Читать книгу Modern Romance July 2019 Books 5-8 - Jane Porter - Страница 13

HE HADN’T COME to the bedroom to make love to his new wife. He’d come to send her home, and yet she was fierce and stubborn, determined to fight for this marriage.

So different from Elexis, who hadn’t even bothered to show up for the ceremony. So different from Elexis, who couldn’t even hold a conversation with him. Kassiani could hold a conversation and more. She was fierce, smart, eloquent. She would have been an incredible trial attorney. She’d be amazing in the boardroom.

Maybe that’s why he was here, sitting in one of the leather chairs in the master bedroom, telling Kassiani to unpin her hair and then shake it out, before letting her try to entertain him.

He was intrigued by her, curious as to her next move.

Her next move proved to be a rather awkward, but earnest, dance in front of him.

She was still wearing his robe but every now and then a lapel slipped open, revealing the pale slope of a full breast, or a knee and thigh.

He hadn’t allowed himself to think of her as a woman before this, because she hadn’t been his woman, but as she danced, her hips slowly, sensually gyrating, her arms lifted over her head, eyes half-closed as she swayed, he couldn’t look away. He was fairly certain she’d never done this before, which was maybe what made her efforts so appealing. He hadn’t thought he’d find her arousing, and yet he was hard, and growing harder as she danced and swayed, using her body to entice him.

He watched her from beneath heavy lids, body heating, blood humming in his veins. He’d wanted to be done with her. He’d come to his room to dispense with her, and yet here she was, dancing as if her life depended on it. As though he were a sultan, and she a disgraced member of his harem.

And perverse as the thought was, that, too, aroused him. The only way he felt anything, anymore, was through sex. Hard, carnal sex. Sex threaded with power. Sex laced with pain. He hadn’t always been this way. He’d been...normal...once.

He’d had feelings, and tenderness. But that had been stripped from him in his teenage years, along with his pride, leaving only failure and shame.

It’s why he wanted to marry Elexis. She was hard. He wouldn’t break her. But Kassiani...she was entirely something else.

And she was entirely something else right now, as she slowly sank down, going to her knees before him. Her hands rested lightly on his knees and her head tipped back to look up into his face.

He didn’t know what she saw in his face, but whatever she did see, it emboldened her. She ran her hands lightly up his quadriceps, her palms warm against his thighs. Reaching his hips, she lightly stroked down, brushing the inside of his thighs. His shaft throbbed. He felt as if he would burst out of his skin in a moment. His virginal little bride was not acting so very virginal in that moment.

It had been a long time since he’d been so turned on. A long time since his chest felt heat and warmth along with his groin. Normally only his erection worked, but tonight his entire body heated and thrummed as her hands stroked back up his thighs, moving toward his zipper.

Damen had to steel himself to keep from making a sound.

He watched, fascinated, as she unzipped him and reached into his cotton briefs to draw him out. He was long and thick and he pulsed in her soft, warm hand.

He wanted to tell her to wrap her fingers around him. He wanted to tell her how to stroke him—firmly, from the base of his shaft to the tip of his rounded head. He wanted what he wanted, and yet, he was also curious to see what she’d do next, and how she intended to satisfy him.

Her fingers slowly curved around him and she lowered her head to touch the tip of her tongue to the head of his shaft.

He stifled his growl of appreciation as her tongue lapped at him, licking the throbbing tip as if he were a lollipop or ice-cream cone.

It was all he could do not to rock his hips. He wanted to be in her mouth. He wanted the pressure of her hand and the wet heat of her mouth, and she wasn’t quite getting the hang of it yet, but just watching her lick him, and suck him, made him hungrier, and fiercer.

She was trying so hard to please him, and she was applying herself so passionately to the task, that every flick of her tongue across his swollen head made him groan inwardly. She was either a splendid actress, or she genuinely enjoyed sucking him. The fact that she might just enjoy this...night...had never once crossed his mind. He hadn’t ever thought of her wanting him, or desiring him, and watching her lavish him with attention made him want to explode.

He stopped there, aware that these weren’t the thoughts of a considerate husband.

Not that he’d ever be a truly good, considerate husband, because he wasn’t a good or considerate man. He was too bitter and broken. Too ambitious. Too driven. He’d come from nowhere, having risen up from nothing—literally olive trees and a stone hut in the middle of a hilltop orchard—and then even that had been taken from him, taken by those who believed money made them better than others, that money gave them the right to use and abuse.

It’s why he’d worked so hard his entire life—to distance himself from the victim he’d been.

Having hit the absolute bottom, he knew he’d never be weak again.

His world was strength, power, domination. It was his one and only goal.

He wanted a family to prove that he’d overcome a dark past, and he had the means to ensure they’d be safe. They’d be comfortable, guarded, protected. His children would be able to go to the best schools. They’d have the best security. They’d never be exploited. But he needed a wife who would love them, because he didn’t love. He didn’t have normal emotions and feelings, and there was no room for feelings, just as there would be no romance.

Should he take Kassiani to his bed, it would be strictly business. Just like consummating the marriage was serious business. The moment he took her virginity, there would be no going back. The moment he claimed her, there would be no annulment.

Did he want to claim her?

He studied her from beneath heavy lids, his erection aching in her hands, the thick tip damp from her mouth.

Even though she was the wrong bride, she was still a Dukas and the marriage still gave him what he wanted—all of North America’s West Coast ports. All the Dukas ships. All the trade agreements.

Part of him wanted to punish the Dukas family for playing him, but that would be cutting off his nose to spite his face. Kassiani would meet his needs just as well as Elexis. Maybe even better because his children did need a mother who would feel and care and fight for them. They’d need one parent with a heart.

He should just take her to bed, and claim her. He wouldn’t be rough with her, even though he liked hot, hard sex. Sex without apology. He’d never made love to a woman and felt love. Sex—intercourse—was a release, and it felt good after he climaxed, but there wasn’t much else he felt in the bedroom, other than loathing. He’d never tell anyone but he could barely tolerate being touched. He could barely endure being inside his skin. It was always a fight, a battle, to not remember the past. To not let memories resurface.

It’s why he’d kept mistresses over the years, not girlfriends. It’s why he’d wanted an arranged marriage. It was clean, clear, undemanding. There would be no affection, no emotion, no demands.

He avoided drama at all costs. He avoided feelings, and he certainly avoided feeling anything that hurt. Damen couldn’t even remember the last time he felt tenderness. And yet, glancing down to his lap where Kassiani’s dark head bobbed over his thick shaft, he felt strangely undone. It crossed his mind that he didn’t deserve her. It crossed his mind that she shouldn’t have been the sacrificial lamb.

Elexis was so much better suited to him. Consummating the marriage with her would have been far easier because he could take her and leave her and there would be no guilt. No remorse.

Tonight, even if he managed not to physically hurt Kassiani by taking her virginity, he suspected she’d still be bruised by this new life. She’d be bruised by him. He knew she hadn’t been treated well by her family, and now she’d married a man who wouldn’t treat her much better. Worse, she’d be grateful for the crumbs thrown her way.

The thought made his skin crawl.

She deserved so much more. She might be a Dukas but she wasn’t shallow and hollow like the rest of them—

Kassiani’s head suddenly lifted and her eyes met his. Something in her expression made his body tighten all over again, his shaft pulsing against her full lips.

He couldn’t tear his gaze away from his head pressed to her mouth. It was hot and dirty and sexy all at the same time.

He shouldn’t have allowed his virginal bride to go down on her knees in his white robe with nothing else on. He shouldn’t have let her take him in her sweet, hot mouth, not when he was still trying to decide if he wanted to keep her. He was an ass. Selfish, ruthless, uncaring.

And desperately aroused.

So unusual for him and his numb body.

“You don’t have to do that,” he rasped, involuntarily reaching out to run the pad of his thumb across the sweep of her cheekbone. Her skin was soft, and warm. He wondered if she was as warm between her thighs. He wondered if she was wet.

“Why not?” she answered unsteadily. “Am I doing it wrong?”

Her question, in her low, throaty voice, made his body shudder. It didn’t help that she followed her question with a light lick up the side of his shaft. He felt her lick all the way to the base of his penis, his balls tightening with pleasure. “You are doing quite well,” he gritted.

The corner of her lips turned up, her long black lashes lowering over eyes that seemed to gleam with satisfaction. He’d never seen anything so erotic, this curvaceous little siren, his unexpected, swapped bride.

“I want to make you come,” she whispered, “but obviously I’m not doing something right because it hasn’t happened.”

“It hasn’t happened because I’m holding myself back.”

For a moment there was just silence as her eyes widened as she processed what he’d said.

And then she rose slightly on her knees, her face lifting, expression surprised. “You can do that?”

“I can do many things.”

Her expression shifted, increasingly curious and mind-blowingly sensual, reminding him of a courtesan rather than an untutored virgin. “Show me,” she said, her hands on his inner thighs, her fingertips against the base of his shaft.

He clamped his jaw tight, fighting to steady his breathing. He had no idea why she tested his control. At twenty-three she was thirteen years younger than he, but in that moment he felt as if she had all the power and experience. “Show you what, gataki?”

“How to do it. How to make you feel so good that you can’t...hold back.”

“I think you’re doing fine for a beginner.”

“Fine is my least favorite word in the English language. Fine indicates mediocrity. I hate mediocrity.”

He found himself almost smiling and then he clasped her face and kissed her deeply, claiming her mouth the way he should have in the beginning. She froze and stiffened, and then after a moment her lips softened, parting for him.

It was in that moment he stopped vacillating.

It was in that moment when she opened her mouth, giving herself to him, that he knew he would take her, claim her and make her his.

There would be no turning back. Not now, not anymore.

He took her mouth the way he intended to take her—with single-minded focus, his tongue sweeping the seam of her lips before thrusting into the warmth of her mouth and finding the hollows of her cheeks, the inside of her lips, the pressure and release so similar to what his body would do to hers, and how he’d find a rhythm and make her feel.

She whimpered softly, her hands reaching up to cover his, her fingers wrapping around his wrists. But she wasn’t pulling his hands away. No, she was pressing his hands against her jaw, pressing him to her for more sensation even as her fingertips stroked the inside of his wrists and the sensitive mound of his palms.

Blood roared through his ears, pulsing in his veins. He felt his shaft bob, thick and heavy with need.

Sweeping her into his arms, Damen carried Kassiani to the bed. She lay on her back, looking up at him, the white robe parting to reveal pale skin. Her curves were ripe, the fabric clinging to the blatant fullness of her breasts and swell of her tummy. He tugged on the sash of the robe, untying it before pushing the robe back, exposing her.

She was an hourglass—full breasts with dark pink nipples, narrow waist and generous hips perfect to cradle him. He’d expected her to have a patch of trimmed dark curls, but instead she was bare, and the sight of her so smooth tested his control.

He needed to take it slowly, though. She wasn’t experienced. He didn’t want to hurt her. It was important she was ready for him.

“Eísai axiagápitos,” he murmured, telling her she was lovely, because she was. The dark pink of her nipples were in stark contrast to her alabaster skin, and the tight tips called to him, as did the bareness between her thighs.

He leaned over her to lightly trace one puckered areola with his tongue, before turning to the other. Each swirl of his tongue was awesome. He leaned over her, his mouth closing over one taut nipple and sucking it the way she’d sucked his cock.

She whimpered, one hand pressed to the mattress, fingers flexed as he worked the sensitive peak. He cupped her other breast as he teased and nipped at her nipple, enjoying her soft, hoarse cries of pleasure. Her skin was warm and satiny smooth as he pressed a kiss between her breasts, and then lower to her trembling belly.

Every kiss he placed was rewarded with another throaty pant of pleasure. He continued kissing lower, even as he caressed up, shaping her, discovering how very sensitive she was.

He pressed one of her knees down, creating space for him, and he found himself just wanting to look at her, and drink in her feminine shape—soft curves and secret shadows. His shaft ached.

Damen dipped his head, his lips brushing the inside of her creamy thigh. She sighed at the feel of his lips. She sighed and stirred restlessly as he continued kissing his way up the inside of her thigh, his tongue drawing lazy circles on the tender skin where her thigh joined her hip.

Her skin burned and she smelled sweet, like honey in the sun. He wanted to drink her, but he was determined to make her wait, wanting her fully aroused, and wet, before he entered her.

She squirmed and exhaled hard as he placed a kiss at the top of her mound, just above her lips.

She exhaled again, another devastatingly sexy gasp of pleasure and wonder, as he breathed on her, letting his breath warm her, and tease her.

“You are bare,” he said, stroking her mound with a fingertip, lightly caressing the plump outer lip that was perfectly smooth. “You’ve been waxed.”

She shuddered and closed her eyes. “I was told you would prefer me this way.”

“Who told you?”

She shook her head, her teeth catching on her lower lip.

He continued stroking her, lightly down the one side and then up over the other until he reached the top again.

Her thighs were trembling. Her body quivered and she was breathing more quickly, her breasts rising and falling, her nipples even tighter than they’d been a moment ago.

“Have you ever been waxed before?” he asked, his tongue dipping between those plump bare lips to flick across her.

She jumped at the touch, reaching for him with one hand, her fingers brushing his shoulder before tangling in his hair.

“Hmm?” he persisted, tongue tracing her folds, discovering she wasn’t just damp, but wet. Soaked. Her hips rotated beneath him and he licked the silken inner lips, tasting her. She tasted like sun-kissed honey, too, hot and sweet.

“Never waxed before,” she panted, as he used two fingers to trace her, and shape her, her outer lips, then her inner lips, skirting her damp core.

“Do you like it like this?” he asked, his mouth following his fingers, teasing, tasting, turning her into a mass of quivering nerve endings. “So smooth and bare?”

“It’s different—” And she broke off in a gasp as he drew her clit into his mouth, sucking on the nub, even as he slipped his fingers inside her, stroking her on the inside.

Her hips rose and fell as he played her, and when she cried out as she climaxed, he gave her a moment to settle before spreading her knees and sinking into her, claiming her as his, forevermore.

* * *

It was more than a pinch when he thrust into her. It hurt, and part of her objected to the intense fullness and pressure, but then as the sting eased and her body relaxed, the sense of fullness gave way to new and interesting sensations, with the uppermost sensation being that of wonder.

She loved the feeling of him on her. She loved the slow hard strokes of him in her. Her lips parted as she struggled to catch her breath, but it was virtually impossible to contain the tension and pleasure.

She positively buzzed from head to toe. Closing her eyes, she gave herself over to feelings, and they were such good feelings. She could still remember how his mouth had felt on her. It was unlike anything she’d ever felt before. His mouth and tongue and breath had created so many different impressions—each of them thrilling and arousing.

Tonight had to be the most incredible night of her life.

She knew she’d never forget it. How could she when Damen was making her body hum and sing, lighting her up as if she was a living Christmas tree? Each of his deep thrusts hit a sensitive spot inside her, and as he moved faster, and harder, she arched to receive him, glowing, burning, feeling incredibly alive.

She was going to come again, she thought, as the sensation continued to build and center, intensifying, the pleasure so intense it was almost painful, and just when she thought she couldn’t hold on to the exquisite sensations a moment longer, she shattered all over again, her body climaxing, rippling with one delicious wave of bliss after another.

Two orgasms on her wedding night. Amazing.

And then he groaned and stiffened, plunging deep within her, and she realized he’d just climaxed, too.

After a bit he shifted his weight, stretching out next to her, leaving his arm around her waist, holding her to his side.

Peace flooded her. She hadn’t been sure about tonight, but everything was beautiful, and for once in her life, she felt perfect.

Kassiani tried to keep her eyes open but she was exhausted, and she fell asleep nestled to Damen’s chest, her legs tangled with his.

Later in the night, Kass felt the bed shift. Damen was moving away, rolling toward the edge. The mattress dipped and then he eased himself out of the bed.

She didn’t know why she feigned sleep and yet she listened to the bedroom door open and close.

It was only when the door clicked shut that she opened her eyes. Moonlight spilled into the room. The Sounio Cape was almost dark, everyone in bed for the night.

Kassiani didn’t know if Damen was permanently gone or if he’d be coming back. She didn’t know where he’d gone, or why.

Sleepily, she struggled to sort through her feelings. So much had happened in one day. Her father’s announcement that she needed to take Elexis’s place. Her shock and initial resistance until she realized that marrying Damen would be good for her. It’d give her opportunities she’d never have trapped in the Dukas mansion on Nob Hill.

And once she said yes to her father’s idea, the wedding gown alteration and the rigorous wedding prep—the salt scrub, the waxing, the hair mask, the application of lotions and polish—before the wedding itself.

Damen’s fury as he discovered the truth about his bride.

The reception they didn’t attend.

The early departure in the speedboat.

The arrival on the yacht.

And then Damen, finally claiming her.

Her body was sore, but not unbearably so. She also felt warm and languid in a way she never felt before. Their coming together was nothing like she had imagined it would be. It wasn’t sex but something bigger, something more, something...significant.

And she couldn’t explain how or why, but she sensed that Damen felt it, too.