The Lady By His Side(72)

She arched and cried out, the sound well-nigh breathless. He saw the spasm of pain that crossed her face—the sight scored him like a blade, and he held still. Desperately fought not to move, battled to hold against the instinct to plunder.

He clung to the sight of her face, watched, waited, and sooner than he’d expected, he saw the tension born of pain fade…

Then she opened her eyes.

The gray orbs, brilliant and bright, stared into his eyes.

Then she smiled.

Not tremulously, but intently.

Then she reached up, dragged his head down to hers, brushed a kiss across his lips, and ordered, “Ride.”

She shifted beneath him in blatant invitation.

He’d never before laughed at such a moment in his life, but a bark escaped him even as he did exactly as she wanted.

And at first slowly, but increasingly forcefully, he drove them back into the fire and the flames.

If he’d had any notion she might be a passive lover, she promptly shattered it. Her body rose to his. She quickly caught his rhythm, and then she was riding with him, faster, more urgently, more powerfully, on through their landscape of passion.

Antonia had never dreamt such closeness could be. Had never comprehended what physical intimacy truly entailed. The slide of naked limbs and intimate caresses had been one thing, but the moment when he’d thrust deep and filled her, the sensation of him there, at her core, had branded itself forever on her mind. So alien, so him, so very male. He’d held her trapped, impaled, but he’d hung suspended over her and watched her as if, in that moment, she’d been his entire world.

Now, her heart swelled, and her spirits rejoiced, and they thundered on through a haze of heat and hunger, and passion seared, need soared, and desire thrummed—until ecstasy hove on their horizon.

Her senses had abandoned the world and shrunk to him and her and their joining.

In that moment, nothing else existed but this. Nothing could be so important as this.

This seizing, this claiming, this possession.

His of her, and hers of him.

They were united in that, too. In their commitment, their intention, their unswerving direction.

The tension mounted, stronger, more potent, more intense than before. Now that he’d joined with her, there was an urgency, a building desperation that flayed them and drove them both on, ever on. She clung and sobbed as that unrelenting tension ratcheted thrust by thrust—then abruptly, the world fell away, and she flew.

Her senses imploded in a blaze of white heat and mind-numbing pleasure. Scintillating shards of golden glory flew down her veins and cindered her hold on reality.

For one instant, he held her there, on the cusp of paradise, then on a deep groan, he went rigid in her arms, and she felt the hot spurt of his seed deep within.

Then all tension left him.

As if his arms could no longer hold him, he tumbled down onto her; instinctively, she wrapped her arms around him as far as she could reach and held him.

Pleasure, bone-deep, flooded her, along with a sense of togetherness she hadn’t expected. His weight held her trapped, but she didn’t mind.

She held him close, shut her eyes, and let the oblivion that hovered just out of her senses’ reach rush in and buoy them both on its tide.



* * *



Antonia awoke to find herself lying on her side with Sebastian spooned around her. She vaguely recalled, in the heated depths of the night, that he’d woken, lifted from her, then tugged her sleepy self around so he could cuddle up behind her…

She grinned at the memory.

And the more she recalled, the more success, sweet and very pleasurable, flowed through her veins.

Then she realized she could see—that although the sun was not yet up, pre-dawn light was washing through the window.

She didn’t know the rules of conducting a liaison, but she was fairly certain being discovered with Sebastian in his bed by some footman or maid was likely to cause a scandal.

Sebastian’s arm lay heavy over her waist. Moving slowly, she eased out from under it, reluctantly shifting away from the heat of his body until she could swing her feet to the floor. She pushed up to sit on the side of the bed.

And felt fingers lock like steel about her wrist.

She glanced over her shoulder and met surprisingly intense pale green eyes.

“You do realize,” he rumbled, “that this means we’re getting married?”

Of course. The words leapt to her tongue; she arched her brows haughtily, but at the last minute, held those particular words back.

Instead, she smiled and let her confidence and assurance fully invest the gesture. Twisting her wrist from his grasp, she patted his naked—still quite fabulous and exceedingly distracting—chest. “Let’s leave that discussion for another day.”