Mastered By Love (39 page)

 

She looked up, licked her lips—started to frown.

 

He bent, gripped her waist, and lifted her—up and to him. “Wrap your legs about my waist.”

 

She already was. He slid his hands down to grip her hips, positioned her so the heated head of his erection parted the scalding slickness of her folds and pressed against her entrance.

 

He looked at her face, caught her wide, desire-darkened eyes—watched as he drew her down, as he steadily, inexorably, impaled her. Watched her features ease, then blank, as her awareness turned inward to where he stretched her and filled her. Her lids lowered and she quivered in his arms, caught on the knife edge of surrender. He gripped more firmly, ruthlessly pulled her hips into his, tilting her so he could thrust the last inch and fill her completely.

 

Possess her completely.

 

He saw, felt, heard the breath shudder from her lungs. Shifting his grip, he took her weight on one arm, lifted his other hand to her face, framed her jaw, and kissed her.

 

Hungrily.

 

She surrendered her mouth, opened to his onslaught, and gave him, ceded to him, all he desired. For long moments, sunk in her body, he simply devoured, then she tried to move, tried to ease up and use her body to satisfy the rampant demand of his—and discovered she couldn’t.

 

That she couldn’t move at all unless he permitted it, that impaled as she was, she was wholly in his power.

 

That the rest of this script was entirely his to write—and hers to experience, to endure.

 

He showed her—showed her how he could lift her as little or as much as he wished, then lower her, as slowly or as rapidly as he wanted. That the power and depth of his penetration of her body was wholly his to decree.

 

That their journey to the top of the peak would be at his command.

 

She’d given herself to him, now he intended to take—all and everything he could from her.

 

He lifted her, and brought her down, one hand still at her nape, that arm wrapped about her body, pressing it to his so the movement of their joining made her breasts ride against his chest. With one arm about her hips, that hand spread beneath her bottom, her legs wrapped, now tight, about his waist, her arms slung around his shoulders, her hands spread on his back, he could feel her all around him, and she was
wholly locked within his embrace.

 

A naked, primitive embrace that suited him well. That would deliver her to him—make her surrender to him—at an even deeper, more primal level.

 

Minerva drew back from the kiss on a gasping sob, head rising as, breasts swelling, she struggled to find breath.

 

He let her, then, hand firming at her nape, drew her back.

 

Kissed her again.

 

Took, seized, and devoured again.

 

His hands were suddenly much more demanding, their grip like fire, just this side of painful, elementally commanding as he moved her on him, against him, flayed her senses in every possible way inside and out until she wrenched back from the kiss, let her head fall back, and gave herself up to him.

 

To the fires that raged between them, building and growing, then erupting in molten passion so hot it seared and scalded, branded and marked.

 

Flames, hungry and greedy, rose up and washed over them, through them, spreading beneath their skins and consuming as the insistent, persistent, tempo of his possession escalated and claimed her anew.

 

Made her burn anew, made her fragment and scream, made her cling and sob as he joined her.

 

As, at the last, she felt him, hard and hot and undeniably real, undeniably him, buried deep within her, deeper than he’d ever been.

 

Deep enough to touch her heart.

 

Deep enough to lay claim to that, too.

 

The thought drifted through her mind, but she let it go, let it fade as he carried her to his bed, and collapsed with her across it.

 

Holding her against his heart.

 

At the very last, she heard him groan, “Especially in this, we make an
excellent
team.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fifteen

 

 

 

 

T
wo nights later, Minerva slipped into Royce’s rooms
, and gave thanks that Trevor was never there waiting. As per her recent habit, she’d left Royce and the rest of the company downstairs and slipped away—to come here, to his rooms, to his bed.

 

Walking into the now familiar bedroom, she found herself quietly amazed at how easy their liaison had become, how comfortable she’d grown over such a short time with the daily and nightly rhythms.

 

The last days had passed in a whirl of preparations, both for the house party and for the fair itself. As the major house in the district, the castle was always first in donating and participating, an association the household staff maintained regardless of the interest of their masters.

 

She’d always made time for the fair. Run under the auspices of the local church, the fair raised funds both for the upkeep of the church as well as for numerous projects for the betterment of the local flock. A flock the castle would always have a vested interest in, a fact she used to justify the expenditure of time and goods involved.

 

Stripping off her gown, she was aware of an unexpected contentment. Given Margaret’s, Aurelia’s, and Susannah’s
involvement this year, matters might have been much worse, but all was progressing smoothly on both the house party and the fair fronts.

 

Naked, her hair down around her shoulders, she lifted the crimson sheets and slid beneath the cool silk. If she was honest, her contentment, the depth of it, had a nearer, deeper, more powerful source. She knew their liaison would last for only a short while—in reality her time with him had to be more than half over—but rather than making her wary and reticent, rather than making her draw back from their engagements, the knowledge that her chance to experience all she might with him was strictly limited had served to spur her on. She was determined to live, whole and complete, to embrace the moment and seize the chance to be all the woman she could be, for however long his interest lasted. For however long he gave her.

 

It wouldn’t be long enough for her to fall in love with him, for her to get trapped by unrequited emotion, and if she felt an unwelcome pang because she would never have the chance to know love in all its glory, she could accept and live with that.

 

She heard the sitting room door open, and close, heard his step on the floor—then he was there, powerful and dominant, literally darkening the doorway in the unlit room. He met her gaze; she sensed rather than saw his smile, his liking for the sight of her lying naked in his bed.

 

He moved forward, heading for his tallboy to undress; she literally licked her lips and waited. It was one of many individual moments she savored, watching him disrobe, watching his powerful body be revealed element by element to her hungry gaze.

 

Offered up, for her delectation.

 

He knew. She knew he did. Although he never gave any overt sign—never made any too obvious gesture or glanced at her to see how she was reacting—he artfully drew the moments out until, by the time he was naked and joined her in the bed, she was beyond desperate to get her hands on him.

 

To feel him against her, all that glorious muscle, all those heavy bones, to sense and feel the power inherent in his large frame.

 

To have that possess her, shatter her, and bring her unbounded, unfettered delight. Unrestricted, unrestrained pleasure.

 

She knew that was what would come to her as, finally naked, he crossed the room and lifted the sheets. She waited, breath bated, nerves taut, for that moment when the mattress sagged beneath his weight, and he reached for her, gathered her in, and their bodies met.

 

Skin to skin, heat to heat, desire to passion, wanting to yearning.

 

She came to him, and Royce drew her to him, half beneath him as he leaned over her. Her hand touched the side of his face, welcoming, encouraging, mirroring the messages her body gave as she sank against him, her softness molding instinctively to his hardness, giving against his heavier weight, cushioning and beckoning with sirenlike allure.

 

Without hesitation, without thought, he dove into her mouth, and found her waiting there, too. Waiting to engage, to meet and satisfy his every demand—to challenge him, did she but know it, with the ease with which she so effortlessly sated him.

 

Even after having her for more times than he’d ever had any woman, he still couldn’t get enough of her—any more than he could solve the riddle of how having her had become such a bliss-filled act.

 

Why it so soothed his soul, both that of the man and that of the beast, the primitive being that lurked deep within him.

 

She embraced him all, and gave him surcease; in her arms he found an earthly heaven.

 

In search of it again, he drew his hand from her breast, reached down, caught her knee, and lifted it. Angling his hips, he nudged into her, then thrust deep. Seated fully within her, he rolled and settled fully upon her; wrapped in her arms and the billows of his bed, he savored her mouth
as he savored her body, rocking them both with slow, deep thrusts, taking them both on a slow ride to paradise.

 

At the last, she clutched, arched beneath him as his name ripped from her throat; he buried his head in the sweet curve of her shoulder and gave himself to her in a long, intense climax that rolled on and on.

 

Afterward, once he’d regained possession of sufficient wit to move, he lifted from her, settled beside her, and gathered her close, and she came, snuggling against him, her head on his shoulder, her hand on his chest, spread over his heart.

 

He didn’t know if she knew she did that every night, that she slept with her hand just there. With her warmth against him and all tension released, he sank deeper into the mattress, and let the quiet joy he always found with her seep slowly to his bones. To his soul.

 

And wondered, again, why. Why what he found with her was so different. And why he felt as he now did about her.

 

She was the woman he wanted as his wife—so he’d let her close, closer than he’d ever let anyone else, and therefore she meant more than anyone else to him. He shouldn’t be surprised that she awakened, called to, drew forth emotions no other ever had.

 

He’d never felt as possessive of any woman as he felt about her. Never felt as consumed by, as focused on, as connected to anyone as he did to her. She was rapidly becoming—had already become—someone he needed and wanted in his life forever…

 

What he felt for her, how he felt about her, mirrored how his friends felt about their wives.

 

Given he was a Varisey through and through—knew that to his bones—he didn’t understand how that could be, yet it was. In his Varisey heart, he didn’t approve of it—his feelings for her—any more than he approved of any other vulnerability; a vulnerability was a weakness, a chink in his armor—a sin for such as he. But…deep within was a yearning he’d only recently recognized.

 

His father’s death had been the catalyst, the message he’d
left with Minerva an unintended revelation. If he didn’t need to be like his father in running the dukedom, perhaps he didn’t need to be like him in other ways. Then his friends had arrived to comfort him, and had reminded him of what they’d found, what they had. And he’d seen his sisters and their Varisey marriages—and that hadn’t been what he’d wanted, not anymore.

 

He now wanted a marriage like his friends had. Like his ex-colleagues of the Bastion Club had forged. That want, that need, had burgeoned and grown over the past nights, even more over the past days, until it was an ache—like a stomach-ache—lodged in his chest.

 

And in the dark of his bed in the depths of the night, he could admit that that want scared him.

 

He didn’t know if he could achieve it—that if he reached for what he wanted, he could in fact secure it.

 

There were few arenas in life in which he doubted himself, but this newfound battleground was one.

 

Yet the one thing he now yearned for above all else was for the woman in his arms to love him. He wanted what his friends had found—lusted after her gentle affection if anything more intensely than he lusted after her body.

 

But if he asked for her love, and she gave it, she would ask for, and expect, his love in return. That’s how love worked; that much he knew.

 

But he didn’t know if he could love.

 

He could see that far, but no further.

 

If
somewhere deep in his Varisey soul, so deep no other Varisey had ever found it, love lurked, a nascent possibility…

 

His problem was he didn’t believe that was so.

 

 

“Ma’am?”

 

Minerva looked up from her desk in the duchess’s morning room. “Yes, Retford?” The butler had entered and stood just inside the door.

 

“The Countess Ashton has arrived, ma’am—one of Lady Susannah’s guests. Unfortunately, Lady Susannah is out riding.”

 

Minerva inwardly grimaced. “I’ll come down.” Laying aside her pen, she rose. Royce had ridden over the border to visit Hamish, presumably to discuss sheep and the required breeders; she’d hoped to use the time to catch up with her correspondence, which she’d neglected of late.

 

But duty called.

 

She consulted the list lying on one side of her desk, then turned to the door. “We’ve put the countess in the west wing—I’m sure Cranny will have the room ready. Please ask her to send up a maid, or has the countess brought one?”

 

“No, ma’am.” Retford retreated into the corridor. “I’ll speak with Mrs. Cranshaw.”

 

Retford followed at Minerva’s heels as she went down the corridor and descended the main stairs. In the huge hall below, a lady, curvaceous and dark-haired, turned from examining her reflection in one of the large mirrors.