silken, aggressive shape of him forged into her. He was returned to her. Claiming her anew. The bleak emptiness she hadn’t wanted to acknowledge was doused. Eclipsed. She was bathed in a halo of fire.

He muttered something and spared a moment to catch some of her hair and wind it around his fist.

“Evie,” he said in a rasp of anguish right before he claimed her mouth with unrestrained hunger. As he began to thrust, she grasped at his shoulders and brought her knees up to cling her legs around him.

With each powerful thrust, he stole a little more of her. Possessed her a little more deeply.

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