Succumb to Me (21 page)

He smiled and offered her another half glass
of wine. She drained it, feeling the alcohol calm her raging fears
into a pleasant numbness.

“That is enough of that.” He placed the
bottle back on the bedside table and sat on the bed to watch her.
“Come here so that I may remove your gown,” he said huskily.

Slowly, she approached him and turned to
present him her back, lifting the mass of her hair over one
shoulder. He languorously pulled each tiny button from its hole,
and the dress sagged down her shoulders as he freed her. It dropped
to the floor as he released the last button. With easy movement, he
pulled her chemise and petticoats over the top of her head, until
she stood nearly bare before him, clothed only in her hair and her
stockings.

He moved behind her, urging her forward, and
she could feel him kneel on the floor, felt the touch of his mouth
on the crease beneath her buttocks. She bit her bottom lip to keep
from gasping at the new sensation in a place never before touched
by a man.

Placing nibbling, sucking kisses on her
flesh, he worked his way south until he met her garters, inching
them down her legs before the silk stockings followed. His kisses
cooled in the air, contrasting sharply with the heat of his mouth.
He nipped the back of her knee as he reached it, and she did gasp
then, clenching her hands into fists, the tease of his mouth
torturing her.

Logan stood again, and she could sense his
movement, knew he removed his clothes as the soft rustle of cloth
striking the floor greeted her ears. He stepped up to her, and his
hard erection nestled against the small of her back. He pushed her
hair aside and placed a soft kiss on her shoulder, cupping her
breasts from behind, flicking his thumbs over her nipples until
they pebbled under his touch.

“Turn around,” he whispered hotly against her
ear, and she shivered, goosebumps trailing over her skin.

She closed her eyes, fearing to see his
reaction to her nakedness, and turned, sensing that he stepped back
from her by the loss of his heat.

“You are everything I ever imagined and
more,” he said, his voice hoarse with longing.

Winter opened her eyes, caught his heady look
as he lingered on her body, missing nothing as he caressed her
every inch. She’d never felt beautiful until that moment, and
seeing herself through his eyes was intoxicating. She’d never felt
so desirable in all her life.

He took her hand and guided her to the bed,
bidding her lay down. Joining her, he spread one hair roughened leg
across hers, laying on his side as he toyed with her hair.

“I have wanted this from the first moment I
saw you. I knew that one day, I would have you as my wife.”

A faint smile curled Winter’s lips, but it
was without humor. “As badly as I behaved I cannot imagine why you
would have wanted me.”

Logan touched her face. “I thought you were
an angel … when I opened my eyes and saw you looking down at me
with such caring on your face, I thought I’d died and gone to
heaven.”

Winter sat back, frowning, tilting her head
questioningly. “I don’t think I understand.”

His lips twisted. “I didn’t think you’d
remember.”

“Remember what?” Winter asked,
exasperated.

“The day you found me in the street, beaten
almost to death. The day you helped me up and walked me through the
worst part of town because I couldn’t walk without your help. I
thought you were the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen, and in
that moment, I loved you. I knew that someday you would be
mine.”

Winter stared at him a long moment,
remembering, realizing at last why it was that he had always seemed
familiar to her, why she’d always felt that she should know him.
She could not find her voice to speak, could say nothing but pulled
him down for a kiss that seared her senses.

He cupped one breast as he plunged his tongue
into her mouth, pinching the nipple, kneading her firm breasts and
then splaying his hand across her stomach. He moved it lower as he
trailed from her mouth to her ear, easing his tongue over the
intricate whorls as his fingers journeyed past the curls covering
her sex to her moist cleft. He pushed two fingers into her folds,
spreading them open until he could rub her clit, sliding in the
juices flowing from his touch.

He breathed hotly into her ear as he drove
his fingers into her, pumping into her as he rubbed his thumb over
her clit again and again.

Winter moaned and clutched at his shoulder,
eager for more, helplessly bucking her hips against his hand.

“Take me, Logan. Please. Do not prolong the
torment.”

“Why? It is so enjoyable,” he murmured.

He sucked at the corner of her jaw as he
moved on top of her, and she spread her legs open to accommodate
him. He buried his face against her neck, propping on his arms as
he guided his shaft to her cleft. Rubbing his body against her,
pressing his hard chest against her aching breasts, he rocked his
hips, slipping across her folds and the center of her sex. His arms
trembled, and he pushed into her.

Winter jerked with the contact, gasping for
air. She clutched his shoulders, wrapping a leg around his hips to
pull him in more. He was so large, it felt so tight, so hard. He
resisted her efforts, moving at his own pace. Inch by agonizing
inch, he worked into her, his member stretching her to the limits
of her endurance. Then he withdrew, slowly, almost completely
withdrawing before pushing inside again. Each time pressing against
the mouth of her womb, until the muscles of her sex relaxed and
eagerly accepted him. Pleasure gained maddeningly close.

He lay half atop her, freeing one hand to
move between their joined bodies, to rub against her clit with
maddening speed. Winter moaned, clenching inside, and Logan grunted
in pleasure, thrusting against her until he stretched her to the
breaking point.

He stilled his movement, still rolling his
fingers over her clit. He was bringing her to the heights of
pleasure, but it wasn’t enough. She wanted him to join her.

She looked into his smoldering eyes and
cupped his buttocks, digging her nails in as she pulled him
inexorably forward. His body straining against her and the
inevitable, he growled low in his throat and plunged fully into her
depths.

Winter cried out and he muffled her cries
with his mouth before raining kisses over her face. She trembled
underneath him, her body adjusting to his size. He held still, and
her sex quivered around him, clenching and unclenching.

“I am sorry for ever causing you hurt,” he
whispered, looking pained.

“All is forgiven,” she said, enjoying the
pleasure of having him completely inside her. She moved against
him, holding him close in her embrace.

He groaned and pulled his shaft out to plunge
it inside her again. She arched her back, meeting him. “You’ll be
the death of me,” he said, increasing his tempo, her slickness
easing his way, in and out, harder and harder as she met each
thrust with abandon.

“La petit
mort
,” she gasped,
the little
death
, kneading his tight buttocks, pulling him deeper
with each thrust, until she thought the sensations would overwhelm
her and she would go mad.

He buried his face against her neck, grinding
his hips against her, building to the release hovering on the
edges. She gripped him with her sex, massaging him with each
powerful thrust, until she could take no more. She closed her eyes,
blinded by the orgasm raging through her, quivering on the end of
every nerve. She called out his name as she climaxed again and
again, until he gained his own release and his seed shot deep into
her womb.

He collapsed on top of her, exhausted, and
she lay trembling beneath him, her sex twitching as the waves of
pleasure eased away, debilitating her, until she was drained of
everything but pure feeling. She rode down the high of his loving,
her mind shutting down.

They drifted off to sleep, nestled in each
other’s arms.

Sometime later, Winter awoke to Logan’s
caress as he stroked his hands through her hair.

She smiled lazily, looking up at him. “How
long have you been watching me?”

“Not long enough,” he said, a corner of his
mouth hitched high, and he kissed her. “I have something I wanted
to give you, but didn’t want to wake you.”

Underneath his pillow, he pulled out a small
box and presented it to her. It seemed to be formed of a single
piece of wood, for she could see no latch or opening, nor ridges
for the lid. Oval shaped glass was inset on the top. She picked it
up from his palm and peered into it. Inside rested the necklace he
had given her, held immobile under the glass. She hadn’t even
realized it had gone missing, couldn’t remember the last time she’d
seen it.

He closed his hand over the box and her hand.
“We will lock the ice princess away forever, my love.”

And they did.

The End

Read an excerpt from Stranger in my Bed by
Julia Keaton, available at Amazon.com, B&N, All Romance Ebooks,
and other fine retailers:

It was a tickle of sensation that roused
Melantha, brought her floating upward toward consciousness and at
the same time stirred warmth low in her belly. For several moments
it teased her mind that she was experiencing one of the
delightfully stimulating fantasy dreams. The tightening of
something around her wrist wrenched her wide awake abruptly,
however. Still disoriented, Melantha tugged at her arm and
discovered she couldn’t move it.

Her eyelids snapped open but she found that
the room was as bereft of light as the inside of a cave, the
darkness so profound she could almost feel it.

She lay perfectly still for several moments,
feeling her heart rate leap from slow even beats to a rapid gallop
as she tried to move and discovered her arms were bound at the
wrists and her legs at the ankles.

Coolness wafted over her, and then warmth as
someone leaned near.

“Where is it?”

A shiver skated down Melantha’s spine. The
voice was definitely male, but the whispered words made it
impossible to identify the voice even if she had known it well
enough to recognize it and she was suddenly very much afraid that
she would not have recognized it. “I’ll scream,” she whispered
shakily, finding her voice at last. “I’ll scream the house
down!”

Something warm and rounded that she finally
decided was a fingertip touched her just below the collar bone and
traced a path straight down her body, pausing at the thatch of hair
that covered her mons.

She felt it all the way down.

“I don’t think so. You’re completely naked
and tied spread eagle to your bed. If it’s your desire to be found
like this by your brother, your grandmother, the servants and the
half dozen or so guests currently staying here, though, by all
means scream.”

The picture he painted so deliberately in her
mind closed her throat. As if to emphasize what he had said, she
felt her skin prickle in acute sensation, felt her nipples draw
tightly. “How dare you!” she managed to get out in a croak of a
whisper.

He grunted. She felt the bed dip as he
settled on the mattress beside her. Almost casually, he traced a
path with his finger again, this time circling her belly button,
and then moving upward and circling her breasts in a lazy figure
eight. Melantha held her breath, trying to close her mind to the
finger but found it impossible. Her skin rippled beneath his touch,
sending sparks of increased awareness through her. “I think you can
safely assume that there is not much that I would not dare, all
things considered.”

The finger, to her relief, disappeared. “I
know you know where it is.”

Melantha licked her lips, straining to pierce
the darkness and see the man she knew was hovering over her. “I
don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“I think you do,” he murmured, his voice
husky, but still too raspy and indistinct to identify. He said
nothing for several moments, as if he was thinking. “Should I
torture it out of you, I wonder?”

Fear closed over Melantha at that none too
subtle threat.

She jumped at the first, light brush,
expecting pain. Instead, the touch was so light she wondered if she
would’ve felt it at all if every nerve ending in her body hadn’t
been standing on end seeking stimulation to tell her what was going
on around her. The touch traveled up and down her body in slow,
mesmerizing circles. Goosebumps erupted all over her as it stroked
over her breast, circled one nipple and then glided back and forth
over the tip, stirring currents of warmth in her breast and a
tightening sensation in her lower belly.

She was having trouble controlling her
breathing by the time it ceased to circle her nipple and traveled
down into the valley between her breasts and then around and around
the other breast in ever tightening circles until she grew tense
with anticipation. She let out her breath with a slight gasp of
sound as it brushed across her other nipple, back and forth,
lightly, just enough to tease her with the need for something more
substantial.