Page 85 of In the Prince's Bed

“You can’t avoid it.” She turned her head to kiss his muscular left arm, the one straining to hold him off her. “So unless you’re thinking of stopping—”

“No,” he growled. “No stopping now.” Then it was no longer his fingers, but something bigger and firmer forging its way up her slick passage.

Her eyes slid shut. How very…interesting. It was tight…hot…thrilling even, as it stretched her in a place she’d never imagined being stretched, heated her in a place she’d never imagined being heated.

Suddenly he stopped moving to press his lips to her ear. “All right, country girl, here it comes. Try to relax, and it will go easier for you.”

She nodded, but braced herself anyway. Relaxing was impossible. Every inch of her lower body felt alive to his flesh within her, as if she’d waited for him a hundred years, waited to become his woman, pain or no.

But when he thrust, she felt nothing but a little pinch, so fleeting that she laughed aloud.Thatwas the virtue she’d been protecting so fiercely? That barrier so easily disposed of?

Planted to the hilt inside her, he whispered, “What’s so funny?”

She opened her eyes to stare up at him. He looked concerned. “It’s not…what I expected, that’s all.”

He raised an eyebrow. “What did you expect?”

“The sky to fall, and the earth to shake.” And all because she’d shamelessly given her virtue to a man outside of marriage.

He smiled rakishly, then brushed his lips over hers. “Just wait,” he said in a tone of promise.

“For what?”

Then he moved. And moved again. And again and again, driving deep, thrusting hard, sweeping all thoughts from her mind, banishing all protests.

“Oh…my…goodness…” she whispered, as he rode her as masterfully as he’d ridden his horses. “That’s…oh…”

“Yes,” he rasped against her ear. “By God, sweetheart…you feel incredible…you have no idea…”

“I do, I do,” she chanted as he thundered inside her, around her, with her. And when he slipped his hand between them to flick his finger over the tender nub he’d touched before, she went positively wild, thrashing beneath him, nearly throwing him off the bench with her writhing.

Satisfaction blazed in his face as he drew back far enough to look into her eyes, his breath harsh and ragged. “Remember this…remember you find it…with me…not Lovelace…me.”

She could only nod, because the sensations he created made it too hard to speak…to think…to do anything but wrap her legs about his hips so she could press into him higher, harder…

“Mine,” he said in a guttural voice against her ear as he gave a sudden mighty thrust, driving into her so deeply that she felt him in the very heart of her. “Mine now. Only mine.”

Then the earth did shake, and the sky did fall…and she was lost to anything but him straining against her, spilling himself inside her as a cry of pleasure tore from her lips.

He muffled it with his mouth, so it didn’t betray their presence in the orangery.

But in her mind she repeated his vow—Mine. Mine now. Only mine.

Chapter Twenty-one

If a woman becomes more possessive after seduction, nip her expectations in the bud at once if you want any peace.

—Anonymous,A Rake’s Rhetorick

Alec was in no hurry to return to the ballroom. It was cozy out here in the orangery, with a naked Katherine cradled in his lap as he sprawled on the bench, also naked, with his back against the cold wall.

It was the only cold thing here. The orangery kept out the faint chill of spring, cocooning them in warm, humid air. With the night shielding them from prying eyes, it felt like their private haven.

Out here, there was no Edenmore to worry about, no deceptions to hide, no guilt. Out here, it was just he and Katherine.

And the way she’d been when they’d made love…His throat constricted just to think of it. What a wild, sweet lover—so eager and so entirely his. He tightened his arms around her possessively. He would never let anything come between them now.

She snuggled into his chest, her breath tickling his skin. “I like it here.”