Page 51 of The Duke of a Thousand Desires

“But you could be Mother Goose and I’d desire you.” He moved over her, kissing her again, her neck, her stomach until his mouth reached the seam of her sex.

“Simon?”

“I’m here.”

“I know where you are, but what are you doing?”

“Wait,” he said in a diabolical whisper.

He grasped her hips and buried his face in the delta of her thighs. She flexed her back, shivers running down her legs. “Simon, your tongue.”

For an interval she was too beset with sensation to do anything but stare at the nebulous shadow of his head between her legs. His tongue speared her folds, working her into a daze. Surely a lady should protest. But a wife? Why should she deny what infused every part of her with such pleasure? She strained, smothering a cry with the back of her hand.

“Is this what you needed?” he said, and flicked his fingertips back and forth across her swollen clitoris. Her inner muscles tightened like silk threads that broke all at once. She cried out, fragmented, rendered insensible by the relief that swept through her body.

Her belly trembled. She closed her eyes, entranced, and waited for what would happen now. She was, in fact, too disarranged to rouse, the echoes of her orgasm intense and deep-reaching. Distantly she realized he had not been afflicted with a similar lassitude.

Before her next breath, he was braced on his arms above her. She placed her hand against his hard-muscled chest. The tip of his thick penis stabbed at the entrance of her sex, and yet he denied her the complete penetration she silently pleaded for. “I don’t know you,” she whispered raggedly. “I don’t even recognize myself.”

“Know that I am yours only.”

His shoulders tensed. His muscles glistened lightly with a faint sheen of sweat. Their eyes met again. He raised higher to guide his prick inside her. He hesitated momentarily as she lapsed into an uncertain quietude. He was pulsing heat and yet reluctant to inflict what would be a necessary pain. She was so tight that he had to allow her time to accept his size. To his relief she exhaled and parted her thighs, sufficiently becalmed that he could enter her with some ease.

“I apologize in advance for what you need endure,” he said. “I will tear a small part of you when we make love. I’m embarrassed to admit I have the most cumbersome erection in my memory. That is a tribute to my desire for you, although it doesn’t sound like one.”

A soft laugh escaped her parted lips.

“Branwen?” he said in hesitation.

She blinked. “How long have you know my real name? And who revealed it to you?”

“I’ve known for years. I overheard Aunt Primrose reprimand you once, and she explained to me afterward that Branwen means white raven in Welsh. She was the goddess of love and you were named after her for your pale hair. But your hair turned as dark as a raven’s before your first birthday. Your English nursemaid called you Ravenna. I thought the original name was beautiful.”

“I should be privy to all your secrets.”

“I’ve told you. I have very few.” He dipped his head. “Breathe,” he said. “Listen to instinct.”

He pressed slowly inside her, tightening his lower torso, controlling the angle of his entry. He made a bid for steadiness. Soon he was moving in shallow, restrained strokes, rubbing the base of his cock against her bud. Breathe. Listen to instinct. Could he heed his own advice? His body urged him to go deeper. He didn’t want her to think he was an animal.

But in truth he was. Feral need took over.

He dominated, claimed, denied himself until the final instant. Her nipples hardened. Her essence coated his cock. His sweet duchess, a woman strong and made for him. Branwen. The goddess of love.

The only woman he had ever desired. His wife in every sense of the word.