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“No,” she said quickly, “I mean I do not want to be married to Repington, I do not even want to be pursued by him!”

She watched as a bit of relief flickered through his eyes, followed quickly by weariness.

“So it is true then,” he stated, looking down at his hands as he rubbed them together. “You are to marry him.”

“It is not official yet,” she sighed, “But my father is arriving this evening. I believe they are going to iron out the final details before Sunday arrives.”

“Is that what you want?” He asked.

Unable to hide the truth from him, she shook her head.

“He unnerves me,” she confessed. “But I have no choice.”

“If you had a choice,” Hugo countered, “What would it be?”

Seraphina pressed her lips together as she thought of her answer. In truth she didn’t want to be married at all. Not if that was how it was going to be.

Unable to take thinking about it any longer, she threw her arms around his neck, and pulled him down to her for a kiss. Hugo went rigid for a moment, but his strong arms quickly wrapped around her waist, and he pressed her close and kissed her back until she was panting and dizzy.

“We don’t have to do this,” he panted, his hands gripping her dress. “You need to decide what you want.”

“What I want is to stop thinking about it all,” she pleaded, pressing herself tighter to him. “You made me forget about everything once. Please. Do it again.”

For a moment Hugo looked at her as their foreheads pressed together, his breath growing more ragged by the second. Then with a groan he kissed her, and lifted her up into his arms. Relief flooded through her as Seraphina closed her eyes, and she let the reality of her surroundings be fade away.

His lips were warm yet demanding as he led her to the bed, pulling from her the stress that had so painfully wracked her body. With seemingly expert hands he pulled away the stringsof her dress then corset, parting the fabric so that his hungry mouth could wander freely.

Among the pillows, Seraphina let her head lull into their softness as he undressed her. She’d never let a man see her naked before; barely even imagined allowing her unknown, one-day husband to see her in such a state. And yet with Hugo, she felt no shame, no reach for modesty. All she felt was the building need spreading fire through her veins, and the giddying sensation of having him satisfy it.

Hugo’s tongue was relentless against her sensitive bud, lashing at it with apparent need of his own. Then, just as she thought she was about to have that ecstasy-filled crash as she had before, he slipped between her mons and filled her with his tongue. Seraphina moaned his name as she felt him lap at her inner walls, and arched into his assault.

It only took their first time for Hugo to become addicted to Seraphina’s taste, and yet as he drank his fill of her, he could not help but feel used. He wanted her. Wanted her body and her hand in marriage. A new form of possession he’d never experienced lured him.

A mixture of carnal hunger and anger consumed, and he bowed down before Seraphina—open and willing for him, craving him—and he continued.

Sliding his tongue from between her dewy petals, he enveloped her bud with his mouth once more. His fingertips met her overflowing wetness as he reached up, and he moaned into her as he slid his one inside. Ecstasy surged through him as Seraphina breathed his name, and it spurred his need for possession.

With a patient rhythm he began to coax her sex, massaging her tight inner walls with the pad of his middle finger as he kept time with his tongue. He did so until her breath became rapid and ragged, until her inner walls began to squeeze at him with an almost painful tightness, and then he stopped.

Seraphina sat up straight, her eyes wide and wild as she looked at him in alarm.

“Why did you stop?” She rasped, her entire body quivering.

“I need something in return,” he replied tauntingly.

She looked at him questioningly, then her eyes fluttered as he began to coax his finger inside of her again. He let himself revel in her apparent need until her head started to lull back, and then he stopped one more. This time a painful cry left Seraphina’s lips, and he felt a dark pleasure fill him as she whimpered, trying in vain to work himself on his finger.

“Tell me you’ll be mine,” he warned, removing his hand.

Panic flitted through her eyes as a dark blush flooded her cheeks.

“Hugo, I…I cannot. You know I have no choice.”

“Then neither do I,” he replied, pulling back to sit up on his knees.

“You think I want him?” Seraphina asked, scrambling to her knees to catch his hands. “You think I want someone like that when it is you that makes me feel this way?”

“What way? Tell me.” He demanded to know. He wasn’t looking for love; he had deemed it a fairy tale a long time ago. But he needed to know that she wanted him. That she was genuinely attracted to him and not looking for a temporary escape from her cares.