“Tie you down?” She sucked in a breath. Her arms were quivering. It was increasingly difficult to keep her thoughts straight. “And if I lose?”

“Then for a week you’ll do everythin’ I say, without even a single argument.”

Lena lifted her head off the pillow. “Not a chance.”

“Then don’t move your hands. No matter what, Lena.”

Ducking his head, he kissed his way across to her other breast and lavished the same attention on it. The sensation shot through her like the charged lightning the Echelon used and stored in Leyden jars.

Throughout it all she clung to the bed, her hips arching up, desperately pleading for something, anything more. Her thighs were wet with her own need, the scent of it flavoring the air. He had to know.

“Breathe,” he told her, smugly wiping his mouth. “It’s about to get better.”

“Better?”

His fingers tickled her thigh. His mouth trailed down her stomach and she forgot to breathe. Little white dots danced before her eyes. “Will!”

Nuzzling into the thatch of dark hair between her thighs, he eased them wider. “Heard enough stories ’bout what a woman likes. Might take some practice though. You let me know how I’m doin’.”

His mouth closed over her sensitive, wet flesh. Lena’s eyes widened. “Will!” The word was almost a scream, the shock of it slicing through her in waves of sensation.

Heat seared her as his tongue delved deep inside her. The rasp of his stubble against her oversensitized skin tore another gasp from her throat. Good heavens! What was he doing? How did he know? He nuzzled higher, sucking at the tender nub at the center of the sensation.

Lena lost her bet.

She clung to his shoulders, her hips jerking beneath him as he lathed her delicate flesh. “Don’t stop!” She arched her hips up, trying to force herself against his mouth. “Oh, my God! Don’t you dare stop!”

Delicious tension stretched and furled deep within her. Head thrown back, she gasped as he lapped at her, suckling her into his mouth. So close… So close to the edge…

She screamed as it broke within her. Screamed as he suckled her hard, driving her spasms higher, forcing the sensation through her. Sensation finally ceased as he lifted his head, eyes dark with amusement. He licked his lips and she rolled to the side, involuntary quivers shooting through her body as she sucked in desperate breaths.

Fingertips trailed up her thigh, circling her hip. The muscle jumped beneath his touch. “Lena.” Humor flavored his voice. He kissed her hip. “Did you like that?”

“I daresay I liked it rather a lot,” she gasped. “But I’m not quite sure at the moment. The world seems to have shifted.”

He laughed, his voice dropping to a smoky whisper. “You taste delicious.” Another kiss, against the curve of her hip. He crawled up over her, nudging aside her arm and capturing her nipple between his lips.

It was too much, too soon. But she could no sooner have pushed him away now than she ever could have. Rolling onto her back, she slid her legs around his hips with a shudder. “You’re still wearing your trousers.”

He caught her questing fingers and pressed her flat onto her back. As he captured her mouth, she tasted her own body on his lips. “And you’ve lost your bet.”

Lena lost herself in the taste of his mouth. “You’re getting better at this,” she whispered, tracing his tongue with her own.

A pinch to her bottom made her jump. “First the blushin’ bride, now you question me skill at kissin’?” Grabbing her by the hips, he rolled them until he lay flat on the mattress and she straddled him. “Since you’re the one with all the experience, I’ll let you lead.”

Lena slid her hands over his bare chest. Will cupped his hands behind his head, the very picture of male repose. “I like the fact that you’ve never kissed another woman before,” she protested. “I like being your first. And I intend to be your last.” The last few words came out as a low growl.

She slid her hands lower and tugged open the buttons on his trousers. The heavy ridge of his cock strained against the fabric then sprang into her hands with an eager thrust.

He was enormous, her fingers barely closing around the girth of him. A drop of pearly white glistened at the swollen head, thick veins curving around his shaft.

She didn’t know what to do. All of the lessons about her flesh rights flew straight out of her head.

“Here,” he said, seeing her helpless look. Grabbing her hands, he curled them around his cock. “Like this.”

Lena wet her lips, her hands stroking him carefully. His eyes glazed and he threw his head back, lip curled up in a silent snarl as he gripped the end of the bed. Thick muscle strained in his biceps as he squeezed tight.

“You like this?” she whispered, her hands loose as she stroked him.

“Harder.”

Tightening her grip, she pumped the silky-slick skin in her hands. She couldn’t tear her gaze from his face, watching as the violence of pleasure twisted his features, made him gasp. She made him gasp. The thought was heady and with it inspiration struck.

Years ago she’d seen pictures of how to please a man and one thing had always stuck…

Lena bent low and licked at the slit on the throbbing head of his shaft. Will’s hips pumped and he cried out wordlessly. It had felt so good for her, so she greedily suckled him into her mouth, tasting the saltiness of his seed on her tongue.

A hand fisted in her hair, driving her lower, his hips thrusting up, filling her mouth, her throat, with his cock. Feral light blazed in Will’s eyes and he lifted his head off the bed to watch.

“God, Lena.” A gasp. “That feels so fuckin’ good.” He collapsed back against the bed, his hands urging her away from him. “You have to stop.”

“I don’t want to.” She licked at the thin slit on the head of him. She’d barely begun to learn what he liked—

The world shifted. He yanked her up, rubbing his shaft between her thighs. “Can’t. Have to be inside you. Now.” Snarling, he lowered her hips, the tip of his heavy flesh stretching her.

Lena gasped. She could feel the inexorable stretch of her body as he edged deeper. Pain burned. She couldn’t do it. He was too big.

As if recognizing her distress, he froze.

Sweat gleamed against his hairline. The muscles in his arms trembled. “I’m tryin’. Tryin’ to hold it,” he whispered hoarsely.

And he would. He would turn away from this if he thought he was hurting her. Chain whatever turbulence drove him deep inside, force it back into the cage. The hunger gleamed in his eyes, the sheer need to possess her, but he would do it.

For her.

Lena shoved down, her mind branded with shock as he filled her. Will hissed, his fingers digging into her hips, even as the pain shot through her.

She gasped, wilting over him, her body so full of him that she didn’t know where she began and he ended. The hurt was a pulsing throb where they joined, yet with it came the satisfaction of finally being in his arms, finally sheathing him in her body. She would do anything, pay any price to be his.

Will’s hand slid up her back, cupping the back of her neck. “Damn it, Lena. I don’t want to hurt you, but you feel so good, so tight.”

“It’s fading,” she whispered, lifting her head a little. The pain was receding, the loupe healing her. A part of her wanted to own that pain, to brand herself with the proof of his possession.

Will’s hips flexed. He groaned, throwing his head back against the pillow. “I’m sorry. I can’t—”

She kissed his chest, a shivery sensation spreading through her. “Then don’t stop. I want to be yours.” Rolling her hips brought another gasp to his lips. She tried again, squeezing him deep within, her body knowing instinctively what her mind didn’t.

Will’s fingers dug into her bottom. He thrust up, the heat of his body burning her from within.

The pain was gone, chased from her body by a dawning exhilaration. He was hers. He was finally hers, and she was never going to let him go. Lena threw her head back, his hands helping her to find the rhythm that pleased him and taunted her. Each slick glide brought her temptingly close to the edge.

Will curled his back, lifting off the pillow and claiming her mouth. The movement impaled her deeper, her knees driving into the mattress and the base of his shaft rubbing against her slit. Body tightening, she gasped, but there was no escape. From his mouth. From the feel of him, deep inside. From the hands that cupped the base of her skull.

Fingers clenching in her hair, he dragged her head back, his teeth sinking into the soft flesh of her trapezius. Marking her. Claiming her. Driving her over the edge.

Lena cried out as it took her. Her body clenched around his and he groaned, his hips slowing, his thrusts becoming deeper. Crying out, he shuddered violently against her, one hand against the small of her back as he drove her against him.

Long minutes of breathless gasping as she came back to herself. She’d never felt safer, more at peace, than this moment in his arms.

Skin slick with sweat, his heart pounding against hers, she lifted her head slowly. Will shivered. His eyes were bright as copper pennies and fueled with uncertainty. “I didn’t hurt you?”

She smiled and nibbled at his ear. Her body ached with the possession of their joining. And she loved it. “No.”

“You’re so tight, mo cridhe.” He stroked her face tenderly.

Lena cupped his hand against her face. Mo cridhe. Incomprehensible words she could remember him whispering to her in the fever, amongst others. “What does that mean?”

“Little one.” He smiled, but the tension lingered in his bronze-warmed eyes.

“I don’t think it means that at all.”

“No?”

She kissed his palm, looked deep into his eyes. “No.”

Will chuckled against her skin and dragged her against his chest as he lay back. His body still nestled within hers. “Go to sleep,” he said, with a satisfied yawn. His eyelashes fluttered against his cheeks. “Before I’m tempted to have me wicked way with you again.”

***

He roused sometime later, just long enough to roll her onto her stomach and bite the back of her neck. Lena blinked sleepily as he tugged her hips up and thrust inside her. This time there was no gentleness. Whatever thought spurred him out of sleep, he slaked it on her body, filling her, owning her. Claiming her with such desperation that she collapsed panting on the bed afterward, unable to breathe, her body still tingling with aftershocks.

And again. Barely hours later, with evening darkening the sky. Driving her into the mattress, his eyes gleamed with copper, lost to the feral side of his nature.

It ignited something within her. Urges she’d never felt before. They kissed and bit and thrust at each other, desperate to leave some mark, some shadow of themselves on the other’s skin. The darkness within her unfurled and she raked her nails down his back as she screamed her pleasure into the night.

She lost count of how many times he took her. The world faded. Became little more than skin and sweat and seed, the thrust of his body, the acceptance of her own. Sometime before dawn they both collapsed, exhaustion shivering through her body.

Will crept from the bed and fixed a plate of stew for her, warming it on the stove. Her hungers changed and she ate two plates ravenously before collapsing back onto the cot. There was barely room for two, but he curled around her, dragged the blankets over them, and nuzzled into her hair. A part of her liked the fact that the bed wasn’t bigger.

“Sleep,” he whispered, as if he wasn’t the cause of her sleepless night.

She snuggled against him, her eyelashes fluttering heavily against her cheeks. “Only…if you let me…”

She was asleep before she finished her sentence.

Twenty-five

A sharp rapping at the door woke her. Lena lifted her head off the warm pillow it rested on—Will’s chest—and blinked sleepily. Despite the two bowls of stew she’d consumed, her stomach rumbled as if she’d been starved for a week.

The muscles beneath her tensed. “Stay here.”

He rolled out of bed, dragging his trousers on. Lena lazily enjoyed the view, tempted to drag her fingernails over his bare buttocks. She’d once thought him too bulky and coarsely built, but she’d been wrong. He was perfect. All sculpted muscle and bronzed skin. Beside him, the blue bloods paled into insignificance with their padded shoulders and pale skin.

One of the buttons on his trousers was missing, no doubt in her enthusiasm last night. He shot her an exasperated look, then crossed to the door. Lena sat up, searching for her nightgown. Her gaze settled on a pile of abandoned white linen near the door. Dragging the sheet around her body, she tucked it between the crevice of her breasts and tried to comb out the snarls in her hair.