“Lucian…” she pleaded finally, restlessly twisting her head from side to side.
“Not yet, wife. You’re not hot enough. I intend to pleasure you until you beg me to end it.”
“I am hot enough,” she vowed. She was willing to beg him if need be. She was shamelessly willing to do anything he wanted of her.
Lucian wasn’t convinced. He left off savoring her and raised his head to watch her. She looked deliciously wanton, her bare breasts wet from his mouth, her back arching in arousal. Desire pulsed at his groin with a hot, fierce ache.
“I’m not going to take you,” he taunted, “until your body is quivering, until you scream for me to come inside you. Then I’m going to slide into you so deeply, you won’t know where I end and you begin…”
A responsive shudder went through her, but it wasn’t enough for Lucian. He wanted her vibrant and writhing with need for him. He would make her burn for him, make her feel the same fire, suffer the same torment he was feeling.
Slowly he thrust two fingers inside her, and her hips shot upward off the table, sending a jolt of desire surging through his body. When he deliberately stroked her slick bud with his thumb, she groaned.
“Lucian, damn you,” she panted, trying to get closer. “You’re tormenting me.”
“But I want to torment you. Just the way you’ve tormented me of late.” Pressing her thighs wide, he held her still, guiding her hips with purposeful intent as he positioned the cresting head of his erection at her silken entrance.
“Watch while I take you,” he demanded, gazing down at where their bodies joined. Even as he spoke, he sank home into the slick, heated wetness, driving a thready sigh from her. She was wet and fiery hot around him, and so tight he thought he might burst. But he controlled his need with desperate strength. When he withdrew, his swollen shaft glistened with her juices.
Brynn tried to take command then. Her arms locked around his neck, and she wrapped her legs around his waist, clutching at him. Understanding her need, he thrust again, forcing himself deep, dredging a raw moan from deep in her throat.
Her plea was unnecessary; he felt the way she was shaking.
“So beautiful, so wild, so ready for me,” he rasped.
“Now, Lucian… oh God, please…”
Obligingly his intensity quickened, and he drove into her with a ravishing, penetrating rhythm, his own body on fire. He wanted her with a hungry urgency that threatened his sanity.
He clenched his jaw as she arched against him. She was utterly wild and glorious, with her head thrown back, her bare breasts heaving from the force of her panting breaths, so near to orgasm that the slightest friction would push her over the edge.
He braced his legs and plunged into her sleek passage one last time, so deep he could feel the very mouth of her womb.
She did scream then, a high keening pleasure sound that sent a spiking rapture through him. Her frantic cry was taken from her by his kiss as she erupted, her inner muscles convulsing around his erection with a force that nearly made him explode. Lucian shook with triumph as he feverishly ate her mouth that tasted sumptuously like raspberries.
Finally the rippling convulsions slowed.
Long moments later, Brynn came to her senses. Drowsy and replete, she lay sprawled wantonly on the hard table, cool air brushing her overheated skin. Lucian was still buried hard and deep within her, magnificently filling her.
“You didn’t find your pleasure,” she murmured weakly.
His expression was primitively male, sexual and possessive, as he gazed down at her. “Not yet. But the night is still young. We’re going to make each other wild, exhausted, siren.”
“We will miss the ball,” she replied, a drained smile curving her lips.
“Do you really want to go?”
“Not at all.”
It was all the answer Lucian needed. Still impaling her, he lifted her up and strode with her to his bed, his hungry mouth ravaging hers as he bore her down to the soft mattress.
If Lucian’s passion was crumbling her defensive walls bit by bit, Brynn found her heart torn even further a few days later. Before she left to ride in the park with Raven, she stopped by Lucian’s study to bid him farewell. When at his command she bent to kiss him, he handed her a wooden box tied with a green satin ribbon.
“What is this?” she asked curiously.
“A wedding gift. You didn’t care for the emeralds I gave you. I thought perhaps you might like this better.”
Setting her gloves on his desk, she opened the box and found an old parchment inside. “A deed? To… Gwyndar Castle? ”
“One of my properties in Wales. The coastal waters are warm enough that you can swim almost year-round. I’ve signed it over to you.” When Brynn’s expression turned troubled, Lucian scrutinized her. “You don’t seem pleased.”
Wondering if she should answer honestly, she took a deep breath. “I am not pleased that you are trying to buy me, Lucian.”
“Buy you?”
Her eyes met his steadily. “You are so wealthy that you’ve grown accustomed to purchasing whatever you want. But you cannot win me over with extravagant presents. Allegiance cannot be bought.”
His blue eyes grew hooded. “I don’t deny trying to win you over, or that I would like you to be content in our marriage. But you mistake my motive in this instance. I was merely considering what you said about being dependent on me, about how powerless it made you feel. I thought having a residence to call your own would allow you a measure of independence. If you still wish us to go our separate ways once my heir is born, you can retire there and be free of me.”
Brynn stared at him, realizing she had misjudged Lucian once again. Rather than trying to win her affections with expensive gifts, he was offering her at least some small measure of choice for her future.
“I am grateful for your thoughtfulness,” she murmured finally. “Lucian…” She hesitated, trying to determine how to ask the question that had been burning in her mind for days. “If I fulfill my duty, will you allow me to retire to Wales alone?”
“I would want you to remain in London for your confinement since the best doctors are here, but afterward, you may go anywhere you like.”
“And leave our child with you?”
His eyes were unwavering. “Giving up my son is more than I’m prepared to do, Brynn. I would hire the best nurses, of course.”
“Of course,” she murmured more bitterly than she intended. She glanced down at Lucian’s gift, her heart aching at the choice she would have to make… wondering if it really was any choice at all. Could she possibly abandon a child of her flesh?
“What if I were to bear a girl instead of a boy?” she asked finally.
He was silent for a long moment. “Our agreement was for a son, Brynn.”
“So it was.” She closed the box carefully and set it on the desk. “Thank you for your gift.” Giving him a wistful, almost sad smile, she picked up her riding gloves and turned away without another word.
Lucian watched her go, grappling with his own tangled emotions. He no longer felt so adamant about wanting his child to be a son; a daughter might be just as satisfying. And if Brynn bore him a girl, he would have every right to demand that she remain with him until she fulfilled their pact to give him an heir. Admittedly not a selfless sentiment.
She wasn’t entirely mistaken, either, about his motives in gifting her with the castle. Whether consciously or not, he was attempting to buy her contentment. If Brynn no longer felt dependent on him, at his mercy, then she might willingly choose to remain with him.
And God knew, he wanted her to remain. More than he’d ever wanted anything in his life. He took a determined breath. Somehow he had to find a way to win Brynn’s heart. Love could bind them together more eternally than any marriage vows. Love could-
Lucian froze, startled by the alien notion that had crept into his thoughts. Love? Was that the name for his affliction? This all-consuming desire for his wife that gnawed at the roots of his being?