Claiming His Wedding Night

‘Addie—’

He let the word hang between them as she looked up at him pleadingly and then, lowering his head, he licked her shoulder, his tongue hot and measured as it snaked over her collarbone, teasing the hollow at the base of her throat until her body started to shake.

His fingers spread across the bare skin of her back, expertly undoing her bra and freeing her swollen, aching breasts. Almost choking on her own breath, she twisted upwards, rubbing against his hips, goading him with her body, wanting him to answer the ache clamouring inside her. But, pushing aside the flimsy fabric, he dropped his head and grazed her breast with his mouth, licking and nipping, his tongue curling around first one nipple then the other.

Finally she could bear it no more and she pushed his head away, at the same time desperately reaching beneath the waistband of his trousers to curl her hand round the hard, straining length of his erection.

He jerked against her, his breath coming in ragged gasps. Grasping her head, he began to kiss her again, each time deeper and deeper, until she thought she would melt with need. A slippery heat was trickling down inside her and helplessly she rolled beneath him, wanting to rid herself of that relentless, dragging ache, wanting, needing to feel him inside, to finish what she’d started.

She tugged at his belt urgently, her fingers tearing at the buckle, scraping his skin.

‘Wait—wait, sweetheart. We mustn’t—’

His hand caught her scrabbling fingers, holding them still, and she stared up at him dazedly.

‘Wh-what?’ Fighting to get her words out, she frowned. A haze of unfocused thoughts and fears were swirling inside her head. ‘What do you mean?’ Her voice was hoarse. She could hear her hunger for him, the scraped, raw longing. But she didn’t care. She just wanted him—all of him. The heat and the power, the unthinkable, impossible bliss of his body stretching into hers.

He shook his head. ‘Not here. Not now.’

She looked up at him, shifting restlessly, her whole body twitching with unfulfilled desire so that she had to bite her tongue in order not to beg him to make love to her.

His hand was curving under the back of her head so that his calm, assessing grey gaze held her captive. For a moment he studied her face and then, raising his hips, he let go of her hand and lifting himself off her body, he slid onto the bed beside her.

The cool air stung her skin.

But not as much as the cool, calculating expression on Malachi’s face.

How could he look at her like that? She stared at him uneasily. And how had he found the willpower to stop? The thought that, unlike her, he had been cool-headed enough to break their frantic, febrile embrace was like a punch to the stomach. Cheeks burning, she breathed in sharply and pushed against his shoulder.

He made no objection as she shifted along the bed, tugging at her bra and blouse and pushing her skirt down over her naked thighs, shock at her own behaviour mingling with the humiliating realisation that, rather than taking charge, she had let her self-control go into a complete and very obvious meltdown. It had not been him begging her to ease the frantic demands of his body. Instead she had been the one whose whole being had been focused on satisfying her burning desire for him.

A discreet but insistent buzzing noise broke the silence between them and, rolling over, Malachi punched a button on a panel set into the wall above the bed.

‘Yes.’

‘Sorry, Mr King. Just to let you know we are approaching Antigua now, so if you wouldn’t mind buckling up?’

‘Yes, of course.’ Hanging up, Malachi turned and met her gaze. ‘We’d better go and take our seats.’

Smoothing his fingers through his hair, he tucked in his shirt and as though by magic was transformed back into a sleek, efficient business tycoon.

His eyes drifted over her dishevelled state. ‘You might want to tidy up a little...’

Staring at her reflection in the bathroom mirror, Addie mechanically ran a comb through her hair. Her hand was shaking too much to put on any lipstick or eye make-up, so instead she tried to force her face into the same cool mask of detachment that Malachi could apparently achieve so effortlessly.

How did he do it? she thought helplessly. Even now, with her clothes straightened and buttoned up, and a door between them, her body was still a shuddering mass of sexual yearning, her brain barely functioning.

She moaned softly. She had so wanted to prove to him, to herself, that no matter how disparate their wealth and status they would come together as sexual equals on this trip. But the harsh reality was that she had simply managed to reveal how badly she still wanted him. She’d responded to him mindlessly, her hunger so intense, so desperate that she’d been ready and willing to surrender herself to his every whim—

She shivered. The trouble was that she couldn’t do what he did. She couldn’t blank off her mind from the passion, the hunger. How could she? Until her car accident her whole life had been about living emotions through music. Playing the piano demanded passion as much as discipline, poetry as much as practice.

Her mouth twisted. Sex with Malachi was evidently not going to be as straightforward as she’d thought. Not because she loved him. But because she appeared unable to switch off the mess of emotion that sex with Malachi provoked.

Her heart began to pound. But so what if she couldn’t contain or control her feelings? Did she really want to become like Malachi? All warmth and charm on the outside, but utterly immune to real feelings.

No, she did not.

Her marriage to Malachi had already cost her five years of her life, her hopes, most of her pride and around six kilograms of weight. She wasn’t about to sacrifice the essence of who she was to it too.