Page 47

With her shoulder flush to his chest, his rumble sank deeper. All the way to her core.

He released her and backed away. Was that a no? She raised her hands to the blindfold.

He caught her wrists. “No. Hands on the bedpost.”

He guided her hands to the solid timber post, and she grabbed hold of it. Not above her head, but at chest height this time. Then with his large hands on her hips, he walked her back until she was bent over, the bedpost giving her balance. With his knee between her thighs, he encouraged her to spread her legs wide. She could barely breathe, and her heart hammered wildly in her chest.

She could tell him to stop. He would. But she wanted this. Had desired it, imagined it, since the moment he’d crowded her against his kitchen bench in Paris. To know what it would be like to have him take her like he wanted to. Like she was a woman in his playroom.

Cool air brushed her back as he stepped away, and she strained to follow his footsteps. She jerked her head to the right at the click of a lid opening. The lubricant. She jumped at his touch on her labia, the coolness of the lube doing nothing to extinguish the heat of her skin. Then he was sliding a finger inside her. Oh, heavens. A slow thrust pressing deep, one finger, then two. She rocked back into his thrust. He gripped her hip, holding her in place. Unhurried, in and out, in, out. Her pleasure building again, a tightening in her lower stomach and at the base of her spine. Her legs trembling.

He paused, pulled his fingers out and, when he slid back in—with three fingers, not two—the burn, the stretch, it was…it was too much. She tensed, her safe word on the tip of her tongue.

“You’re tight, bébé. I have to ease you into it. So you can take me.” He dropped an open-mouthed kiss on her shoulder. “Relax for me.”

The hand at her hip was a soothing caress. His three fingers deep inside her were still, stretching her to the edge of discomfort. He waited. He didn’t move. He didn’t withdraw his hand. Her channel fluttered around his fingers. Another kiss on her shoulder. Goosebumps tripped over her skin. His thumb drew lazy circles on her hip, distracting her. Her body slowly conceding, adjusting. Responding.

“Good girl.”

He moved his fingers inside her, slower than molasses on a winter’s morning. A circular motion, followed by a thrust and retreat. The discomfort didn’t so much ease as change. The fullness, the stretch, the way he’d bent her over was darkly erotic, and it pushed her pleasure higher and faster. Deeper. She panted, she mumbled words, begging, pleading, urging him on, to move faster, to push deeper and harder. She was too caught up in the slide of his fingers and what they were doing to be shocked by her wantonness. Her peak hovered close. So close.

Then his hand was gone, and she sucked in a breath as something hot and hard pressed at her entrance. Oh, my stars. Grace had a brief moment of panic before he impaled her, inch by thick inch.

Take it slow. Keep control. Don’t hurt her.

His eyes squeezed shut, Alain ran the mantra through his mind on repeat as he slid his cock into Grace, balls deep. She took him. All of him. He’d known she would. She was his mate. She was made for him and he for her. Though their worlds were as far apart as the earth and the sun, in this they were perfect. They fit.

He dragged in a shaky breath and opened his eyes. Putain. There would never be a more glorious sight. Grace, bent over, her hands gripping the bedpost, her head lowered and her ass in the air. Blindfolded, her wrists in cuffs, and his cock buried deep inside her tight pussy.

Her chest heaved. So did his. His grip on her hips tightened. Putain. He wanted to pound into her like there was no tomorrow. To let loose the darkness inside of him and savagely fuck her like the beast he was.

Take it slow. Keep control. Don’t hurt her.

His wolf was prowling in his mind, front and center. It had its own chant. Mark. Claim. Mine.

Alain drew on every ounce of willpower, of studied control, he had. He steadied his breathing and let calm wash over him, ground him. Then, with slow, deliberate movements, he thrust. A leisurely circular motion that belied the turmoil within his chest, and pushed him deep, grinding his pelvis into her beautiful, rounded ass. He opened all his enhanced senses to her, absorbing every moan, every gasp, every quiver of her pussy like it were his own. Teased her, backing off, changing his rhythm if she got too close to her release. Torturing himself, prolonging it for as long as he could.

“Alain, green, green, green.”

Her hoarse, desperate cry cut through his calm. With a roar that would be heard as far as the west wing, as far as his cottage in the woods, he broke, and he took her like a man possessed. Hard and rough. Lapping up her moans and the nonsense words spilling from her mouth, sweat beading on her golden skin. He gritted his teeth and pushed her harder.

She was coming, clamped around him like a vise, her head flung back and her mouth open in a silent scream. It was like jet fuel to his balls. His own release hit him, exploding from his cock like a freight train out of control. And it wouldn’t stop. His vision went dark. Stars exploded on the back of his eyelids. His wolf’s howl near shattered his eardrums.

It was Grace’s soft sobs that snapped him from his euphoria.

Putain. What have I done?

He slipped free of her body, flicked the quick release on the cuffs, and scooped her up into his arms. Cradling her, he sank onto the bed, wrapping them both in the warmth and softness of the duvet. She clung to him, buried her face in his chest.

“Talk to me, chérie. Did I hurt you?”

She shook her head and squeezed closer to him, if that were possible. He increased the pressure of his arms. Not too tight, but firm. Enough to give her the comfort and reassurance she was craving. This wasn’t subspace, the trance-like state some submissives experienced after an intense scene. She wasn’t floating. She was crashing. This was sub-drop. Her adrenaline and endorphins had taken a nosedive.

And he would be with her for this as much as he’d been there for everything else. More so. His needs as a Dom were irrevocably entwined with his needs as an alpha wolf. He was dominant, and he hungered for control, but he also craved the responsibility that came with it. The caregiving that came with the command.

“Talk to me, Grace. Tell me what you’re feeling.”

“I don’t… It’s all so…” She muffled a sob against his chest. “Those awful spells… My mama… What’s happening to her? Is she going to…?” More sobbing, her words almost incoherent. “And then in the bath, and here, I…I…I forgot all about her when we…when we… How could I do that?”