Sylvia Day: Pride and Pleasure

“Please,” she begged, quivering around him. “Please.”

Jasper gripped her hips, lifting and dropping her. Working her onto his rigid length. Pumping her up and down. Grinding and screwing deep.

Eliza sobbed with the pleasure. “Yes!”

“I will addict you to this,” he promised in a dark, dangerously rough voice. “Addict you to me. Soon, you’ll seek me out in public, unable to wait another moment. You will lift your skirts and beg for my mouth on you, my tongue in you. In the extremity of your lust, you won’t care where we are. You will crave the taste of me. You will sink to your knees and service me with your mouth, sucking my cock until I spill into you, thick and hot and mad with hunger.”

She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, eyes closing as he surged repeatedly inside her. The feeling was incredible. She would never have enough of it. The stroking of the furled underside of his crown rubbed deliciously, finding her most sensitive nerve endings and setting them afire.

He slid inside her, deeply, filling her with the heat and hardness of him. Filling her with pleasure that made her arch wildly. His possession was indescribably erotic. As addicting as he threatened.

He withdrew, and she felt empty. He returned, and she bit her lip to hold back cries that would betray their actions to a multitude of guests.

But Jasper would abide no restraint. “Let me hear you,” he coaxed. “Let me hear how much you want this.”

His free hand cupped her thigh, opening her wider so that he could thrust deeper. Swiveling his hips, he worked her into a frenzy with ruthless skill, making her insensate with lust and hungry for more. Always more. As much as he gave her, it wasn’t enough.

Eliza gasped and dug her nails into the flexing muscles of his back. The horrors of the day created a sharp urgency. “Finish me.”

“Too soon,” he ground out, sweat dripping down his temple.

“We have forever to go slower. Don’t make me wait now.”

He crushed her to him. “I love you. Eliza…love you.”

She climaxed with a force that left her shaking. Jasper followed swiftly, his hips ramming upward with ferocious speed. She felt his climax building, felt the tensing of his muscles and the frantic heaving of his powerful chest. When he came, it was violent, his thick penis jerking inside her with every molten spurt of his seed. Her name fell brokenly from his lips until she kissed him, swallowing the sounds of his pleasure with unconditional love in her heart.

They were married an hour later. Aside from the parson, who was flushed and happy with drink, it was a somber wedding. If the stamp of Jasper’s passion was evident in Eliza’s appearance, no one said anything to her, and she was certain Regina would have.

Jasper’s hair was still damp when he said his vows. He’d sent the Crouches back to his home to retrieve fresh clothes, then bathed in a guest bedroom to save time.

Fewer than a dozen people witnessed the short ceremony. The celebration afterward was equally abridged, since everyone had been present for hours by the time the vows were said.

Eliza wore a new cream-hued satin gown with fine lace sleeves and bodice. It was cut and fashioned in the latest style, the first of many that would assist her transformation. She intended to enhance what beauty God had given her, using every weapon in her feminine arsenal to please her husband and deepen his love for her.

When the time came to retire, Jasper was relieved. Eliza led him to her suite of rooms with his hand in hers.

“I have something for you,” he said, when they were alone.

“Oh.” She bit her lower lip. “I did not think of a wedding gift for you.”

“You’re all the gift I need.” He reached into the inner pocket of his coat and withdrew a lady’s signet ring.

He held his hand out for hers, slipping the golden circlet onto the ring finger of her right hand. “It was my mother’s.”

Eliza looked up at him with luminous eyes. “Thank you.”

He nodded and shrugged out of his coat. “Would you care for a drink?” he asked solicitously. Having taken her body so peremptorily earlier, he intended to savor her now.

“No. I want you.”

Satisfaction surged through him. His chest expanded on a deep inhale. His blood thickened and flowed hotly. “Have you no reservations? No questions?”

“Why are you still talking?” She presented her back to him.

“Will you always surprise me?” He approached her and reached for the first button of her gown.

“Haven’t we had enough unpleasantness for one day? Tomorrow is soon enough to address the rest.”

He pressed his lips to her shoulder, grateful for her.

Her head turned, and her gaze met his. “If you’d gone to the jeweler’s today instead of Lynd…”

“Eliza…”

She pivoted into his arms, catching his mouth with her own in a fervent, awkward kiss. He caught her close, lifting her feet from the floor. Her slender arms wrapped around his neck, her fingers pushed into his hair in the way that never failed to inflame him.

“I want you naked,” she breathed, making his cock hard. “I want to touch you everywhere, and your clothing makes that impractical.”

“We cannot have impracticality in our bedroom,” he said, biting back a smile. Setting her down on the edge of the mattress, Jasper stepped back. He attacked the buttons of his waistcoat.

Eliza’s tongue traced the curve of her bottom lip. “Take your time.”

“You like to watch.”

“I like to watch you ,” she amended. “You are everything I find beautiful, and sexual, and desirable.”

He had no idea what to say to that, how to tell her what her candor meant to him. He could only slow the process of undressing, maintaining eye contact with her, allowing her to see how much he loved her. When the last stitch was shed, he straightened and waited for her to tell him what to do next. He’d taken what he needed earlier, and she’d given it to him without hesitation. Only the second time in her life that she’d had a man inside her and he’d been too overwrought to show her the gentleness she deserved. Now, it was his turn to give her what she needed.

“I’m overdressed,” she said, toeing off her slippers. Her slim legs dangled off the end of the bed.

“What would you like me to do about that?”

“Undress me. But much more quickly than you bared yourself.”

Jasper set his hands at her waist and helped her off the mattress. He resumed his task of unfastening her buttons, working quickly. The wedding gown was set aside with reverence, but the sheer chemise and pantalettes were left to puddle on the floor. Enamored with her softly freckled skin, he wrapped himself around her, his arms tucked under hers and his knees bent to accommodate her shorter stature. With one hand cupping a breast and the other tangling with the dark red curls between her legs, he owned her passion completely.

She purred with pleasure, her head falling back against his shoulder. “I love your hands on me. They are so big and strong, callused and warm.”

“A tradesman’s hands.” He traced the delicately pink shell of her ear with his tongue.

“The only hands that will ever touch me this way.”

Scissoring his fingers, he parted the lips of her sex, exposing the hood shielding her clitoris. “Will I find you wet?”

She began to pant as he rolled her nipple between his fingers. Her stance widened in invitation for a deeper caress. “Yes…You linger in me from earlier.”

The thought of her drenched in his semen swelled his already heavy erection. He pushed his cock between her thighs, growling at the slickness that coated him.

“Let me,” he coaxed, urging her to fold forward over the edge of the bed.