Mastered by Love (Bastion Club 8)

Naked, her hair down around her shoulders, she lifted the crimson sheets and slid beneath the cool silk. If she was honest, her contentment, the depth of it, had a nearer, deeper, more powerful source. She knew their liaison would last for only a short while—in reality her time with him had to be more than half over—but rather than making her wary and reticent, rather than making her draw back from their engagements, the knowledge that her chance to experience all she might with him was strictly limited had served to spur her on. She was determined to live, whole and complete, to embrace the moment and seize the chance to be all the woman she could be, for however long his interest lasted. For however long he gave her.

It wouldn’t be long enough for her to fall in love with him, for her to get trapped by unrequited emotion, and if she felt an unwelcome pang because she would never have the chance to know love in all its glory, she could accept and live with that.

She heard the sitting room door open, and close, heard his step on the floor—then he was there, powerful and dominant, literally darkening the doorway in the unlit room. He met her gaze; she sensed rather than saw his smile, his liking for the sight of her lying naked in his bed.

He moved forward, heading for his tallboy to undress; she literally licked her lips and waited. It was one of many individual moments she savored, watching him disrobe, watching his powerful body be revealed element by element to her hungry gaze.

Offered up, for her delectation.

He knew. She knew he did. Although he never gave any overt sign—never made any too obvious gesture or glanced at her to see how she was reacting—he artfully drew the moments out until, by the time he was naked and joined her in the bed, she was beyond desperate to get her hands on him.

To feel him against her, all that glorious muscle, all those heavy bones, to sense and feel the power inherent in his large frame.

To have that possess her, shatter her, and bring her unbounded, unfettered delight. Unrestricted, unrestrained pleasure.

She knew that was what would come to her as, finally naked, he crossed the room and lifted the sheets. She waited, breath bated, nerves taut, for that moment when the mattress sagged beneath his weight, and he reached for her, gathered her in, and their bodies met.

Skin to skin, heat to heat, desire to passion, wanting to yearning.

She came to him, and Royce drew her to him, half beneath him as he leaned over her. Her hand touched the side of his face, welcoming, encouraging, mirroring the messages her body gave as she sank against him, her softness molding instinctively to his hardness, giving against his heavier weight, cushioning and beckoning with sirenlike allure.

Without hesitation, without thought, he dove into her mouth, and found her waiting there, too. Waiting to engage, to meet and satisfy his every demand—to challenge him, did she but know it, with the ease with which she so effortlessly sated him.

Even after having her for more times than he’d ever had any woman, he still couldn’t get enough of her—any more than he could solve the riddle of how having her had become such a bliss-filled act.

Why it so soothed his soul, both that of the man and that of the beast, the primitive being that lurked deep within him.

She embraced him all, and gave him surcease; in her arms he found an earthly heaven.

In search of it again, he drew his hand from her breast, reached down, caught her knee, and lifted it. Angling his hips, he nudged into her, then thrust deep. Seated fully within her, he rolled and settled fully upon her; wrapped in her arms and the billows of his bed, he savored her mouth as he savored her body, rocking them both with slow, deep thrusts, taking them both on a slow ride to paradise.

At the last, she clutched, arched beneath him as his name ripped from her throat; he buried his head in the sweet curve of her shoulder and gave himself to her in a long, intense climax that rolled on and on.

Afterward, once he’d regained possession of sufficient wit to move, he lifted from her, settled beside her, and gathered her close, and she came, snuggling against him, her head on his shoulder, her hand on his chest, spread over his heart.

He didn’t know if she knew she did that every night, that she slept with her hand just there. With her warmth against him and all tension released, he sank deeper into the mattress, and let the quiet joy he always found with her seep slowly to his bones. To his soul.

And wondered, again, why. Why what he found with her was so different. And why he felt as he now did about her.

She was the woman he wanted as his wife—so he’d let her close, closer than he’d ever let anyone else, and therefore she meant more than anyone else to him. He shouldn’t be surprised that she awakened, called to, drew forth emotions no other ever had.

He’d never felt as possessive of any woman as he felt about her. Never felt as consumed by, as focused on, as connected to anyone as he did to her. She was rapidly becoming—had already become—someone he needed and wanted in his life forever…

What he felt for her, how he felt about her, mirrored how his friends felt about their wives.

Given he was a Varisey through and through—knew that to his bones—he didn’t understand how that could be, yet it was. In his Varisey heart, he didn’t approve of it—his feelings for her—any more than he approved of any other vulnerability; a vulnerability was a weakness, a chink in his armor—a sin for such as he. But…deep within was a yearning he’d only recently recognized.

His father’s death had been the catalyst, the message he’d left with Minerva an unintended revelation. If he didn’t need to be like his father in running the dukedom, perhaps he didn’t need to be like him in other ways. Then his friends had arrived to comfort him, and had reminded him of what they’d found, what they had. And he’d seen his sisters and their Varisey marriages—and that hadn’t been what he’d wanted, not anymore.

He now wanted a marriage like his friends had. Like his ex-colleagues of the Bastion Club had forged. That want, that need, had burgeoned and grown over the past nights, even more over the past days, until it was an ache—like a stomach-ache—lodged in his chest.

And in the dark of his bed in the depths of the night, he could admit that that want scared him.

He didn’t know if he could achieve it—that if he reached for what he wanted, he could in fact secure it.

There were few arenas in life in which he doubted himself, but this newfound battleground was one.

Yet the one thing he now yearned for above all else was for the woman in his arms to love him. He wanted what his friends had found—lusted after her gentle affection if anything more intensely than he lusted after her body.