"You're right," he said. He slid the tip of a finger between her skin and the silk and used that to pull her toward him. He'd tied the knot between her shoulder blades, which meant that she needed to sit up in order for him to get it off her. "This is far too tight No wonder you couldn't breathe. What benighted oaf did this to you, Sabine?"
"I'm thinking of hiring him as my lady's maid." As she bent toward him, her shorn hair fell across her temples. "I wonder if I should."
He turned her around so he could unfasten the fabric and unwind it from her torso. The knot was stiff and tight and he had to fight to get it loose. "Sack the fellow, I say. There are more interesting things he can do for you." When he had it off, she stayed with her back to him, leaning down with one hand pressed to the mattress and the other on her upper torso while she took a deep, deep breath.
Foye stared, transfixed, aroused beyond belief. The flickering light made her skin gleam like closely woven silk. Despite her being so small a woman, her curves were luscious. He drew a finger slowly down the line of her spine. Her skin was as soft as it looked, smooth everywhere and pale wherever it was free of the coloring. The slide of her ribs to her waist aroused him as much as the curve of her waist to her hips. He bent to kiss the nape of her neck and cup a hand over one of her breasts. She kept her torso bent
"Is this all right?" he asked, aware that his position was an aggressive one and that if the difference in their sizes bothered her, this particular arrangement of their bodies would only serve to emphasize that disparity. On the other hand, it was possible she liked it.
"Yes," she said on a breath.
He shifted so he was behind her, using his other hand to bring her upright until her back was pressed against his front and she was on her knees while his thighs spread on either side of her. He kept his hand moving upward until his fingers were in her now nut-brown hair, sliding over her skull from back to front Golden blond sparkled from the uneven brown coloring. Her hair was thick and soft underneath, and he thought about what it would have been like to hold that once glorious mass of golden hair in his hands. He brought her head back to lean against his shoulder.
"Sabine," he whispered. "Oh, Sabine, you're so lovely. too lovely for a beast like me." He put both his hands around her waist and reverently slid them downward, molding his palms and fingers to the shape of her, pressing her against his erection. He returned to her breasts, looking at her from over her shoulder. Sabine sucked in a breath when he covered her. "Do you like when I do this?"
"Mm."
"That is not an answer." He brushed his palms over her nipples. "Do you like this?"
"Yes, Foye."
She had a narrow rib cage—hell, she was smaller than him by a terrifying amount—but her breasts were magnificent Not unduly large, but far more than he expected. She was quite pale. Even her nipples were a pale, pinkish brown. He felt a surge of disbelief that he should have gotten them to this point of aching desire and mutual nakedness. And here he was, holding her, cupping her breasts, and feeling the beat of her heart underneath his palm. He wasn't considering anything like sedate intercourse with her. He was, in fact in serious danger of losing his self-control.
That could not happen. Not for her first time with him. Her first time ever. He would be gentle. Tender. Restrained.
His hands, the backs browned by the sun, looked entirely, wonderfully masculine on her, large and bordering on coarse. He caressed her and dropped a line of kisses along her shoulder. "Such a lovely body, Sabine. Divine."
He laid her down on the mattress and knelt between her legs, looking at her. Another shiver of arousal shot through him. He drew a hand along one of her thighs, bringing his fingers around to the inside. He knew he could all too easily overwhelm her. The last thing he wanted was to see her looking at him with fear. He was trying his best, really he was.
He cupped her sex, tangling his fingers in her pale, crisp nether hair. She might change her mind. She could. She might take a long, hard look at him and decide she would never accept him. This was not, after all, a true wedding night, where there was, in essential fact, no possibility of his wife denying him. He pressed his hand over her, between her legs, sliding a finger along the folds of her body, and Sabine, quite gratifyingly, bowed toward him. Her eyes fluttered open, and she raised her knees to give him access. He came up against her maidenhead. They locked gazes. "I'll try not to hurt you, Sabine."
"It's all right, Foye."
There wasn't any possibility of going back now. Foye smiled and lowered himself in order to taste her, sliding down to kiss the inside of her thigh and then her quim. So much for restrain and reserve. Her skin was salty, and he didn't give a damn about much but seeing to her thorough pleasure. He slid farther down and nudged her thighs apart "Lovely, Sabine." He breathed the words against her skin.
Her sex was warm and damp for him, and when he kissed her there, she tensed, but not with fear, with desire. "Foye," she said on a long, low inhale. "My God, keep doing that. Please."
He was happy to oblige. He adored bringing a woman to climax this way. The taste and texture against his mouth and tongue never failed to arouse him, the pleasure that ended with them both sated.
He listened for the changes in her breathing, waited for the tension in her body to tell him she was close, and adjusted touch and kiss to bring her to the point where her body would belong to him, when she would allow herself to surrender to her body, to pleasure, and to him.
After he'd brought her to climax, he pulled himself over her, careful to keep himself well above her. Sabine gazed at him with sleepy, pleasure-sated eyes. His cock brushed her belly, he could not help that contact while he lowered his head to her breast and still kept his weight off her.
She groaned when his teeth found her nipple, a light scrape, a touch, a sweep of his tongue around and across the taut nub that meant she was responding to him. She arched against him, and before he could think, he pressed his cock against her belly, imitating the motion he would make when he was inside her.
Her legs came up, the soft, sweet inside of her thighs brushing against the outside of his. He fell deeper yet into his own arousal. He pulled away long enough to reach out and drag his mattresses next to hers. When he'd done that he rolled onto his back and brought Sabine over him to straddle his lower torso.
"Foye," she breathed.
Just the sound of her voice aroused him. He bad the loveliest view of her body this way. He slid his hands from her belly to her breasts, palming them. Her short hair swung forward past her temples until she arched her upper back, filling his hands. His fingers tightened on her, plucking at her nipples. She clasped his wrists with her brown-dyed hands, then brushed her hands along his forearms.
"Foye," she whispered as she looked down and into his face. She wasn't afraid of him. Not at all. Not afraid and not repulsed. "When you touch me..." She drew a breath. "It's so lovely. You make me feel... unsettled." She bit her lower lip. "I need you, now, I think."
He managed a smile at her. "Now? Are you certain?"
"Please, Foye." She tightened her hands around his wrists. "I don't want to wait any longer."
Hell, he could barely speak he was so out of his mind with desire for her. He pushed himself up, holding his weight on one arm while he put her on her back. With her supine, he bent his head to kiss her mouth, then trail his lips down her throat to her breast. Her nipple budded hard when he tongued her. He reached between them and put a hand around his cock, and oh, hell, he was close.
"Sabine," he whispered. So close. So close to sliding his cock inside her. "Sabine, tell me this is what you want"
She looked into his face. "Fiend," she said. "You torture me on purpose. I'll never forgive you for this. Never."
"Tell me," he said, settling his belly against hers. "I want the words from you."
"Yes, Foye! I want this with you."
He put his mouth by her ear, one hand planted on the mattress near her shoulder, holding his weight. "I'm going to put my cock inside you," he said. "I'll be inside you, warm and snug, and it will be the moment I've lived for since I met you."
Her hands rested on his shoulders, moving lower, sliding over his chests, touching him, burning him. "Stop torturing me." She bowed against him. "Beast You are a beast"
Foye pulled back his head. "Listen to me." He waited until she opened her eyes. "I've not made love to a virgin in a very long time. If I hurt you, it's because of your maidenhead, not because that's how it is for women. It's just this once. Only this time, my love."
She nodded, and then he let go of himself and got the head of his cock at her entrance, very aware that he was bigger than she was. He pushed his hips forward, and, he pushed through her maidenhead with very little trouble and just hell, his foreskin slid back with the friction of entering her, and he flew to an even higher level of arousal. She was hot and tight around him, and it was all he could do not to drive himself as far into her as he could.
With one arm around her body just above the slope of her hips, he rocked forward. He went slowly because she was very tight, and she arched her throat and he watched her mouth open on a moan of pleasure. She put her hands on his shoulders, fingers angled toward his back. "Now," he whispered. "Now, Sabine. I love you." He held her, and with a single thrust, he penetrated fully, and God help him, he adored the sound of her breath catching in the back of her throat, and the give of her body to his. She enveloped him, hot and slick around his cock. Heaven. Bliss. He was inside her where he had dreamed of being for far too long. Jesus, he was at the edge of his control.
His. She was his at last
"Are you all right?" he said. Her body was tense against his, and he didn't want to have hurt her, though of course he must have. Her fingers gripped him hard, digging into the skin of his shoulders. His balls were tight, and he had to fight the urge to thrust. Sabine drew in a long, trembling breath.
"Foye," she whispered. She twined her arms around his neck. Her fingers tangled in his hair and brought his head down to kiss him. He fit his mouth over hers and kissed her back.
Yes.
He drew partially out with a backward tilt of his hips and upward pressure from his free hand on her hip. She slid her hands to the top of his shoulders, not pushing him away at all. She bent her knees again, and her inner thigh brushed his hip. Foye pushed into her again, muscles tensing as their bodies merged.
"Like that," he said. "Hell, yes."
Heaven. Considering that he was a large man, and she was so small and elegant, they fit together very well. When he was all the way in again, he stayed there, wanting to be sure she was all right But she was slick around him, and he wasn't mistaken in his interpretation of her groan. She opened her eyes and they looked at each other.
"Foye," she said, settling a hand on his cheek. "Oh, Foye." He pressed forward, and his world narrowed to just the two of them. "Foye," she whispered. "Why are you torturing me like this? Am I as awful as that?"
"No, Sabine," he said when he had the wits to speak. He slid deeper inside her. "I am torturing you because I intend to see you break apart while I watch. I am a selfish man when it comes to your pleasure. I intend to see it all."
"Beast," she said with a smile.
Words filled him, a dozen, a thousand, a hundred thousand, but he couldn't speak a one. He put his palms on the mattress at the top of her shoulders and drew back, then forward, slowing watching her face the entire time. His breath hitched as his foreskin slid back, exposing the sensitive head of his cock to her body. "Sabine."
Her answer to that was a tilt of her pelvis that sent his cock sliding inside her, into the warmth of her body. The sensation was so exquisite he forgot everything but that But her. Their bodies matched very well. This was all he could manage. Just the two of them, just his body inside hers. Her eyes took on a drugged look, and he thought he'd expire just from looking at the way her expression changed. She'd caught on to the essential motion, and damn her, she'd learned already how to move so as to drive him mad.
He slipped a hand between them and found the exact spot that would bring her to climax. "I adore your body," he whispered. "Your breasts, your mouth, your eyes." As he, too, hurtled toward orgasm, she leaned in and kissed the side of his throat His hips were moving harder now, faster, and when she did break apart, he threw back his head so he could watch, and then he let go of himself, and it didn't matter that he came inside her because in the morning he was going to marry her anyway.
Chapter Twenty-two
When Sabine opened her eyes, Foye lay past asleep less than a foot from her. She was, for a moment, disoriented and wondering how the marquess had gotten into the pasha's palace, let alone into her room. But then she remembered, and the familiar fell away. He'd gotten her out of the palace and away from Kilis. They were in Aleppo, in a khan, and last night they had become lovers.
She had no idea what time it was, except that it was no longer night since there was enough light for her to see the room and, very clearly, Foye's face. She could study him without rudeness or worrying that he would misunderstand the reason for her stare. He knew too well the ways in which others found his features inelegant She thought he didn't know well enough the ways in which he compelled. He'd pulled his quilt up to his chin and slipped one hand underneath his cheek. The butt of a pistol protruded from the edge of his pillow.