I nodded, biting my lip. He crawled over me, his cock brushing against my stomach as he leaned down to take my lips. My taste still lingered on him, and I marveled at that—I was tasting myself and him at the same time. He stretched his body over mine, and I felt the unmistakable heat and hardness of him brush against my pussy.
My breath hitched. I’d only been this close to him once before, in the hallway a few nights ago, when he’d almost lost the war against himself and taken me up against the wall. The firelight flickered along his body, casting soft tessellations of light over his wide shoulders and powerful arms, and I looked down to see how his body looked over mine, poised to make it his own. The sight made me shudder. It was so sinful, so wrong. Never had I felt more at his mercy, and never had I felt more aroused.
He moved again, and again I felt his cock against me, but it was no longer light and teasing, but pressing. As I watched, my breath stitching uneven patterns, he took himself in his hand and rubbed his crown against my pussy. “Please,” I said. “Please.”
“Please what, wildcat?” His voice wasn’t teasing, it was demanding. He wanted to hear me say how much I wanted this, wanted him, and I didn’t deny him.
“Please…I want you inside of me.”
“You want me to fuck you?”
I didn’t hesitate. “Yes.” And then he inched himself inside, ever so slightly, no more than he had been two nights before.
“Look me in the eyes,” he ordered. I tilted my head up, immediately caught up in his gaze. There was lust there, but there was something else too, and my heart thrilled at the sight of it. I had never allowed myself to think that Mr. Markham would feel anything for me but sexual desire, but right now, at this moment, I thought I saw something more. Something softer and deeper.
I smiled up at him, and he bent down and took my mouth in a savage kiss, as if my smile was something to be adored and punished at the same time. He pulled up. “Watch me,” he demanded. “Watch this.”
And then he pushed himself all the way inside, pushing past that initial point of resistance, and I gasped at the sharp and unexpected pain.
His hand found mine. “Do you need to stop?”
I shook my head. There was so much pressure, so much fullness, but also so much pleasure laced through it all, and I didn’t want him to stop.
He went slowly, and even though I was so aroused, so wet, there was still some discomfort as he slid in and out. He groaned, his hands knotted in the coverlet by my head, as if he were straining to go so slowly. “You are so fucking tight,” he said. There was something like a threat in his voice, the threat that he wouldn’t be able to hold on to this uncharacteristic tenderness much longer.
He ducked his head down to suck on my breasts, his movements still careful and slow. And then he reached down and stroked my bud, softly, lightly. The sudden rush of sensation, of sheer pleasure, made me shudder, and Julian groaned again as he felt me quiver underneath him.
“Tell me,” he said huskily. “Tell me what it feels like.”
“I feel so…full,” I whispered. There was no other word for it. He filled me and stretched me, and every time he moved, delight and pain spiked through me. “But at the same time, I want more. More of this. More of you.”
He angled his hips upward, and he brushed against a spot inside of me that made me whimper. “You have all of me, Miss Leavold.” He started moving faster now, his cock hitting that place over and over, and his thumb still making expert circles over my clitoris. The pain subsided, and all that was left was pleasure, pleasure so deep, so intense, that it barely compared to anything I’d felt before at his touch. This was terrifying and transformative, deep and wild, and I realized I was moving under him, becoming more and more desperate with each stroke.
“Oh,” I breathed. “Oh, please…”
He looked down at me, hair spilling across the pillow, my back arching and my legs opening, and I saw the darkness unfurling in his eyes. “I want to feel you come around my cock,” he said. “I want to feel you clenching around me.”
My body responded to his command, tensing tighter and tighter, and when I looked down at us, at him moving in and out of me, at our legs tangled together, at how exposed I was, how vulnerable and wanton I was at the same time—I came once more, an orgasm more powerful than any I’d ever felt, shuddering and tugging down to my very core.
“That’s it,” he said. And then: “Forgive me.”
With his knees, he nudged my legs farther apart and drove into me. I cried out—half in rapture, half in pain—the waves of my orgasm leaving me impossibly sensitive, and he met my eyes. There was no tenderness there, no checking in to see how I was faring, there was only lust and raw desire. Only shadows.
“I wanted you from the moment I saw you,” he growled as he thrust into me viciously, repeatedly. “I wanted you like this, your virgin cunt mine and mine alone. I wanted to feel you come around me. I wanted to come deep inside you, to mark you as mine.”
How could he not know? “I am yours, Julian.”
As he crushed his lips to mine, I felt his whole body stiffen. He groaned into my mouth as he filled me with his heat, pulsing and throbbing, and the sound of his breath as he came was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard.
We lay there, his body heavy on mine, his face buried in my neck. I ran my fingers through his thick hair, feeling a happiness that I had never felt before. I had often felt the untamed peace of swimming and climbing, and the gratification of a good book and a quiet room. But this feeling—it was fragile and floating, unmoored from all practicality, all the things that I knew to be true about men and men with money. Unmoored from my fierce desire for independence and liberty. I loved Mr. Markham, and now he was here, in my arms, and I could easily let myself believe that was
enough.
After a long minute, he stood and pulled on his trousers. Without asking, he lifted me in his arms again, setting me down on a chair near the fire, then going to his washing table and wetting a linen towel. He came back and knelt in front of me, gently parting my legs. Slowly, he began cleaning me, starting with my inner thighs and working his way to my center, and when he pulled the towel away, I saw that it was tinged pink.
I had bled; it was a moment that was supposed to be reserved for my wedding night, but I didn’t care. I knew no wedding night awaited an impoverished orphan—at least not a wedding night with a man I truly wished to be with. But despite the transgressive nature of tonight, the shock of the blood and its confirmation that it all had been real—I still felt that fragile happiness. And no bridegroom had ever been tenderer to his bride than Mr. Markham was to me in this moment.
The towel was soft and cool against my skin, and when he finished, I almost asked him to keep going. Instead, I waited as he brought me his dressing gown, a heavy thing of gold and crimson brocade, trimmed with velvet. As I stood to pull it over my shoulders, to tie the sash around the pleated folds, a knock sounded at the door. I cast my eyes around, desperate for a place to hide—I’m sure Mr. Markham didn’t want the servants to know what he was doing with his dead wife’s cousin.
