Tainted (8 page)

She didn’t doubt his prowess in the slightest. But she had
no intention of telling him that. His ego was inflated enough as it was.

“Perhaps it will be you, Gawain, who will end up writhing at
my feet.” The image of this tough warrior doing such a thing was so ludicrous
that another inappropriate giggle bubbled in her breast.

Once again, he leaned into her, but this time the entire
length of his body molded hers. His erection burned her lower back so hard and
hot, he seared her flesh. Her desire to laugh evaporated, along with her
breath, and she gasped as his jaw scraped against her throat.

“I will have you where I want you, Antonia. Make no
mistake.” His raw whisper grazed her earlobe, an erotic promise. Or was it a
threat? She did not even care. “And you’ll revel in it.”

Yes, she would. She reveled already, and he had to know. She
turned her face toward him and his barbaric earring pressed against her cheek.
Another sensuous ripple cascaded across her face and along her throat and her
fingers clenched, despite how they were captured between Gawain’s.

“We will have each other.” Her heart hammered so wildly in
her breast, constricting her breath, she scarcely knew how she managed to
respond at all. But something compelled her. Something that had been beaten
down during the years of her marriage, but that had refused to wither and die
beneath the desert of derision and disregard. “I look forward to our mutual
writhing.”

Goddess, had she said that aloud? The way Gawain’s body shook
with silent laugher assured her that yes, she most certainly had. And he
enjoyed her remarks. How shockingly easy it was to fall back into the patterns
of her girlhood, when she had spoken before she thought. When she had believed,
so naively, that all men would be as indulgent of her irreverent tongue as her
father.

He untangled his fingers from hers and trailed an
excruciating path up her thighs toward her hips.

“So do I.” His growl vibrated across her sensitized skin,
and she closed her eyes as his lips claimed the angle of her jaw with nibbling
kisses that stoked the embers to unbearable heights.

Threads of fire weaved across her flesh as he scraped the
tips of his fingers over the swell of her hips and dip of her waist. She
shifted against him, his erection growing even harder, and molten heat rolled
deep in her slick sheath.

It was no good. He wanted her to beg. “I believe I am
ready.” The words were uneven, her breath erratic, but surely coherent enough
for him to understand. She wanted him now, before these exquisite sensations
causing untold havoc between her thighs vanished.

His lips teased her earlobe, his warm breath dusting her
skin like an elusive summer breeze. “I don’t believe you are.”

Her eyes widened. “I don’t believe you know what you’re
talking about.”

Again an irresistible laugh vibrated through his body. “Do
you always talk so much during intimate moments?”

“No.” Her confession was out before she could prevent it. In
truth, she had never uttered a word after the night of her marriage, when it
became clear the only words Scipio wanted to hear from her while he claimed his
rights were ones she would never voice. He may have owned her body, but he had
never owned her mind.

Gawain trailed a fiery path across her belly and cradled her
breasts. His hands were firm, roughened, and she hitched in an uneven breath
and instinctively curled her hands around his forearms before she tumbled onto
the floor.

“Then why am I different?” There was an edge of mockery in
his voice but it didn’t disguise the throb of desire. His thumbs flicked across
her erect nipples and a strangled moan escaped. How much more of this sweet
torture could she take?

She moistened her lips, tried to gather her cascading
thoughts.
What had he asked her?
“Why do you assume you’re different?”

He nibbled a seductive trail of kisses across her shoulder,
his lips and teeth creating a maelstrom of sensation that weaved over her
breasts and circled her aching nipples. Her head fell back against his neck,
thrusting her breasts forward, and his grasp became possessive.

“Because I’m the first barbarian to enjoy your charms?” As
he panted the words against her heated skin, he pressed her breasts together,
creating a deep cleavage. She knew he was looking at her and the knowledge
caused another wave of heat to flood her quivering channel. It took more effort
than she knew she possessed, but somehow she forced her head upright so she
could witness the expression on his face.

As she had guessed, he was mesmerized by her creamy mounds
and the dark crevice he had created between them. Entranced, she reached up and
cradled his face, but he appeared unable to drag his gaze from her entrapped
flesh.

“You’re not a barbarian,” she whispered. He was a foreign
warrior of a barbarous land, but that didn’t make him a barbarian.

His gaze caught hers. His eyes were so dark his amber flecks
had all but vanished. “Is that what you think?” His voice was raw with need but
she caught an underlying hint of something else. If it were not so insane, she
might imagine her whisper had unexpectedly touched him.

“No,” she breathed. “I know.”

He didn’t answer, but the feral smile that tugged his lips
caused tingling flutters deep in her cleft. Without warning, he pulled her
around so that she faced him, his hands spanning her waist. She stroked the
angle of his jaw, delighting in the rough texture of his stubble, and then
traced the exotic symbols engraved in his silver torque.

Everything about him radiated a savage, untamed power and
yet she did not fear him. As his hands sculpted the curve of her waist and
swell of her buttocks, he lowered his head. Her breath caught and she dug her
nails into his shoulder as he languidly trailed his tongue around her sensitive
areola.

Her free hand tangled in his hair, the sensation of silken
threads winding around her knuckles as evocative as the feel of his mouth and
tongue and teeth on her breast. She stared at him, transfixed by the sight of
him suckling her, as erotic tugs spiraled from the tip of her nipple to her wet
core.

His warm breath grazed her breast and then he sucked her
hard nub into his mouth. A shocking, brutal gesture that sent darts of
primitive pleasure arrowing through her body.

“Gawain.” Was that really her voice? “Please.”
Take me
now.

With one last lingering lick across her erect peak, he
looked up at her. A pagan god, with his tousled hair, heathen jewelry and
magnificent, irresistible body. “Soon.”

It was a smoky promise she clung onto with the remnants of
her sanity as, instead of claiming her, he trailed burning, provocative kisses
over her aching breasts.

The grip on her buttocks increased as he parted her cheeks
and she gasped, tightening her hold on his hair and shoulder. The grin he shot
her was feral as he began to circle her exposed crack, each swirl of his finger
bringing him closer to penetrating her vulnerable backside.

“Part your thighs.” He accompanied his ragged command by
thrusting his leg between hers and without conscious thought, she obeyed,
opening herself entirely to his determined exploration. Instinctively she
tensed, but he didn’t force his finger inside her tight heat. He continued to
circle and dip, a mind-blowing torture of dark eroticism she had never dreamed
could exist.

Slowly he edged down her body, his mouth worshipping her
belly as he relinquished his possessive grip on her bottom. His hand clasped
her thigh and despite the erratic pounding of her blood and the shocking stabs
of desire his finger engendered, awe shivered through her as she watched him
drop to his knees before her.

His thumb caressed her folds, a gentle touch, back and
forth. Paralyzed she watched as he leaned in and swept his tongue along her
slick cleft. Liquid fire ignited and consumed her quivering core and a primal
moan echoed in her ears.

She had always wondered what it would feel like, to have a
man’s mouth at her pussy, to feel his tongue penetrate her silken folds. But
nothing had prepared her for the reality. Not her former friends’ gossip or her
fevered imagination.

The scorching vibrations spiraling through her pussy went
beyond words. Beyond thought. She clutched at his hair, her anchor to the
world, as the room faded around her. All she could see was Gawain on his knees,
his face between her thighs, his bronzed, naked body worshipping hers.

He pulled back, just enough so that his jaw rubbed against
her sensitized pussy. An inarticulate mewl of protest escaped at his
abandonment. She dug her fingers into his scalp and felt as much as saw his
savage smile.

“Let it go, Antonia.” His demand was raw with lust. “I want
you to come for me. Give me everything you have.”

His words thundered in her mind, as potent as his heated
touch on her body. But before she could even hitch in a jagged breath, he
lubricated her taut behind with her juices and his finger once again stroked
her virgin flesh.

“What?” she whispered, trying to form a coherent thought
between the pounding of her heart and the white-hot desire that blazed through
her veins.
What should I do?
she wanted to ask him but the words lodged
in her throat. It was impossible to speak, impossible to think. All she could
do was feel.
But if she did not do something, Gawain would think her frigid.

The tip of his tongue swirled around her clitoris and she
jerked in shock, clutching at his head, needing something to anchor her as
indescribable streaks of pleasure consumed her sensitive bud. He teased and
probed, his tongue an instrument of unimaginable delight. Her breath stuttered,
the sound jarring into the sex-scented air with uncaring inelegance. Deep
within her pussy a strange pressure bloomed, bore down, then Gawain sucked on
her clitoris and in the same instant, his finger penetrated her tight rosette.

She gasped and reared against his mouth. The sensation of
fullness, of invasion, was beyond anything she had imagined. He rotated his
finger, stretching her taut flesh and she hovered between pain and ecstasy.

Yet she didn’t want him to stop. The feel of him inside her,
where she had never been touched before, was worth any fleeting moment of
discomfort. Her clit inside Gawain’s mouth, the feel of his tongue and lips
sucking her, caused her pussy to contract. She could not stop the ripples that
claimed her cleft and swollen folds.
Didn’t want to
. It was thrilling,
shocking
like nothing she had ever dreamed.

The world shattered into a thousand rainbow shards as her
body convulsed with mindless delirium. Nothing existed but the wild spasms that
vibrated her bud and licked through her trembling pussy.

Nothing but the man she clung onto with primitive need.

Gawain kept his tongue pressed against Antonia’s quivering
clit as she came inside his mouth. She tasted so sweet, of honey and spices and
arousal so intense he smoldered with repressed lust. He tightened his grip
around her waist to keep her upright as she trembled in the throes of her
climax and he eased his finger from her deliciously tight arse. Gods, had she
never been taken there? The thought of being the first hammered through his
mind.

Another time.

He was on the edge and did not have the self-control
required to initiate her into such dark pleasures. He needed to fuck her, and
he needed her now. Without waiting for her shudders to subside, he lifted her
in his arms, her naked body a torturous delight. With a feral growl, he
snatched up a Roman towel, flung it onto the nearest stone table and then sat
her upon it.

Brutally he pushed her knees apart and for one eternal
moment stared, transfixed, at her glistering pussy. Her pink clit was swollen
from his tongue and her orgasm, and her slit tantalized with wet promise.

“Now,” he said, as he lifted her chin and her dazed eyes
locked with his. “You are ready for me.”

She appeared incapable of answer, but he didn’t need her to
say anything. He gripped her hips, satisfied that she maintained eye contact,
and pulled her to the edge of the table. Her arms slid around his shoulders and
he grasped his cock and rubbed his sensitive head over her slick pussy.

Her seductive little gasps and the way her breasts rose and
fell with every erratic breath pushed him over the edge. With a primal growl,
he rammed into her and silken fire engulfed his shaft and scorched his reason.

He shoved his hands under her arse, her smooth cheeks
filling his palms and squeezed her delectable flesh. She squirmed at his rough
touch, and the friction burned his cock as he buried himself farther inside her
welcoming sheath.

No hint of ice remained in her eyes as she focused on him as
though he were all that existed in her world. It shouldn’t have meant anything
and it didn’t. Yet the thought caused the blood to hammer through his veins in
primitive possession.

She wound her legs around him and his balls slammed against
her tender flesh with every frenzied thrust. Exquisite quivers radiated along
her tight crease, torturing his cock. He buried his face in the scented haven
where her throat met shoulder and sucked her delicious skin into his mouth.

Mine.
The word pounded through his head, illogical
and unwanted. But the overwhelming need to mark her as his, to brand her for
all the world to see, thundered through his smoldering senses.

Her choked gasp of protest—of desire—filled his mind with
primitive satisfaction.
She was his.
He grasped her arse, felt her legs
tighten around him, felt her slick core convulse as another violent orgasm
rocked through her.

His hips bucked and he hammered into her, flesh slapping,
breath panting. Lightning clawed through his balls, his cock. A torrid
maelstrom of primal need and base desire and with a guttural roar, he filled
her with his hot release.