Grasping the upper arm nearest him, he hauled her to her feet and gave her chair a shove that sent it clattering across the room to crash into the wall.
“I will take your willingness and then I will send you packing to the commoners that spawned you!”
Chapter Five
Bronwyn gaped at him blankly as he hauled her none-too-gently to him and caged her within his embrace. Part of her, she would’ve been ashamed to admit, was enthralled by his masterful possession. Part confused that he seemed so furious, and part afraid for the same reason.
Before she had time to turn it all over in her mind, however, and figure out what part of her bargain seemed to have enraged him, he took possession of her mouth and she completely lost her mind.
His mouth was hard on hers almost to the point of hurtful, but the discomfort was instantly overshadowed by the pleasurable heat that bolted through her the moment he thrust his tongue into her mouth to explore and thoroughly possess the exquisitely sensitive cavern. Dizziness, a sense of weightless, followed in the wake of his touch. Heated moisture flooded her feminine area.
She nearly collapsed in an ignominious heap when he released her almost as abruptly as he’d seized her. She swayed as he turned, bent over and, with one arm, cleared the table of its contents.
She was still staring at the mess in disbelief when he turned back to her, caught her waist, and lifted her straight up. Plunking her rump on the edge of the table, he bore her backwards onto the hard surface, kissed her senseless for a matter of moments, and then leaned away, grasped her skirts, and tossed them over her head.
A jolt of shock and uneasiness rippled through her.
Somehow she’d thought there would be more kissing before he got to the bad part!
She didn’t know if it was fortunate or unfortunate that she didn’t have long to dwell on the impending assault on her maidenhead. She supposed it was good fortune she didn’t have time to brace herself because if she’d been tense it might have been more painful.
Or maybe not.
She would never know because there was very little preamble. He hiked her skirts over her head, folded her in half and plowed into the source of her femininity with dizzying swiftness.
She thought for a moment that he was trying to stuff an arm or leg into her cavity. The thing seemed way too huge to be a man-root.
But then, he wasn’t a man, was he? He was a demon.
Or maybe it just seemed huge because she wasn’t accustomed to having a man-root inside of her?
Whatever the case, the moisture her body had produced in response to the thrill of his kiss didn’t have time to dry up and impede his possession. He coated his cock with her natural juices and wedged the thick rod into her channel before she even had time to suck in a breath to scream.
She did gasp in shocked surprise when she felt the stretching of her flesh by the thick, hard wedge of his. But he’d planted his mouth over hers to muffle any cries she might think to make before he breached her maidenhead.
Feeling the head of his cock plow through the fragile barrier, she screamed into his mouth before her brain had time to register the pain of her deflowering. Which left her feeling somewhat embarrassed and deflated since the pain was fairly minimal.
She dismissed it as he began a rhythm that produced strangely enticing tingles—like an itchy sort of ache. In a way it soothed the lingering pain from her deflowering. In a way it seemed to aggravate the sensitive area, generating heat that made her catch her breath on a hitch each time he grazed the little, ultra sensitive patch.
She focused on it, at first merely in an attempt to understand what it was that he was doing to her, what it was that she was feeling. But the focus seemed to drag her in. The pleasure seemed to grow by leaps and bounds, generating a sense of anticipation. The anticipation and pleasure expanded and expanded until, abruptly, the bubble burst, sending out a shockwave so exquisite it snatched her breath from her lungs and sent her spiraling toward darkness. She felt herself convulsing—with pleasure such as she’d never experienced. It tore an animalistic groan from her throat.
It distracted him from his own goal.
He hesitated, missed a stroke.
She tightened her grip on him, bucked against him demandingly. Now was not the time to hesitate!
Fortunately, she seemed to have communicated her demand because he began to move again, harder, faster now and that sent her pleasure spiraling into another realm of intoxicating bliss.
Eventually, the waves of bliss began to decrease in intensity and she began to float downward toward Earth again. She was vaguely aware that he seemed to reach a similar point of explosion, shuddering, jerking with pleasurable spasms and finally collapsing breathlessly against her, huffing in her ear.
But only vaguely.
She was mostly focused on basking in the pleasurable aftershocks.
She’d never dreamed it was like this, she thought vaguely.
Small wonder the maids were always sneaking away with their beaux to find a private corner!
She was completely limp when he scooped her from the table and hoisted her against his chest, had no particular interest in where he might be taking her.
But she did take advantage of the opportunity to snuggle against his broad chest while he carried her from the room and mounted the stairs.
That did pierce her post coital utopia.
“Am I leaving now?” she asked, struggling to decide how she felt about it.
She felt a jolt of surprise run through him.
“No,” he growled irritably.
Surprise flickered through her. “But you said ….”
“I am not done,” he snapped.
“Oh. Alright then.”
Slightly appeased when she gave in so easily, Raathe carried her to his own room and planted her in the middle of his bed.
Still angry, although he couldn’t pinpoint exactly why when he’d already informed her that he would toss her back when he was done, he manipulated the spell that bound him and used it to strip and bind her for his carnal pleasure.
He had not taken the time to examine her body, but he discovered it was far more to his liking even than he had imagined. Her breasts were firm and high and round, the rosy peaks like plump berries when he sampled them.
He explored every part of her with his fingers and hands, with his mouth and tongue and teeth. She writhed in torment beneath his touch, moaned, groaned, begged, and eventually screamed for mercy when he’d toyed with her clit until she couldn’t bear the suspense any longer and nor could he.
He rode her then, pounding in to her until she bucked and groaned and shuddered in climax, and then driving her to another peak and yet another before he finally allowed himself a release.
His crisis was nearly catastrophic in force. He almost felt as if his heart would explode before he reached release and then as if he would implode from expelling every ounce of energy along with his seed. He was near to blacking out when he collapsed half atop her on the bed, his flesh still embedded inside her … where he wished to house it forever.
He’d thought her catatonic with her own multiple releases but almost the moment he hit the bed she muttered something in a slurred, fatigue drunken voice that brought him from the edge of bliss to a towering rage.
“Done now?”
He wasn’t. He had grave doubts he ever would be.
But his pride had been trampled by her dainty feet.
“Without a doubt,” he snarled in response. “By all means, take yourself off!”
She didn’t quibble or delay to catch her breath. She wiggled out from under him, rolled off the bed, and hit the floor. “Where’s my … oh.”
Instead of dressing herself, she gathered her clothing into a ball, looked around in confusion, and finally stumbled toward the door.
She didn’t look back when she reached it. She hauled the heavy panel open, slipped through, and slammed the door behind her.
Still feeling s
o weak it was a struggle even to breathe, Bronwyn paused at the head of the stairs to pull her under-shift over her head. She would’ve preferred to get completely dressed, but she didn’t dare linger lest the demon change his mind. Instead, she bundled them again and made her way haphazardly down the stairs, stumbling and nearly falling twice before she managed to negotiate them.
At the bottom, she sorted through her bundle until she found her stockings and slipped them on to protect her bare feet. She had no idea what had become of her shoes and she wasn’t about to ask or hunt, but her feet were far too tender to get her far with no sort of protection at all.
To her surprise, the mare that had brought her seemed to be awaiting her when she left the castle. She stared at it with a mixture of uneasiness and hopefulness.
The mare was fleet. If she could get on the twice damned bitch’s back and convince her to return to the village ….
Casting an uneasy glance back at the castle, she debated briefly and then quickly dressed herself the best she could. She thought her secret would be safe enough if she was fully dressed when she returned even if her clothing was rumpled and disarrayed. Surely she could pass that off on the wild ride?
She hoped so.
She had to coax the mare to the short wall on the bridge to mount the mare and once she had, the mare, as she had before, took off running like the wind.
This time, however, the mare was headed toward the village.
Bronwyn was so grateful she felt like weeping. She struggled with it for a few moments and finally gave in, realizing that having the horse run away with her was a traumatic event in and of itself and not likely to arouse speculation.
To her stunned amazement and total confusion, the village looked much as she had left it—almost as if they had been frozen in time!
They were in an uproar, gathering a search party to go out to look for her—as if she’d only disappeared minutes or at the most, hours, before when she knew she’d been gone far longer—at least a full day and night, although it had actually seemed like more than that.
Shaking off the bizarre circumstance for later examination, she fell into her father’s arms gratefully, weeping, and sensibly ignoring the questions being thrown at her. “I want to go home!”
Her father pushed her away long enough to examine her face with concern and finally nodded. “Yes. You need rest. I’ll have the maids take you home and send for a physician to look you over for injury.”
Bronwyn’s heart leapt into her throat. Wouldn’t a physician be able to tell she was maiden no more? “No! I’m not hurt. Truly! I was just … terrified and I’m exhausted from struggling with that damned horse!”
At that comment, her father glanced quickly around. “It should be destroyed …. By the gods! Where is the beast?”
Feeling emotion tighten her throat for some inexplicable reason, Bronwyn glanced around, as well, but the mare had vanished along with the gypsy caravan.
* * * *
Life returned to normal—for everyone but Bronwyn.
She was pampered and spoiled until it was deemed she’d recovered.
Then both her father and her maid, Maude, lectured her about her hardheaded determination to have her way and wondered endlessly, and loudly, if she’d learned her lesson.
Bronwyn mentally reminded herself that it would’ve been far worse if they’d had any inkling exactly what had happened to her and bore with their scolding with as much patience as she could manage.
That was no easy feat. She was not gifted with a great deal of patience to start with and, paired with the fact that she’d hardly slept since the incident, that began to fray very quickly after the first few sermons.
She was haunted by dreams of him.
To her shame, the vast majority of her disturbing dreams centered around things he had done to her--replays of every moment, every touch.
And then some. For she dreamed of things that had never happened.
To her embarrassment, sometimes these dreams were so intense, she climaxed as if it was really happening to her.
To her sorrow, there were far more times when she was roused to fever pitch by memories or wishful dreams and woke aching and unfulfilled.
She didn’t know why she dreamed about him! He was a monster!
Her anger waned and she considered that with far more empathy than she ever would have before.
He actually wasn’t a monster.
He deserved pity and understanding far more than he deserved to be reviled.
And he wasn’t ugly or horrible to look at.
He was actually very appealing in a purely masculine way.
And he had never hurt her or even threatened to. He’d blustered a very great deal. And he had certainly been a little rough in his passion, but she couldn’t fault him for that when it had so thrilled her that she couldn’t get it out of her mind!
She needed to get him out of her mind! She needed to forget what had happened!
That was never more apparent than when her father announced that he had settled on a husband for her.
Bronwyn had never expected to feel such a sense of panic and dismay.
It wasn’t that she knew the man and disliked him. She’d never even met him.
It wasn’t that she doubted her father had her best interests at heart.
Shamefully, it wasn’t even the fact that she was soiled and not fit to be a wife to any man expecting a respectable bride.
The very first thing to run through her mind when her father made the announcement was that the demon of the castle was lost to her forever, for she would belong to another man once the bans were read and the vows given.
Pain followed, in spite of all she could do to block it from her mind.
In vain, she tried to convince herself that she felt nothing at all for the demon, that she’d only felt passion because of the enchanted castle and the curse and her bargain to win her freedom.
And she felt a great deal worse when she acknowledged, at last, that she had meant nothing at all to the demon, mayhap, hadn’t even broken the curse!
It was as if he had completely set her from his mind from the moment he sent her away.
He had not come for her to profess his love, certainly.
Or even his desire!
So either she hadn’t broken his curse or he wanted nothing more from her.
The hurt was so great when she allowed herself to think those things that she became angry.
She hoped he was still cursed, the bastard!
She did her best to focus on her nuptials after that, but it was a losing battle because no matter how determined she was not to allow thoughts of him during the day, at night he crept into her dreams and she felt the excitement only his touch produced in her.
Chapter Six
Raathe was quite sure that—in a life that had been almost entirely a misery—he had never been more miserable.
His anger sustained him for a while.
He was exhausted from expending himself on her over and over. When he’d sent her away, he found a good bottle of wine and drank himself into a pleasant stupor where dreams didn’t invade his mind.
He paid dearly for the sedative the following day, but the pain was enough to keep his thoughts at bay.
By the time a fortnight had passed, he was obliged to admit that he yearned for the little temptress with a hunger nothing seemed likely to appease but her flesh.
He dreamed dreams that were so real he woke hard, bathed in sweat, desperate for release.
A sen’night had passed before it occurred to him even to wonder if the spell had been broken. He was so accustomed to being damned and disappointed that he realized he’d never really believed the curse could be broken.
She had felt passion for him, though, he realized abruptly.
She had said that she would give him passion and he’d been angry that she didn’t seem to realize that it was something one felt.
Or didn’t.
That it
couldn’t be conjured at whim.
But he realized that he’d been so focused on his own pleasure—and reliving it over and over—that he had failed to consider that she had given every evidence that their coupling had affected her as powerfully as it had him. She hadn’t merely gritted her teeth and endured as he’d more than half expected. She had touched him in return, clutched at him, gasped and groaned her pleasure.
Screamed it.
He’d felt the convulsions of pleasure ripple through her body when she’d been pressed so tightly to him.
She’d desired him, he thought, stunned and disbelieving the notion, but no matter how carefully he examined his memories and picked them apart, they seemed to bear up that conclusion.
For the space of a few heartbeats, the realization overjoyed him.
And then he recalled that he’d accepted her bargain in order to taste her passion.
He’d sent her away.
He might have had the chance to win her love and his freedom if he hadn’t given in to his anger and accepted half a loaf when he had wanted the entire thing!
His disappointment knew no bounds when all of that crashed down upon him.
He raged for a time, toyed with the idea of drinking himself into a stupor and then discarded it.
She desired him.
If he had won her passion, he could win her heart! He knew it! She couldn’t feel that for him and not be open to loving him, as well!
He had to think of a way to get her back.
But how was he to accomplish that when he couldn’t leave the castle?
When he finally admitted defeat he was desperate enough to summon his ‘grandmother’, or at least the old witch that believed she was his grandmother. As much as he loathed her, he knew she was the only one who might tell him how he could accomplish his goal.
She ignored his demands for her presence for days before she finally condescended to appear.
“The girl you sent to me—Bronwyn, I believe was her name—how would I go about bringing her back?”
Bronwyn and the Beast Prince Page 4
