Eyes closed, he tilted his head back in total surrender, her name on his lips.
With the drums of instinct pounding in her blood, she parted her lips and gave him a kiss on his neck such as he had given her, teething his warm, tender flesh, sucking it hungrily.
“Dani. Ah, God, Dani,” he breathed, “what a fool I’ve been.”
“Why?” she asked, nuzzling his throat, seeking another intriguing place to bite him.
“I thought I knew what pleasure was. But nothing…nothing prepared me for this, for you. You make me feel…everything.”
Moving back a small space, she raised her gaze to his enraptured face and knew she had never seen anything so powerfully erotic as him in that moment. Despair surged through her, entwined with her desire. She closed her eyes in defeat at the bewildering surge of longing within her, to open herself, body and soul, become one with him, to take him inside herself so she need never be alone again.
Loneliness, wild and dark, rose in her like a crushing ocean wave. It defeated her and she gave in, hating herself, but she needed him too much. Her caress slid down his chest as she lay back again, her body trembling.
Rafael lowered his chin and lifted his gold-tipped lashes heavily, his green-gold eyes smoldering.
“My turn,” he whispered. He caressed her cheek, then his fingertips trailed under her chin, down her throat, and skimmed lightly down her chest. He parted her unbuttoned shirt and gazed down at her breasts. He gently cupped them for a moment, then pressed his thumbs over their crests, pinching ever so lightly, teasing them to turgid arousal until she was gasping.
Then he covered her with his body. Kissing her lips again and again, he eased his warm, bare, velvety flesh down upon her and thrust his tongue hungrily into her mouth.
She went rigid, however, when she felt his hand inching down inside her loosened breeches. Reason flung back to her as she realized this was swiftly going too far. She had to save him. She had to stop him.
But he was going to be so angry.
She clutched his great shoulders. “Rafael—”
“Kiss me,” he whispered in silken command.
She felt a mysterious, steely hardness pulsing fiercely against her abdomen, and when she realized what it was, she tore her mouth away from his, trapped beneath him.
“Don’t, don’t,” she panted feverishly. “Don’t do this, darling. Don’t. We can’t.”
“We can. We shall,” he breathed, smiling at her in debauchery, his eyes glittering feverishly. As his lips lingered against hers, his hand inside her breeches moved.
She gasped. “No! Please, Rafael—”
“Yes, Dani. God,
yes
.” He cupped her mound and slowly slipped his finger inside her.
She cried out with a gasp of sweet shock, then somehow she found the strength to fight, bucking off his touch.
“Dani, calm down! I’m not going to hurt you, sweet—”
She ignored him, thrashing as fully in earnest as that night on the King’s Road when he had captured her in the woods. He won as easily now as he had then. His left hand clamped like a manacle around both her wrists, pinning her hands to the bed above her head. Quickly he moved his thigh across her legs, blocking her before she even thought about kicking him in the groin a third time.
“Calm down,” he ordered gently. He was panting slightly. “Dani, angel, I’d never hurt you, don’t you know that? You belong to me now.” He brushed a light kiss over her brow, and she nearly sobbed with wanting for it to be true. “Mine to protect. Mine to take. Was I not gentle?”
“You’re a brute and I want you to let go of me!” she said through gritted teeth just to get rid of him. Fighting tears of furious frustration, she began thrashing uselessly again.
“Dani, stop it,” he said crossly, stilling her struggles. “You know I’ve every right to this.”
“But I don’t—want—this!” she cried.
He laughed softly, nuzzling her cheek. “You promised never to lie,
ma chère
. Dani, my sweet, it’s our wedding night and this was part of our bargain. An important part, as you well know. Give in to me, darling. Lie back and let me love you,” he breathed.
“Don’t do this to me, Rafael!”
His laugh was low and wicked. “I like when you moan my name like that,” he murmured as he began kissing her ear. “Don’t tease me, Dani. Because I can feel your wetness drenching my hand and I’ve a pretty fair idea of how much you are enjoying yourself.”
She closed her eyes, reeling with his heated kisses. “I hate you.”
He laughed softly, a debauched, seductive sound. “That’s not what you’ll say in the morning. Now, here’s what we’re going to do. First, I’m going to finish undressing you. And then I’m going to make love to you nice and slow, Dani,” he said as he began pulling her shirt off her. “Nice and gentle for my virgin bride. There will only be pain the first time, my love, and after that, I promise you, a world of pleasure awaits.”
“Please, no,” she said in a dwindling whimper.
“Hush,”
he whispered. “It’s natural to be nervous your first time because you don’t know what’s going to happen, but you must trust me, darling. I can ease your fear if you’ll just relax—”
“Stop touching me!”
An angry scowl knit his thick, golden eyebrows. “Damn it, you have a duty to Ascencion and to me! Quit playing games.”
“I’m not playing games. I’m not!” she whispered, but he paid no attention, slipping her black breeches down around her hips. She slammed her head back against the pillow in impotent fury.
He began and he was gentle, as promised. She could not stop him—or perhaps the dark, hungry, wanton core of her that needed so badly stopped her from fighting as she should have.
Holding both her wrists fast under his left hand, with his right he slid her breeches farther down her thighs, caressing everywhere he went. His fine, strong hands moved warmly over her sensitized skin, his touch smooth and sure. He leaned down to kiss her mouth, but she had the moral fortitude to at least refuse his kiss, turning her face away, then she uttered a helpless groan of mingled misery and pleasure as his fingers stroked the small, dense tuft of hair concealing her womanhood.
Maybe Orlando was all wrong, she thought desperately. Maybe the king wouldn’t mind this match. Maybe she could give herself to Rafael in jubilant abandon and keep him and there would be no consequences.
Fool.
His touch was light and delicate, full of practiced finesse. She tried to writhe away, but his fingers only pushed deeper with gentle pressure while he whispered,
“Hush, baby, hush.”
She groaned angrily as he pleasured her, wild for him yet desperate not to fail him. His caress was slow, slow and rhythmic-deep. Lightning danced along her nerve endings as he drove her inexorably toward the summit. Her heart was pounding.
When she gasped in a shock of pleasure like a pearl diver breaking the surface, he claimed her mouth in a ravishing kiss….
Swept away, Rafe kissed her, his entire body shaking with lust. He moved down to suckle her breasts as he pushed her breeches farther down her legs. She was feverish under his hands as he caressed her everywhere. He had to have her. He couldn’t wait much longer. He had never before experienced such an onslaught of barbaric possessiveness over a woman, such total, urgent, bewildering need.
Touching her as deeply as his fingertip could reach, he wanted to make her come seven thousand times. He wanted to take her, own her, love her until he was empty, and as he held her pinned down, tasting her, he knew with a kind of dread that he could never get enough of her. Knew she could enslave him with his own need for the purifying, gemlike flame of her love.
Then she shuddered under his touch with another infuriated moan of pleasure and tried to bite his tongue in retaliation for making her feel it. He was too quick for her, laughing darkly, but her fight ignited primal fires in his blood.
“What’s this, my dear? You want it rough?” he whispered raggedly. “I can do that for you if it’s what you really want.”
“Let me go! I hate you,” she growled, raking her nails down his back with a commanding touch that spoke anything but hate. His ginger cat had claws.
“I noticed,” he said with a half-smile as he grazed her pebble-hard nub with a feather-light touch of his middle fingertip, back and forth, driving her crazy. “May I kiss you here?”
She groaned, thrashed, her slim hips lifting for his caress even as she refused him.
“You’re right. I should quit wasting time.” He rolled atop her, braced himself on his hands over her, and pressed his pelvis slowly between her thighs.
Bliss.
“Feel what you do to me?” he whispered, dragging his erection, like a great stone temple pillar, over her mound with a stroking motion of his hips.
She gasped, moaned at the burning contact.
“Please.”
In wild possession, he arched over her lithe body, knowing his greater strength would deliver him this victory. Chivalry, honor were forgotten under the violent rule of instinct. Nothing mattered but making her his own in the most physical way possible, again and again and again. “I want you now.” He released her wrists, not caring if she struck him, for no blows could deflect him. He reached down and freed his aching sex, pulsating and huge in his breeches for her. Until he was buried to the hilt inside her tight heat, every moment was an eternity of pain.
“No, no,” she was moaning as he eased between her thighs and cradled her in his arms.
He tried to calm her, stroking her hair. “Breathe, love, my sweet wife. Fighting me will only make it hurt,” he whispered, panting. “I don’t want this to hurt you, my darling. Oh, God, let me in.”
Her fear and desire both at fever pitch, she squeezed her eyes shut tightly, grimacing. “Rafael!”
As he guided himself to her glistening threshold with a hand that shook slightly, it came to him through a thick haze of need that she had started crying.
He stared down at her, his pulse like a field of racehorses.
She had not cried when she had been arrested, held in jail, interrogated, forced to say goodbye to her lifelong friends, nor when the prime minister of the land had yelled at her. She had not even cried at her own wedding, but she was crying now. His fierce little outlaw girl was crying and shuddering under him.
In fear.
He paused for about two seconds, staring down at her in bewilderment, whereupon his wits came out of nowhere, whirling back to him like the Furies.
Dear God, he had simply overpowered her and was seconds away from—
Scorching need blazed through him.
No!
he roared silently, squeezing his eyes shut in fury at the denial. With a curse on his lips, he pushed off of her and tore himself away from the bed, fighting to get his lust under control. He felt like someone he didn’t know.
What had she done to him? Damn her! What was happening to him?
“Get out,” she said in a shaken voice a moment later.
Hands on his hips, chest heaving, he looked over at her. She had scrambled out of the bed and now stood against the far wall, wielding his dress sword, her black shirt hanging open over her white chest, the breeches riding low around her waist, giving him a glimpse of her flat belly.
A jolt of lust made him want to risk her blade, but he merely looked at her. For the sake of his battered pride, he hoped it did not show in his face that he was scathingly ashamed, though he was too angry to repent just yet.
He had no idea what had come over him. He had never forced himself on a woman in his life. Indeed, he had killed two men in duels in the past for the same. Yet any apology he might have uttered stuck in his throat.
How could he have read her so wrong? He’d heard her denials, but he knew she was merely shy, and he could have sworn her body had been begging for him. He felt baffled, lost. Why did she not want him? She was his wife.
“I said get out.”
He turned to her. “I’m not going anywhere.”
That was all he needed—the court talking about him getting thrown out of his new bride’s bedchamber on his wedding night. He could not figure out what had happened. Women simply did not tell him no. She was legally his own, practically his possession. He had saved her neck and she had no right to deny him. She would not best him tonight.
Not in the bedroom. Never there.
“I mean it! Get out of here!” Her eyes snapping blue fire, she advanced on him, the sword at a dangerous angle in her hands. She stepped up onto the bed and walked slowly across it, coming down off the other side, moving in on him until her blade was under his chin.
He smirked at the blade, then at her. “What are you going to do, Dani? Stab me?”
She was shaking slightly. “I should. I ought to kill you now and do this kingdom and the women of the world a favor!”
“Don’t speak for the women of the world until you become one of them, little Dani,” he said in a soft tone.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she shouted, her cheeks flushing.
He glanced disparagingly at her boyish garb. “It means you’re just a scared little girl who doesn’t know what she’s missing. But never fear,” he whispered. “I’ll make a woman of you yet. How dare you refuse me after all I’ve done for you?”
“I’m trying to help you!” she wrenched out.
“Help me? What on earth can you mean?”
“I found out about your five princesses!” she burst out. “If I resist you, then our marriage can be annulled when your father comes back. You can wed one of them and then you won’t lose the throne! You’ll lose the kingdom all for my sake, Rafael! I won’t let that happen! Ascencion needs you!”
He stared at her in dark, incredulous fury. “Who has been talking to you?” he asked in a murderous tone.
“It doesn’t matter who told me. I truly don’t wish to be difficult. What matters is that you spared me and my friends, and now it’s my duty, in turn, to protect you!”
“Your duty…? Damn it, Daniela, you are my wife! Obeying me—bedding me—is your duty!” he thundered, taking a step toward her, his expression fierce. “For once in your foolish young life, you will do as I say! Now, I command you as your sovereign and your lord,
tell me who has been talking to you
!”