Again her eyes drifted to her belly.
“Does it pain you?” His shadow moved into her vision before his wide, heavy shoulders and long, muscular body. He stood behind her, towering in the reflection of her long, gilt-framed mirror.
“No,” she said softly. She loved his face. Every cleft and crag. Every re-routed line and angular hollow. “I have missed you.”
“It has been an hour.”
“Too long.”
His nostrils flared. “Aye.”
Her eyes dropped to his hands. They were vibrating. Not shaking—more of a fine tension. She blinked, noticing the subtle motion along his neck and arms, as well. “Bastian?”
He did not reply, his black gaze fixed upon her abdomen, his jaw flexing.
“Would you like to see?”
His eyes flew to hers. He nodded with a jerk.
She grasped the hem of her shift and removed the garment over her head. Then, she stood naked before her husband.
And felt his eyes burning her alive.
Heat weakened her. Softened her. Beaded her nipples and made her ache.
His hands came to the sides of her waist, his fingertips resting gently against her skin. “Must never do it again, Gus.”
She lost her breath as tingles spread from his hands through her waist, spiraling up and out and down. “Do what?”
“Be hurt.” His tension increased along with the fever in his eyes. “I want to kill him. I want to take you. I want to stop seeing you be hurt.”
She fell back against his solid, powerful, sheltering body. Grasped his hands in hers. Pressed one over her navel and one over her heart. “I shall do everything in my power not to put myself at risk like that again. I promise.”
His sigh shuddered from him. His hands tightened against her. His lips came to her shoulder then nuzzled her neck.
She closed her eyes and stroked his wrists and arms, bared by his shirt’s rolled sleeves. Cool air whispered against her naked breasts and legs, but she was far from cold. No, indeed, as he suckled and kissed, his breath warm, his mouth hot, her flesh burned beneath his touch.
“Open your eyes, love.”
She did. She saw him, so much larger. She saw herself, flushed and ripe and needing.
“You see?”
She shook her head.
“I will keep you safe. I will give you pleasure. But you must let me.”
Her breathing quickened as one of his hands moved to her breast while the other slid down to the thatch between her thighs.
He kissed her ear. Stroked his tongue along the rim and beneath the lobe.
She watched her own belly quivering as his fingers began their work. One set delicately rimmed her nipple, drawing circles round and round. The other set mimicked the motion, circling the ripe nub at her center.
It was almost too much. Him, fully dressed, pleasuring her naked body with slow circles. While she watched.
“Now you see, eh?” His voice rumbled against her ear. “You see how well I can manage your pleasure.”
Her breath hitched on a moan. Her head fell back against his chest. “Bastian.”
He circled and stroked. Over and over. “Do you know what I should like to do to ye right this moment, Gus?”
She shook her head, pressing her hips and breast forward into his hands.
“I should like to take you. Hands and knees. Hard and rough and deep. But I don’t, ye see? Because I love you. I bloody love you. Your pleasure means more to me. Your heart means more to me. Your life means more to me than mine.”
Whatever part of her heart she’d thought to reserve was lost. Claimed fully. It did not matter if loving him meant bearing up under gale and flood. It didn’t matter if it consumed her. Because loving him was inevitable. Inexorable. Fire and tide. Time and rain. It was a force of its own.
She reached up behind her to stroke his jaw. “Do you know what I should like you to do to me, Bastian?”
His teeth gently stroked her shoulder as his hands pressed and circled. Pressed and circled.
“I should like you to … oh, God.” She writhed against him as pulsating waves washed in circles out from her breasts to her core like rippling rings on water. “Take me. Hands and knees. Hard and deep. Because I love you, my rough man. I love you. And having you inside me, bringing you pleasure, is the only thing that satiates my hunger.”
His hands pressed harder between her wet folds, sliding his fingers alongside the nexus of all those rippling rings of beauty. He pinched her firm, red nipple between his fingers, squeezing until the sensations were like lightning—nearly too much. She arched and cried out for him, the tension in her belly coiling tighter, undulating in perfect time.
Her eyes met his in the mirror. His cheeks were flushed, his lips swollen. Against her back, his staff swelled thick and impossibly long. “Be certain, Gus,” he said, his rumble a rasp. “I’ll not hurt ye. Ever. But I need ye very badly.”
One day, she would explain how much she loved his roughness, how it excited and thrilled and aroused her like nothing else. For now, she could do little more than moan and pant, “I am certain. Now, Bastian. Now.”
He went to his knees. Kissed the small of her back like a supplicant at an altar. Stroked her buttocks then banded her waist and drew her down. She went forward onto her hands of her own accord, needing him to hurry.
Feeling his knuckles brush against her womanly core, she jerked then groaned as he slid his longest finger inside. Stroking. Pleasuring. She watched him in the mirror. His eyes were upon her. Riveted and blazing.
He released his fall. Withdrew his finger. Slid it inside his mouth.
Dear heaven, she was going to … right then. Before he even…
“Not yet,” he growled, frowning. He came over her. The blunt, hot tip of him parted her folds. Slid slowly inside. She clawed the carpet beneath her as he stretched her sheath impossibly wide.
It had been like this the first time, only more painful. Now, there was little pain, just a great deal of pressure. He was already deep, yet going deeper.
His hips thrust sharply as his hand braced beside hers, forging inches deeper. His mouth dropped to her nape. His teeth scraped and pleasured. He filled her until she was certain there could not be any more. But there was.
More. And more.
“Take me, Gus. Ah, God. All of me.”
She was willing, but in this position, he felt even bigger than before.
He grasped her thighs and pulled them wider. It helped, but just then he thrust deeper. She grunted at the force of it. The dual sensations of pressure and pleasure. They melded and became one. At last, she felt the root of him, the burning at her opening making her quiver. Her arms trembled as she fought to remain still and let him take her.
Her sheath squeezed him tight, pulsing around his root.
“Do ye feel me, love?”
“Yes. You are … so much.”