Page 52 of Rules for Heiresses
“I’ve never felt so full in my life.” She broke off, eyes closing with mortification. “It’s too much.”
“Take a moment to breathe,” he said through clenched teeth. Hell, she was a virgin?
A puff of laughter left her lips. “As if I could possibly fit anything more into me.”
Her body tightened with the fervor of her words, and Courtland nearly spent then and there as her tight sheath clenched down upon him. He gritted his teeth, fighting for control. Being inside her was every bit as transcendent as he’d imagined it to be. “I should have taken more care.”
She sniffed and met his gaze, her hips canting slightly as she adjusted her position. “It was more of a pinch than pain. I expected it to hurt the first time.”
Courtland flinched. God, he was a thoughtless boor. He should have guessed, despite her confident command, and instead of going slowly, he’d rutted into her like an animal.
“Don’t,” she said.
He frowned. “Don’t what?”
“Do whatever it is you’re doing in that head of yours,” Ravenna said. “It was my choice. I wanted this, and the truth is if you had known, you probably wouldn’t have done it.”
She wasn’t wrong there—virtue was valued in their world—but she was also right in that it’d been her choice to make. Courtland was not of the opinion that a man should have any sway over a woman’s body, unless it was by her express wish.
“How do you feel now?”
“Better.” Her eyes dilated when he flexed slightly, not enough to move but enough for her to feel his fully seated length. She moaned. “Do that again. Now, Courtland.”
He grunted. “Who knew my wife was such a tyrant in the bedroom? I was promised obedient and demure.”
“We’re not in a bedroom, and whoever told you that was a fibber.”
Blushing wildly, she stuck out her tongue and he captured it with his mouth, making her gasp as the movement drove his body deeper into hers. Courtland claimed her lips, sucking and nibbling, showing her with his tongue exactly what he wanted to do to her body. Soon, she was kissing him back and jerking her hips in needy little pulses.
He rolled her nipples between his fingers, causing her to writhe beneath him. Leaving the haven of her lips, he suckled her breasts until her body undulated against his in a sensual roll, letting him know without words what she wanted. That she craved more.
“Do you wish me to move?” he asked with a tilt of his hips, his voice tight.
“It feels like I’ll die if you don’t.”
He knew exactly what she meant. Moving as slowly as possible, he withdrew so that only the tip of him rested in her channel and then pushed back in. Her eyelashes fluttered closed on a sigh when he repeated the motion. “All right, love?”
Her fingers dug into his flesh. “Faster.”
“As my duchess commands,” he said and then groaned the moment he quickened his movements. There was no way he was going to last, not with how deliciously tight she was. With each drag, the pressure built. He found her lips again, making love to them as fervently as he was elsewhere. He couldn’t get enough of her taste. Or the feel of her. Her untried inner muscles gripped him, cradled him, and Courtland’s eyes drifted closed in utter pleasure from the torturous friction. She felt perfect, as if her body had been made for his.
This felt like home.
On the thought, he stilled for a moment, but he wasn’t going to explore its deeper meaning right now. He was going to give Ravenna—and himself—this stolen pleasure. Tomorrow would be soon enough to move forward with the future of freedom from him that he had promised himself he’d grant her.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
His eyes flashed open. “Nothing. Why do you ask?”
“You looked like you were in pain.”
Courtland forced a smile to his lips, unnerved at how easily she seemed to be able to read him, even in the midst of passion. “Far from it.”
“Then be here,” she whispered, reaching up a hand to cup his jaw. “Be here with me in this moment. At least give me that, Courtland, if nothing else. Let me see you, please.”
He didn’t know what she was asking. He didn’twantto know, but the look in her eyes gripped him as tightly as her body did. He quickened his strokes, feeling the heat building between them, watching her eyes dilate and her mouth part when the hair on his chest abraded her sensitive nipples. Moaning, she arched wantonly against him. Within a handful of heartbeats, he was close to the edge.
She was, too, if her flushed face and shallow pants were any indication. Her eyes still had not released his, forcing their joining to something much deeper than he’d ever experienced with any other woman. It unsettled him, and yet, he could not release her gaze.
