Page 31 of The Rebellious Countess (The Ruined Duchess #2)

She may have been daring before, but this need to be his in the one way she was not, made her heart choose for her.

If they lay together as man and wife, perhaps he wouldn’t take back his name.

Maybe she could remain his wife, even if he left her behind while he traveled the world, fulfilling his need to rescue abandoned souls.

She had no doubt one way or the other, he would leave her on English soil and continue his work.

That’s where his heart lay, but if she could own his body for one glorious night…

Máira let her dress fall to the ground. Her drawers and shift soon followed. Then she asked, “Elias, could you help me?”

She waited for what seemed like a lifetime, but was probably mere seconds, and then she heard the hay crunch under his bare feet. She tracked that sound as he walked to the stall gate, and the iron creaked and groaned as he opened and closed one stall, then approached the one she occupied.

A lump formed in her throat, and she swallowed it down before the gate shielding her naked form from his eyes scraped open and he was there.

She had expected an expression of surprise on his face as he stopped to stare.

That, however, wasn’t what she saw as his gaze slowly perused her nakedness like a visual caress.

He’d looked at her face that same way on so many occasions, but the intensity of this moment was almost too much to bear.

She wanted to run to him, wrap her arms around him and have his hands skim across her body the same way his gaze did.

Instead, she stood there, absorbing his admiration one step at a time as he circled her, the fresh hay crinkling under his weight.

Elias had buttoned the falls of his trousers, but his shoes were gone, his chest was bare, and his cock strained against the fabric of his trousers.

He circled, admiring her body without touching her.

She couldn’t calm the thundering of her heart or the rapid rise and fall of her chest. She could feel color flood her chest, neck, and face.

Not from embarrassment, as one would think of a virgin standing naked before her bridegroom.

It was desire flowing through her body in a heated rush demanding to be quenched.

“Please,” she whispered.

His eyes slowly rose to her face, and she couldn’t stop her tongue from wetting suddenly parched lips. His nostrils flared, his hands curled into fists, yet still he held back. Not coming within her reach, and denying her of his touch.

“What do you want, Máira?” His words caressed the air around her as he continued his perusal, and she shivered with anticipation.

She looked over her shoulder, her gaze skimming down the length of his body and holding where she wanted him most. A growl rose from his chest as he continued to stalk around his prey, driving her dizzy with desire.

Finally, he stopped in front of her, one finger lifting her chin so that her gaze would meet his.

“I need your words,” he demanded. “Not your looks of desire.”

She didn’t hesitate. “I want you to fuck me.”

He flinched with her base words, and for a moment, she thought she’d offended the gentleman within him. Until his thumbed brushed her bottom lip and forced her mouth open. “You want me to fuck this sweet mouth of yours?”

“Yes, and more.”

“More?” He searched her face, looking for the truth.

“I want to be yours completely.” She wished she could say more, be more for this man than what she was, and perhaps in time, she could be.

“What of our annulment?”

Despite knowing that would be how this affair ended, his words cut her heart as if he’d driven his dagger through her chest.

“You can still have your annulment. I will not try to stop it.”

“And if you’re with child?”

She searched his face, trying to determine if the deepening of his tone, of his voice was from fear or hope. “I understand there are ways to prevent it.”

He nodded. “Is that what you wish?”

“Yes.” Her response came out in a rush. She was lucky she didn’t expose how she really felt by saying, God, yes. Take me now. Please .

“You won’t be able to give your next husband your virtue.”

“I don’t care.” She was giving it to the only husband she would ever love.

“If I marry again, it will be a marriage of convenience, the same as this marriage is for you.” Because she could never be drawn to distraction again by this raging desire coursing through her blood and her heart.

It was forever lost to this man. “Besides, no man will expect me to be a virgin after crossing the ocean with you.”

He froze, his thumb resting on her lip, and for a moment, she thought the truth of the matter had ruined any chance she had with him.

“Can you forgive me?” he asked.

“There is nothing to forgive. If you had been honest with me in the beginning, I would have married you and crossed the sea to save Simon.”

She twirled her tongue around the calloused thumb on her lip, sucking it in as if it were his shaft. His nostrils flared, and she knew she’d succeeded in bringing him back to the matter at hand—her complete and utter ruination.

“Unbutton my falls,” he ordered. Her heart nearly stopped with the joy of finally being his, and as she reached for the buttons on his trousers, her hands shook with anticipation.

“Are you afraid?” he asked.

“If you were anyone else, I would be. But with you, no, I’m not.

” She felt what her words did to his cock.

It twitched, lengthened, hardened, and she loved she did that to him.

Little bastard, Máira Blair made a man larger than life come to life.

A smile played on her lips at the filthy words dancing through her thoughts.

“What’s going through that devious little head of yours?”

She fisted him and loved the way the deep-green forest of his eyes blazed with the fire of desire. “I do this to you. Nothing could make a woman feel more powerful than to make a man want her.”

He shook his head, denying what she did to him. “ Ma chérie , my body can turn hard with the prospect of sex with any woman.”

“I know what you’re doing. You’re trying to make me think twice about what I am offering.

Letting me know you’ll be with someone else when I’m gone from your side.

It doesn’t matter though, because at this moment, you are mine.

Not some widow’s, or a tavern wench’s, or even a lady of the French court.

For tonight, Elias Allistair Drake, fake Earl of Dorset, you are my husband and I am your wife. Nothing and no one can change that.”

She drew her hand down the length of him, stroking his cock the way she had seen him do to himself in the adjoining stall.

“You can say what you want, but I know the truth of the matter. And the truth is, dear Husband, that no one makes you feel the way you do when you’re with me.

” She reached up and kissed him before he could deny it.

As if unable to resist her anymore, Elias pushed her back against the stall, their bodies colliding with the wall in a soft thud.

His lips devoured hers in a passion she had not thought possible.

It was explosive and real, as unbridled as it was fierce, as he forced her hands above her head and assaulted her senses with the pure maleness of him.

His knee separated her thighs, forcing her legs wide.

His tongue speared through her lips as if to destroy her with the inferno of their passion.

Yet if he had meant to scare her away, all he succeeded in doing was bringing her back to life as his sexual phoenix.

She bucked against his thigh, rubbing her clit against his form-fitting trousers she so adored.

Elias leaned into her, holding her hands with one of his own rough, calloused ones, as his other hand sought her breast, kneading, plumping, pinching, driving her mad with longing.

She moaned and nipped his lip in a wanton plea for more.

More of what only Elias could give her as her body began to quiver with need.

The sounds of their passion filled the barren barn as if it were an opera house and they were on stage making the music of love.

Except there was no audience, no orchestra, just her and her body being played by a maestro.

He stroked the strings of her hunger, caressed the keys of her desire, and made her sing to the rafters in wanting as his lips traveled down her jawline to the pulse point in her neck.

It beat wildly. Violently. Demanding to be heard.

The hunger of his open mouth kisses played her body in concert with his hands, his thigh, his beard that drove her to distraction, teasing and scraping her flesh as he reached her collarbone and she became incendiary.

Yet Elias was as lost in the inferno of lust as she was, as he took her breast into his mouth and growled, the vibration of his appetite traveled to her core where she was wet and wanting.

Her blood on fire, pulsing at the spot between her legs where she needed more.

More of him and him alone. She whimpered with frustration, unable to reach that pinnacle of her desire.

“Patience, ma chérie . I will take you there.”

“Now. Please, Elias.”

“Take hold of the hook above your head and don’t let go. If you do, I will stop.”

She panted in frustration, searched for the hook, and latched on, before demanding what she needed now more than ever. “Make me come.”

Elias chuckled. “In due time, Wife.”

Wife . She was his wife. Never had she heard a more beautiful word uttered by a man. He may be playing a role as her husband, but he could not deny that she was his wife. Not this night. She would be his, and he would be hers for the eternity of one night.