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She swallowed thickly. “You would be breaking your promise.”

“You said you wanted me,” he replied with a sly smile. “Here I am.”

“I won’t beg,” she reiterated, her resolve crumbling with every subtle flex of muscle and the promise of what he could give her.

He kneeled down and braced his hands on either side of her head, leaning over her but not touching her, not giving her the slightest bit of what she craved. He dipped his head and brought his lips to within a whisper of her skin, but he did not kiss it, then proceeded to make his way down her body in the same fashion until she thought she might explode with frustration.

Leaning over, he retrieved something from the pocket of his tailcoat. Something very familiar, indeed—the headscarf she had worn to hold her hair down when she won the race.

Sitting back on his haunches, he lightly whipped the scarf towards her, the edge catching her stomach in a light tingle.He trailed the end of it downward, over her mound and down between her thighs. The gossamer friction pushed Sophia towards true madness—she really would burst if he would not touch her.

If I give him what he wants, I get what I want.

It seemed a fair exchange as she bucked and writhed in exasperation, the end of the scarf brushing over her thighs, her stomach, her bare breasts. Not nearly enough to satisfy her curiosity or her desire.

“How does it feel to yearn for the touch of a man you should hate?” he whispered, the scarf trailing over her neck.

“It feels… like there is no… sense in a feud at all, or in… hatred,” she gasped. “It feels like you ought to give me… the favor that I asked for.”

He bent his head to her ear. “Then beg, my wife.”

“Please,” she moaned. “Please, give me what I want.”

“So polite.” He loosened the ties around her wrists with one tug. “I reward politeness.”

“Then do so,” she urged.

His lips finally touched her yearning skin, kissing down the curve of her neck and her heaving bosom. Cupping one breast, he took the pert, pink nipple of the other in his mouth, surrounding it with that warmth before he sucked.

The dormant fireworks of what he had done on the desk suddenly reignited, flurries of sparks spreading across her chest. Her hips bucked slightly, her back arching off the sheepskin.

She did not have to wait long, as he kissed his way to her other nipple, his hand gliding down the curve of her waist to the swell of her hip, where he grabbed the soft flesh as if he wanted to pin her hips to the floor, to stop her from trying to rush him with her bucking.

It had the opposite effect, her legs wrapping around his waist and pulling him closer.

“So impatient,” he murmured, lightly biting her lip.

“It’s what you have done to me,” she told him, half-gasping as she felt that hard length brush against her for the first time. “I can only learn… what I am taught.”

A moan rumbled in the back of his throat as he eased his length between her slick folds, gliding it back and forth, rubbing her bundle of nerves into a frenzy of immediate need. She couldn’t wait anymore. Her daydreams were about to become reality, and she was more than ready to complicate things.

“Do you want me?” he purred.

“Yes,” she gasped. “Oh, y?—”

He eased inside her before she could finish her breathless sentence, just a little at first. She grabbed his powerful arms and dug her fingernails into his flesh, wide-eyed with astonishment as an entirely new sensation bristled up from the depths of her. There was a slight sting, but none of the pain that her friends had warned her about. Then again, they had not told her about the pleasurable part either.

“Does that hurt?” he asked, real concern in his voice for a moment.

She shook her head. “None, thoughImight… have drawn… blood with my fingernails.”

“I can bear that well enough, as long as you are satisfied,” he said with a soft laugh, slowly rocking his hips forward, pushing deeper, inch by glorious inch.

Buried to the hilt inside her, he stilled for a moment, as if to let her grow accustomed to the size of him and the new, glorious sensation that threatened to send her hurtling into paradise, never to return.

Who would want the mundanity of the outside world when they could have this?

“Is that… it?” she asked, puzzled when he had not moved again.