He pushed deeper.

She wiggled free. “Wait!” The sound of her voice, desire-laced and sultry, only made the blood pump harder in his veins.

“Evie,” he groaned her name. She couldn’t mean for him to stop now!

She urged him back with her hands on his chest and rose to her knees before him. He tried to haul her back, but she pressed a hand to his chest, stopping him. He had a sense of her shaking her head at him. “Not yet.”

He strained to see in the dark, heard the slight rustle of her skirts, then gasped as her small hand closed around his cock—stroked him, at first slowly, then harder, each pump of her small hand driving him mindless.

“Evie,” he groaned, falling back to the ground. “Please, I need you to—”

He reached up and grasped her arms, determined to end the torment and finish this properly. Before she finished him.

Her hand lifted then, left him . . . replaced by her mouth.

Defeated, his hands dropped from her arms as her lips surrounded him. “Evie,” he moaned, “you’re killing me.”

Chapter 22

Evie prayed she knew what she was doing. Millie’s advice was imprinted on her brain. Advice that had seemed bold and impossible at the time, but no longer.

She didn’t wonder if she could do it . . . only whether she could do it right. Do it well. If she could please him. Drive him wild with desire the way that she not only wanted to but needed to.

“Evie, stop, please . . .” The rest of his words died as she worked her mouth over him, tasting, savoring.

When Millie had told her about this part of it, she had thought the idea vaguely revolting. She had not guessed at the heady empowerment she would receive from bringing him to his knees, at reducing him to broken pleas.

She laved him with her tongue, enjoying the ripples of pleasure coursing through his body, flowing into her. His groan ripped across the air, shuddering through his body and into her. The sound undid her. Her belly twisted and tightened. If possible, he swelled, grew harder, larger against her lips.

He seized her arms and tried to pull her up. “Evie, please, no more—”

She sucked at the tip of him, resisting the pull of his hands, determined that he take her only when he was overcome, mindless with need, so lost that he wouldn’t notice her lack of experience . . . or her maidenhead.

“No more,” his voice bit out, pulling her out from between his legs.

In a single move he rolled her beneath him, on top of his discarded clothing. His hands delved beneath her skirts, grasping her h*ps with a roughness that both thrilled and alarmed her. She had done it . . . driven him to the point of mindlessness.

She stretched her hands into the darkness, searching for his face. Her palms brushed the scratchy texture of his cheeks and she latched on, dragging his face down to hers even as his hands tore at her drawers, ripping the slit in the fabric even wider.

Then he was there.

She gasped against his mouth at the sudden surge of him inside her. He didn’t ease in gently. He was beyond that. She’d made certain of that.

He filled her, stretched her to capacity. Slick and large and alien. She fought the instinctive urge to pull back, to escape the strangeness of his throbbing member buried deep inside her.

She whimpered.

He must have taken the sound for pleasure, because he groaned and repeated the process, clutching her h*ps for leverage.

Relax. Breathe.

He still kissed her, his lips fierce, bruising as he eased out and drove back inside her again, lodging himself to the hilt with another shuddery groan against her lips. She drank the sound, reveled in it. The sound of his surrender. His passion for her.

Gradually, the strange and uncomfortable sensation of him inside her changed into something else as he began to move, setting a quick pace, pumping in and out of her. Something raw and desperate that made her move faster against him. Without grace or rhythm.

Clenching heat grew at her core, turning to a growing burn. The slick drag of him against her weeping flesh made her fidget, writhe beneath him, reaching, seeking for something close, near, within reach.

The burning twisted into a deep, gnawing ache. Desperate for more, to increase the delicious friction of him inside her, she tangled her tongue with his and parted her thighs wider, lifting her h*ps off the ground.

She moved with him, against him. Any way she could. Her hands slid around him, found the taut cheeks of his backside, and reveled in the sensation of his flesh flexing as he worked over her.

She moaned, no longer caring if he was mindless, if he was lost to passion. She was. Her body afire, she thrust her h*ps to meet his every drive. Her inner muscles clenched around the delicious hardness of him. A ragged cry broke from her lips, the sound shameful and decadent and something she’d never imagined to hear from her lips. A sound she didn’t know she could make.

And still, he moved harder over her, thrusting deeper. He slid a hand beneath her, lifting her off the hard ground and bringing her even closer for his penetration.

Evie gasped, swallowed, clung to his shoulders. She felt like she was being propelled forward, pushed ahead in a great race, a desperate chase for something elusive . . . just within reach.

She moaned his name, the sound twisting out from deep in her throat. The pressure grew, built. She bit down on his shoulder, tasted the warm saltiness of his skin as her body exploded, came apart, splintered into a thousand pieces. Spots danced before her eyes, and she was convinced she would never come together again. She would forever be this, changed, never herself again. Shattered.

He collapsed over her, sliding his hand out from the small of her back and bracing his panting length over her.

They lay there for some moments, their bodies rising and falling with heavy breaths. She felt him pulse, still lodged fully inside her.

He lifted his head from the arch of her neck. “Evie?”

“Hmmm.” She reached up to touch the ends of his hair lightly, rubbing the silky strands between her fingers, afraid of what his next words would be, if they might somehow possess the power to ruin this.

Had he realized? Did he know?

“Did I hurt you?”

Her chest tightened, painful pinpricks breaking out over her flesh. Because he knew he’d breached her maidenhead?

“N-no.”

“I’m usually not so . . . forceful.” He made a rough sound in his throat. “I certainly never imagined our first time together would be like this . . . on the floor of a cellar.”

A sigh shivered through her. He didn’t know.

She reached a hand for his cheek, enjoying the rasp of his skin against her fingers, feeling both relieved and awful. Because he didn’t know.

A small part of her wished he had figured it out. Then the truth would be out. For better or worse, subterfuge would no longer hover between them. As long as her secret remained hidden, he didn’t know her. He never could. She was no different than his father, gulling him into believing an illusion.

“It was perfect,” she murmured, her eyes burning, her voice thick. Perfect as it could be.

His voice rumbled low and deep. “Indeed? Then it shouldn’t be difficult to impress you a second time. A bed shall help in that endeavor.”

He rose and pulled her to her feet. Her skirts fell around her legs in a whisper.

In the dark, he helped her set her clothes to rights, buttoning the back of her gown with an efficiency that convinced her of his experience in such a task. Legs steady as jam, she swayed for a moment until he steadied her. Her head spun. She clutched his arm for support.

He folded a hand over hers. “Are you unwell?” His voice rang sharply in her ears.

“Just a bit dizzy. I didn’t have a chance to take breakfast this morning—”

“You mean you haven’t eaten since yesterday?” he demanded.

She nodded, then realized he couldn’t see her face. “Yes.”

He cursed and swept her up into his arms as if she weighed nothing at all. “Damn fool,” he muttered.

“I beg your pardon?” she demanded. “I don’t appreciate—”

“Not you. Me,” he growled in an angry voice as he stomped toward the shadowy stairs. “I should have known better than to take you down here like a well-seasoned . . .” His voice faded away with a low growl.

“I might have had something to do with that,” she inserted, her lips twisting wryly as he carried her up the wood steps with jarring force. She smoothed a palm over his shoulder, the skin warm and smooth beneath her palm. Deliciously bare. “You forgot your clothes.”

They cleared the threshold and stepped into the muted glow of the corridor.

She blinked at the sudden emergence from dark and turned to stare at his face, searching the masculine angles and hollows, the deep-set eyes, the well-cut lips as though she’d never seen him before. She brushed a fingertip over the slight dimple in his chin.

She devoured the sight of him, his hair mussed from her fingers, his green eyes bright, staring at her hungrily. The way a man stares at a woman he’s only known intimately.

“I’ll fetch them later.”

Her fingers fanned over his shoulder, enjoying the bunching muscles. “You intend to march through the house half-dressed? What if someone sees—”

“We’re married, Evie. They can think what they like. And last time I checked, I was master of this house.”

He strode the length of the corridor until he reached the servants’ stairs. He passed a footman on the way up. Startled, the callow-faced youth pressed himself against the wall, averting his gaze from their obvious state of dishabille. Evie buried her overly warm face in his chest, hiccupping with laughter, feeling lighter and happier than she had in years.

He did this—made her feel young and free. As though happiness wasn’t a sentiment reserved for a lucky few. It was something she could have. With him.

“We’ll acquire you some fresh clothes, food—”

“A bath?”

“Of course.” He turned his face then and nuzzled her cheek, lips dropping to her neck.

Her belly fluttered at the warm press of his lips on her skin, at his easy familiarity with her. She’d never thought to have this with a man. Never, certainly, with a husband.

She twisted her head around as he passed her bedroom door.

“Where are you taking—”

“I don’t really see the purpose of you sleeping in there anymore.” His gaze swung to hers, the green clear and probing. “Do you?”

Heat crawled over her cheeks. Indeed not. Her body belonged to him now. She freely relinquished herself to him.

“No. I don’t.” She didn’t want to sleep alone anymore. She wanted Spencer, to be his wife in the truest sense. Only one thing stood between them anymore. One thing killed the lightness sweeping through her.

She hid her face in his neck to hide her frown.

Inside his chamber, he set her on the edge of the vast bed. She forced herself to brighten as he stared down at her with those mesmerizing eyes.

He brushed his thumb down her cheek. “I won’t be long.”

She nodded, watching breathlessly as he left the room. Once the door clicked shut, she was on her feet and at the basin, determined to wash away any evidence of her virginity.

Her hands shook as she poured water into the porcelain bowl. She told herself it was simply from the day’s events. Locked in the dark, forced to face that long-standing fear, and then her other fear—the risk of exposure when she surrendered her body to her husband.

Surely it had nothing to do with the fact that she had fallen in love with her husband. A man that would want nothing to do with her if he learned the secret she harbored. She closed her eyes in a tight blink. If no longer seemed to be in question.

It was a matter of when. When she told him. Because she couldn’t have him until she confessed the truth. She could no longer live with this lie between them.