Dangerous in Diamonds - Madeline Hunter [96]
She looked him in the eyes, brazenly. She did not speak, however. Of course not. She wasn’t a fool. She knew better than to treat him like one too.
She dropped back on the pillow and turned on her side with her back to him. “I refuse your proposal, not that you even bothered to make one. There is no need to start planning the ritual accompanying your execution. We will not marry.”
Of course they would. He had no interest in having a row about it now, though. “Fine. If you are sure.”
She laughed. “Oh, I am sure, Your Grace.”
At another time he might be insulted by that laugh. Right now he only noted it in passing. His attention had been arrested by the lovely smoothness of her back and the elegant line the side of her body made as it dipped to her waist and curved up over her hip. He traced it with his hand, from her shoulder to her thigh then up again, watching his fingertips skim that line.
She looked over her shoulder at him, a little surprised.
“Don’t move. I will show you what to do.” He let that line entrance him awhile longer, until her body subtly flexed from the sensation.
He turned her slightly, away from him, and pressed her shoulders so her back angled away and her bottom rounded erotically. He caressed their soft swells. The small of her back angled in more, and her bottom rose a bit. Her hand clutched the pillow near her face.
“Can you tell when you are ready yet? Can you feel it?” he asked.
She nodded.
He slid his finger along her cleft. She inhaled sharply in a wonderful feminine sound of pleasure and anticipation. He moved his touch lower and deeper. She parted her thighs, encouraging him. Her eyes closed and her mouth formed a smile that parted her lips, and her face assumed an expression of pleasure and joy.
He curved his body along hers and entered her.
He did ravish her then. He pretended no restraint. He thrust into her hard, deeper, and allowed the violent power to own him. Like a velvet glove her body held him, caressed him, then tightened until every movement increased the pleasure and drove him to seek more and more.
The end came like a cataclysm, made all the more intense by the long wait to know it.
There was a third lesson that night. Having chased her so long, it appeared Castleford had no intention of denying himself now that she was caught.
Compared to the others, it seemed almost mild. The most careful of all, it grew out of conversation and jokes. Yet there was no release before he took her, so this time all those sensations centered differently, around him. She found herself more vulnerable than ever before with him, but not in a physical way. Instead, the pleasure mixed with other emotions and never obliterated her awareness of the man controlling her and claiming her.
Sometime in the very early morning he fell asleep. Daphne listened to his breaths deepen but did not sleep herself. Instead, when she was sure he was unaware, she slowly and carefully slid out from under his embracing arm and away from his side.
He appeared very handsome sleeping there, his naked chest and shoulders hard and defined even in repose. With his eyes closed, his eyelashes appeared very long and thick. She suspected that he knew that. He probably knew everything that made him attractive to women like her, the ones who should know better than to be dazzled by his attention.
She guessed there was a string of broken hearts in his history. She admitted ruefully that there would probably be one more soon. Whatever care he had taken tonight would not spare her that. Perhaps he just assumed she would know to protect her heart, seeing as how she was not a fool.
Their odd conversation from earlier in the night came to her while she looked at him. Marriage would be hell if a woman gave a damn about this man. Not to mention that she really did not need such an outrageous complication. Castleford concluding he had obligations like that to her, due to his somewhat slanted way of looking at the world, would create havoc in both their worlds.
Aside from the chaos it would create with her own plans—the