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“Do not hold back,” he demanded. “I do not care if I have to press my fingers to your tongue again—I want you to voice your pleasure.”

“I will not hold back,” she whispered, her lashes fluttering as he moved closer.

Spencer aligned himself with her aching core, the head of his length nudging her. At the first press, she held her breath, but he was already kneading her hip, distracting her with a kiss.

“I promised to take care of you,” he reminded her gently. “Give yourself to me. I will not let you break.”

“And what if I want you to?”

She held his eyes, noted the way he looked lost in his own pleasure. “Then I will do so in a way that will have you singing to the heavens in pleasure.”

And how that had her falling—the urge to break before a man who would never let her shatter such that she was unable to come back to herself.

Eleanor had broken over and over in the last three years. The promise that it could be done safely, intimately, made her beg.

“Enter me,” she pleaded. “I cannot wait another moment. I must—I must feel you.”

Spencer kissed her, and as he did, he finally pushed into her. Her cry was swallowed up, licked away by his tongue, as he claimed her mouth and body. Her breathing turned ragged as he slowly slid into her to the hilt.

“G-Goodness,” she moaned, clinging to him with everything she had. He steadied her, grounded her. “Spencer. Spencer .”

“You are doing so well, Eleanor,” he praised, his voice strained as he sheathed himself fully inside her. “You are ever so patient for me. Look how well you have taken me. Feel how you’re sucking me in? I have never known such a tight heat.”

His words broke on a groan as he kissed her once more, letting her adjust to the new sensation.

Eleanor shuddered, trying to adjust to the thickness stretching her. Her moans were broken and breathy, her nails digging into his shoulders.

“I—” Her voice cracked, her eyes fluttering shut. “I cannot think . I cannot do anything but feel.”

“Some say that is how you know it is good,” Spencer murmured, a laugh escaping his lips. She wondered if that meant anything—that he found humor in such a moment. “That it wipes out every thought, especially if one’s mind is heavy.”

“Then wipe out my thoughts,” she pressed. “I am ready.”

She lifted her hips as if to prove her point, and he looked down at her for a moment as if making sure.

And then he moved, pulling out of her, a slow rhythm that he didn’t attempt to quicken.

But it threatened to drag Eleanor into a sweet oblivion all the same. Even Spencer himself seemed lost to it.

He groaned as he pushed back into her, and the ache became something sharper, something delicious, something Eleanor quickly realized she might come to crave.

It was… strange, yes, and part of her found it hard to believe that such a thing could be used solely for pleasure, with no ulterior motive.

But this was them, joining together—the most intimate of things.

Spencer lifted her hand from his chest and linked their fingers, tugging her arm above her head and pressing it back into the pillow.

Somehow, even that heightened the sensations running through her. Her breath came in ragged pants as he continued thrusting into her, rocking his hips against her own.

He quickened his pace, and she fought to keep her moans low enough not to be caught and loud enough for only him to hear. She settled for turning her face into his arm, pressing her mouth to his skin so that her moans were audible but muffled.

As Spencer thrust into her harder, her moans grew more ragged, more desperate, until her teeth found purchase on his arm, and she bit down to muffle a loud cry.

Above her, Spencer groaned, and it was the most erotic thing she had ever heard. The sight of him with his lips parted, his hair falling in his eyes, had her heart pounding.

“In—In a world that has always felt unsafe,” she moaned, “you are a safe place for me, Spencer. Please do not ever let go.”

The words were vulnerable, shared in the height of passion, but his hips stuttered for a moment.

He shook his head. “I will not, Eleanor. You can always hold onto me.”

He slammed into her, the moment stripping them of their defenses and baring their vulnerabilities, but Eleanor didn’t care. She clung to him, fell apart in his arms, and when her pleasure rose to a point she could not bear, she didn’t hesitate this time.

“Come for me,” Spencer breathed, keeping his pace steady, knowing it was driving her to her climax.

He wrung every bit of pleasure from her with steady and confident strokes that had his length almost fully out of her before he thrust back in.

But as she got closer to her peak—her hips bucking, seeking—he shortened his thrusts, quickened his pace, and soon it became a race.

As if he was racing her pleasure. Racing to catch her through it.

Pleasure ripped through Eleanor, and she barely had time to grasp Spencer’s hand and press it to her mouth as she cried out, climaxing with a violent shudder. Her back bowed off the bed, strung tight and rigid, and Spencer simply held her until her climax ebbed into a gentle wave.

He then chased his release inside her, but at the last moment, he wrenched himself away from her with a harsh gasp and climaxed into his hand.

In the ensuing silence, the room felt too big.

Eleanor heard a giggle escape her lips.

“Do you think we were heard?” she whispered as Spencer tiredly leaned in to kiss her forehead before pulling away.

He tossed a grin over his shoulder as he moved to snatch one of the towels from the floor and went back to the bed.

Surprised, she let him wipe between her legs, and he smoothed her hair back from her face when he was done.

“I imagine we will hear enough complaints tomorrow if we were,” he snickered.

After he made sure she was sufficiently clean without needing a bath, he collapsed next to her. He faced her, his smile lingering.

“I do not get to see you smile very often,” she noted, tracing the seam of his lips with her fingertips. He caught her wrist, kissing where his mouth touched. “I like it. Your smile is handsome.”

His laugh was strained this time. “It is ruined by my scar.”

“I do not think so,” she told him.

She held his gaze, letting the silence assure him that she wouldn’t press the issue. Not tonight. Instead, she moved closer.

The two of them were on the verge of slumber when she spoke again. “I believe this is the first time we have slept in the same bed since that night at the inn.”

“How uncouth,” he teased. “And to think we were not even married.”

“Married,” she echoed. “I was not even lucid.”

“Heavens, that makes me sound terrible.”

“I do believe you took the utmost advantage of me,” Eleanor joked, flashing a smile. She leaned up, giving in to the urge to lightly kiss his mouth. “And I am ever so glad of it.”

“I was hardly going to leave you alone,” he grumbled, closing his eyes. “Now, sleep. You have wreaked seductive havoc upon me, and I do not know what to do with myself. If you keep talking, you will find yourself astride me like you were earlier.”

Eleanor’s stomach fluttered. “Is that a promise?”

Spencer cracked an eye open, his eyebrow rising. “Do you wish it to be?”

Her only answer was to clamber over his lap, already seeking his hard desire once again.