Page 24 of A Scottish Bride for the Duke (Scottish Duchesses #1)

Chapter Seventeen

“ D o not stop,” Isobel breathed, and the duke thrust into her.

The stroke long and smooth and just forceful enough that when it encountered a little resistance, he didn’t stop until he was seated fully inside her.

She released a shuddering breath at the sting of pain. She knew it would hurt the first time—her peers had mentioned such things, although she had not expected it to feel precisely like this .

A sting that faded into a throb, and the feeling of fullness.

Adrian ran a comforting hand along her side.

“Does it hurt, my sweet?” He used the endearment without seeming to realize he had done. “I am not in the habit of bedding virgins,” he said, his voice wry.

Well, no , she supposed not. He was an honorable man, at least. This was no doubt his first time deflowering a lady, and was right, it was his wife.

She rolled her hips experimentally, and the pain faded still further, the ache replaced by more of that sensation of fullness. Almost to the point of burn—almost so it was too much—but not quite.

“It’s all right,” she said, not quite recognizing her voice, all breathless.

“Good.” He gripped her wrists, holding them on either side of her head. “Remember, tell me to stop whenever you wish,” he said, and withdrew from her, pushing back in.

Gently at first, as though to accustom her to the sensation, but when she merely moaned, the sensation like lightning firing in her veins, a white-hot kind of pleasure that sparked through her body in violent spurts, he increased his pace.

His hips dug into her thighs, and his chest brushed against her breasts.

They ached, and she arched her back, pressing more firmly against him.

“Oh, is that what you want?” He looked down at her, a gleam in his eye. “Can you keep your hands there?”

“Aye,” she whispered.

“See that you do.”

He released her, one wrist at a time, and she held them above her head as he turned his attention to her breasts. She had never thought much about them until now, had never realized what potential for pleasure they contained within them, and her breath came in a short, sharp gasp as he palmed one.

“I love these,” he told her, and pinched the nipple.

The sensation went straight between her legs, more of that lightning flashing and culminating in a deep ache of want that resounded through her.

“Keep your hands where they are.”

She strained to do as he said, battling the part of herself that wanted to deny him with the part that, secretly, shamefully, delighted in receiving his commands.

Here, and nowhere else, she enjoyed the power he had over her body.

He had asked to use her as he would, and now he was doing exactly that—and the thought made another pang of pleasure resonate in her body. Her breasts felt heavy.

His eyelids dropped, heavy-lidded, his eyes glazed. He brought his mouth to her nipple, sucking it into the wet heat of his mouth. Not for the first time, but she still rolled her hips, chasing the elusive pleasure that seemed so close and yet so far away.

Her body was alive with sensation, as though she had been asleep until this very moment, and now, with his weight pressing her into the mattress and his teeth grazing her nipple and his hands holding her hips steady so he could pound into her more strongly.

Her pleasure tightened like a bowstring.

“That’s right,” he told her, his breaths choppy, the praise low and dark, the words settled against her skin like velvet. “You look so pretty under me like this, my sweet.”

“Adrian.”

“Are you close?”

He pressed a kiss to her chin, then brought his hands back to her wrists, pinning her down. She tested the restraint, and found she couldn’t move. And still he moved in her, the angle fractionally different?—

Yes, yes, this was what she needed.

“Look at me,” he commanded. “You are mine.”

His. His. His.

She was his and he was using her as he saw fit, and that was going to result in an explosion that would rock her free from her body.

She already knew. He was chasing his own pleasure, but he was also chasing hers, taking pleasure in hers, and she hadn’t known until now what a wonderful thing it was to be so united in one thing. The same goal.

“Are you going to come?” he asked, sounding slightly strained.

“I—I think so.”

He brought his hand to her neck, pushing just enough that her breath scraped through her throat, just enough that she could feel the elevated pounding of her heartbeat in her head.

Such a demonstration of power and gentleness all at once.

It made her eyes roll back into her head.

She drew in a breath, ragged and wanting as she opened them again, and he watched her greedily—as though the sight of her so in his thrall, so under his control, brought about his pleasure so much more.

“Then come for me, Isobel,” he growled. “I want you to say my name when the climax takes you.”

She wrapped her hands around his arm, holding him as he pushed her closer and closer to the brink.

He liked seeing the way she held on—although she made no attempt to remove his hand. The pressure on her throat, not so much that she felt as though she was in danger, added to the pleasure of it.

She knew she would fall before she did, and looked up to see his face, finding him watching her as she finally tipped off the edge.

“Adrian,” his name was on her tongue as she fell, and she lost herself to the command of her body, the sensation sweeping through her in a wave of pleasure.

Adrian’s eyes were the only thing to follow her into oblivion, his eyes fully gray in the dark.

She lost herself for several seconds. Adrian slowed, riding out the full waves of her climax until she felt wrung out.

His hand loosened on her throat, and she found that although he had given her the illusion of restricting her breath, she found it no more difficult to breathe now than she did before.

For all he said he wanted control and capitulation, he wanted full command over her body, he was being remarkably gentle.

He smiled, as though sensing her thoughts, then withdrew from her. The sensation was so sudden, she only had time for a brief feeling of loss before he reached underneath her and flipped her, holding her down on her belly so her face was in the pillows.

“Comfortable?” he asked, the wet rod of his erection pressing against her buttocks.

She almost told him she didn’t want this—but that would have been a lie. Her desire, having been briefly eased, came roaring back at the sensation of his body pressing into her from behind.

“Are ye going to… take me like this?” she asked.

He pushed inside again, seating himself far more easily than the first time.

There was no pain now, just wet heat and pleasure that sent sparks across her mind.

“Yes,” he said, and she felt the soft, slightly bristly scrape of his mouth against her shoulder. A kiss, bestowed in a way she would not have expected from someone like him. “And I want you to put your arms up again, sweet. Can you do that?”

She nodded. “Aye.”

He demonstrated, finding her wrists, one after the other, and pressing them against the carved wood of the headboard.

“Just like that, laid out before me. Just for me.” He pushed inside her again, and she felt the possessiveness of the gesture.

There was something to be said for being his , for being the only woman he would touch in this way. For him being the only man.

And there was something to be said for having him fill her.

Such a primal act, one that made her feel as though all the civilization they lived in had been stripped away—they were nothing more than instinct, nothing more than animals, nothing more than sheer want and desire and this sense of belonging .

Two halves coming together. Two becoming one.

“That’s right,” he said, his voice turning tight, and she understood what that meant with that same primal part of herself—he was approaching his own climax. “You have such a delicious arse, Isobel.”

As though to prove his point, one hand came to cup her bottom, kneading and squeezing. Isobel had given very little thought to her derriere, concealed as it always was under so many layers of clothing. But now she was bared to her husband—her husband —and he seemed to like it. Like her.

His breath came shorter, and he braced himself above her his breath hot on her nape, his chest brushing her back as he thrust into her again, again, again.

She broke, squeezing around him as her pleasure crested again, and he snapped, too, swearing as he buried himself deep inside her.

For a long time, they merely laid there, his body above hers, and hers unsure under his. Then, with a groan, he removed himself and moved off.

“I’ll clean you up,” he said gruffly, something awkward in his voice even as he rolled off the bed pour some water in a bowl.

He retrieved a cloth and bid her to roll onto her back. When she did, he wiped her delicate areas, looking down at the sheets with a grim twist of his mouth. There, where she had been lying, were tiny spots of blood.

“I suppose there is no denying it now, wife,” he said, that grimness still in his voice. “The marriage is consummated. There can be no escaping it.”

She raised her chin, that comment making her feel more exposed than her nakedness.

“I had no intention of avoiding it, Adrian. Or escaping. I know better than that.”

And by that, she knew that whatever his personal feelings, if she fled, he would chase her.

To the ends of the earth, if necessary.

Adrian did nothing half-heartedly, as proven by the way he had bedded her.

She was his, and he would claim her, as was his right.

Something burned, low in her stomach, at the thought.

His gaze lingered on her, unreadable. “Good,” he said, eventually. “In that case, I expect you to join me for dinner in the future.” He tossed the rag aside and redressed. “But considering you may be sore, you may eat in my rooms today.”

“ Your rooms?” she demanded.

“Yes. You are my wife. You will share my bed.”

“Oh, is that what ye had planned for me when we first married, or what ye have just decided now upon having lain with me for the first time?”

He raised a cold brow. “Do you object?”

She almost said yes . But the truth of the matter was that the prospect of sleeping in this bed alone, its sheets ruined with the loss of her virtue, made her oddly vulnerable.

As though reading the emotion on her face, Adrian reached for her, picking her up and carrying her into his bedchamber as though she weighed nothing.

“I will inform the maids to bring our meals up,” he said. “We will eat them together here.”

“Together?”

“I said we would dine together, did I not?”

He had, but she hadn’t expected him to join her in bed. In his bedchamber.

She glanced around, almost afraid of what she would find. But his bedchamber held nothing of particular interest or note—there was a bookshelf in one corner, surprisingly, holding several tomes.

A writing desk before the window, though the curtains were now closed. A fire slumbered in the hearth, heating the room to a comfortable, cozy temperature—as though he often spent time here without his clothes. An elegant screen stood against one wall, and another door led into his dressing room.

It was a masculine room, but not unpleasantly so. And if she was to share his space with him, then it was almost a relief to find she didn’t hate it.

He laid her down on the bed, then climbed under the covers beside her. She froze for a second, her body rigid, but soon warmed against the heat of his skin and the strength of his arms.

“After a bedding such as this,” he explained, holding her close, “it is common for a lady to require this.”

“An embrace?” Despite herself, she snuggled closer.

“Precisely.”

She was very sleepy. And having Adrian hold her in this way, so solid and secure beside her, his breath flowering across her hair and his heart thudding under her cheek, was particularly nice.

No one had ever held her like this before. And after the roughness of the way he had taken her, it soothed something vital inside her.

“I didn’t think ye liked me that much,” she said, even as she lost her hold on consciousness.

“You seem to have peculiar ideas about what I like and don’t like,” he said.

His words followed her into sleep.