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Taking the bouquet, she half laughed her delight. “Thank you.” A sucked-in breath, a look of absolute determination.

Running forward, she kissed him on the lips, only reaching him because he was already bending toward her.

Stunned, he didn’t have time to raise his hands, keep her with him.

She was gone the next instant, her skirts whipping past his legs in a burst of color, the scent of her a blend of sunshine and those wildflowers she adored. He dreamed every night of having the right to press his nose against the delicate skin at the curve of her neck, to breathe in that scent as he drowned in the wild, feminine taste of her.

As it was with dreams, the colors shifted without warning until he was no longer standing in a rough barn but inside the walls of the small cabin he’d built with his own hands, a lovely dark-haired woman standing, shy and uncertain, in front of him, her back to his front. He’d touched her between her thighs until she was slick and pink with welcome, kissed her there in spite of her shocked cries, licked up the exquisite musk of her pleasure . . . but never had he claimed her as he hungered to do. Such a thing would have dishonored her.

“Ingrede.” Closing his hands over her upper arms, he tugged her against his chest. “Are you afraid?”

Her response was a whisper, her body trembling until he wanted only to stroke her, slow and easy. “Yes.”

Kissing the soft curve of her neck in the exact place that he knew made her weak in the knees, he found himself pushing his aroused body against her, his control in tatters. Clawing it back, though it was a precarious hold at best, he rubbed his lips over her skin. “I’d never hurt you.” He would tear out his own heart before putting a bruise on her.

Making that little moaning sound in her throat that he loved, she angled her head to give him easier access. “You know so many things.” Husky words. “I know only what you have taught me.”

He shuddered as she pushed herself against him. Control lost, he bit at her pulse as he reached around to cup her breasts with a boldness he’d never before dared, afraid she’d shy. But now . . . now she was his wife, and though her skin burned with color, she didn’t pull away. “You are so beautiful.” He shaped her through the fabric of her clothing, indulging himself in a way he’d dreamed about for years, often waking with his cock hard between his legs.

“And I know,” he said, licking out at her skin because the taste of her was a searing pleasure, “only what we’ve learned together.” Touching another woman—he’d never even considered it, no matter the invitations he’d received. “Anything else is simple imagination on my part.”

Ingrede gave a startled laugh, her breasts warm and heavy under his intimate caresses. “Your imagination is a dangerous thing for a woman.”

“For you,” he corrected. “I want to see you, wife.” Releasing her breasts only because he intended to have his fill of them when he’d bared her to the skin, he began to unlace her gown, aware of her breath getting ever faster, her pulse a thudding beat.

But she didn’t raise a hand to stop him, this small woman with ripe curves who had been his fantasy from the day he’d looked up from helping his father in the fields to realize he was no longer a child and neither was she. When he pushed her dress down her arms, she tugged it the rest of the way with a shy touch, the material bunching at her hips.

23

A single push, a small tug, and she was naked in front of him, her back pressed to his chest still. Shuddering with possessive hunger, he stroked his hands over her thighs, along the soft curve of her abdomen and up to cup her breasts again, her skin creamy against his scarred hands.

Full and taut and topped with dark nipples he’d tasted when he’d seduced her into allowing him to tug down her top one hazy summer day, they made his mind spark with ideas he was certain the village elders would term extremely unacceptable. He didn’t care. When it came to exploring what felt good between him and Ingrede, he never had.

“I dream,” he whispered in her ear, “of sliding myself between your breasts.” Using his forearm to plump them up, he sucked his finger to wet sleekness, then inserted it into the warm valley of her breasts to illustrate his meaning.

His wife’s body shook in reaction, her hand clenching on his arm. “My mother warned me you wouldn’t be a manageable kind of a husband.” Turning, she rose on tiptoe to kiss him the way she’d discovered drove him to a glorious kind of madness.

Sucking on his tongue, she jerked when he ran his hand down to the delicate curls between her soft thighs, but refused to part her legs. Having played this intimate game with her before, he pushed in regardless, rubbing his finger over the hard little nub that he wanted to suck. She’d shoved away his head the last time, unable to stand the pleasure . . . but she wouldn’t be able to do that if her hands were tied.

“Spread your legs,” he ordered when she broke the kiss to breathe.

Shaking her head, she squeezed her thighs even tighter, a red flush high on her cheekbones.

His own pulse was thunder in his veins. Dropping his head, he sucked one of her nipples into his mouth without warning, drawing hard and deep. She cried out, thrust her hands into his hair, spreading her legs instinctively to maintain her balance. “I claim victory,” he said, releasing her nipple.

Her answer held a wickedness no one else ever saw. “Will you make me suffer?”

“Oh, yes.”

She was hot and wet to his touch—it would feel like heaven when he sank into her. But it would also hurt her. He’d had his fingers inside her as they lay alone and aroused on a sun-golden field one festival day and later in a dark corner of her father’s barn, knew how very tight she was.

His cock throbbed at the idea of the pleasure that awaited, but he would not have it entangled with her pain. “Lie down on the bed.” Picking her up before she could respond, he placed her on their simple bed, then—stripping off his own clothes—settled himself with his head between her thighs, pulling her legs over his shoulders.

Her fingers clenched in the sheets, but she didn’t stop him when he parted her soft folds to kiss her with a slow, intent ferocity he hadn’t dared unleash on her before they were man and wife. She screamed, squirmed, sobbed, but it was pleasure that colored her responses, pleasure that had her tugging at his hair with frantic hands.

Instead of stopping, he found that little nub of flesh he’d discovered the first time he slid his hand under her skirts, and he sucked. Her hands tore at his hair, but he continued the torment until the finger he’d inserted inside of her was drenched in the liquid heat of her need. “Now,” he murmured, rising above her, his cock a turgid length, “I will make you mine.” Fitting himself to the wet silk of her opening, he closed his hand over the curve of her hip.

Driving into her was the most excruciating pleasure he had ever felt. When she whimpered in pain, he tried to stop but he was young, his control shredded, and for an instant, he panicked that he would take her when she did not want to be taken. It froze the blood in his veins. Locking every one of his muscles, he tried to find his mind.

Her fingers on his chest, her hand on his shoulder, tugging him down to meet her mouth. “Don’t stop, Dmitri. Don’t stop.”