Total pages in book: 230
Estimated words: 217798 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1089(@200wpm)___ 871(@250wpm)___ 726(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 217798 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1089(@200wpm)___ 871(@250wpm)___ 726(@300wpm)
It’s the same rhythm her body needs. I’m intending to circle her clit with my thumb. Intending to force her to orgasm around the pain.
But Isabella does it herself.
Her fluttering muscles coordinate around my cock, pulsing and pulsing, and her blue eyes stay on mine as she comes. It’s such an exquisite mix of pleasure and pain that as soon as it’s over I drag another one out of her as I reach the crest of my own release. Isabella’s tight cunt milks me through her second orgasm, and mine rushes out to meet her. She hisses at the heat, at the way I’ve buried myself deep to paint her womb with my seed. I am half over her now, and her lips are mine to take, so I take them. A shuddering kiss. Isabella is the one shaking underneath me.
She needs more.
I drag my tip through the hot spill inside her, but I don’t pull all the way out. I make her come again with my body taking up space in hers. Claiming it. If nothing else, my bride will understand this—I will take everything, every inch.
After a long moment, Isabella’s eyes close. Heavily. Against her will.
With a clenched jaw I lift her into the bed and tuck her in. There is so much more I want to take from her. So much more I want to give her. Pleasure and pain. But the wanting feels perilously close to the fevered emotions that ruined my parents.
I do not indulge it.
My wife sleeps through my leaving. I can’t fall asleep for hours. She’s everything I could have imagined in a wife. More. The problem is how much I love it. How much I’m coming to crave it. Memories of screaming and throwing things and photographers flashing cameras on the lawn haunt me. I wanted us to have a calm, orderly, mutually beneficial arrangement.
Emotion has no place in a marriage.
CHAPTER 7
Isabella
Last night had to be a crazy dream.
There’s no other explanation for my lady’s maid with her head between my legs and her tongue moving over parts of me that only my husband is supposed to touch—til death do us part. People have strange dreams after big events. Once I read that weddings rank in the top ten of a person’s most stressful life events. It makes a certain kind of comforting sense.
But everything else about my new room is exactly how I remember. Blue silk sheets skim my bare skin. Translucent curtains stir over the windows. The canopy drapes gracefully over the posts of my bed. Antique furniture waits for me to sit and what?
I don’t know. Tend to my wifely duties, I suppose.
Embroider something, perhaps.
The door to my room opens, and Lila comes in. Her smile is pleasant and professional. I could almost imagine last night never happened except for the knowing glint in her eyes.
My stomach twists. It was real.
Last night happened. Oh my god, last night happened.
I sit up and pin the sheets to my chest.
“Good morning, Your Grace.” Lila doesn’t appear bothered by the fact that I’m still abed and covering myself with the sheets. She glides into the bathroom and returns a moment later with a silk robe that matches my room—white, champagne accents, a pale blue lining. Lila adjusts it over my shoulders like she’s done this every day of her life. “What would you like for breakfast? An omelet? Blueberry pancakes? Pain au chocolat? His grace has already shared with us that you do not eat meat, but we have many other options.”
“Oh, I couldn’t eat,” I manage to say.
She gives me a small smile. “Chef has been up since three a.m. baking. He wants to impress you. He’s a very emotional cook, so unless you want ratatouille every day for a week, I suggest you order a large breakfast and send back your compliments to the chef.”
“Yes,” I say promptly. “I’m ravenous. Please prepare a sideboard in the breakfast room.”
A small wink.
I’m stunned at how Lila moves us swiftly into my new morning routines without a hint of embarrassment. Everything she does is experienced and professional.
I try to match her energy. That’s what I was born to do. Bred to do.
To marry well, and be a good wife to my husband. To let Lila fuss with my hair and bring me clothes from the enormous walk-in closet and lick me between my legs until I’m a soaked, writhing mess if that’s what my husband tells me to do…
God.
I stand up from the chair at the vanity in my sparkling dressing room, cheeks burning. “I’ll go down for breakfast in a moment,” I announce, as if I’m calmly organizing my day instead of freaking out inside. “First I’m going to speak with my husband.”
“Yes, Your Grace,” she says, hesitating for the first time since we met.