He licked her over and over again until her breaths became gasping cries. She hadn’t known a pleasure like this existed. Her fingers clenched tighter on the sheets beneath her as he licked and nibbled with decadent greed. When his lips closed over her nub, suckling hard, she hurtled over the edge with a wild scream which echoed in the room. Her husband crawled over her and settled between her splayed legs. The look on his face was one of lust and sweet tenderness.
Callie’s heart clenched and she traced a finger gently over his cheekbone. “How I love you,” she breathed.
With a deep groan, he kissed her tenderly, barely brushing his lips over hers. “I am so glad you are mine, Callie. I love you.”
He kissed the bridge of her nose and then down to her lips. The taste of her passion on his mouth enflamed her ardor even more. His mouth consumed her, possessed her, laying claim with each bold thrust of his tongue. She parted her lips for his tongue, moaning as he plundered her softness. He cupped her jaw firmly, sensually as he ravished her mouth.
With his other hand, he fitted his cock to her opening and sheathed himself in one thrust. Her wild cry was captured by his mouth, and he held himself still and allow her body to adjust to his thick, throbbing intrusion. He stopped kissing her to murmur against her mouth, “You grip me so hot and tight, my Callie.”
The fingers stroking over her jaw lowered. His thumbs swiped over her nipples, before capturing the hard pebble between his thumbs and forefingers. He bent his head, drew one delicate berry into his mouth.
She gripped his shoulders, her fingers kneading the muscles of his shoulders, then slipped her hands around his neck. His throat was a strong, corded column beneath her feather-light touch.
“Graham!” she gasped at the raw heat blossoming through her at a particular hard suck of her throbbing nipples.
She wrapped her arms around him and pulled him even closer. His tongue flicked over her aching nipple, laving it over and again. That wicked heat gathered inside of her once more, except this time it felt more than what had happened in the cabin at Holliwell Manor. When he started to move inside her, it was with exquisite depth and slowness.
A wonderfully intense sensation twisted low in her stomach. He stroked into her over and over, ignoring her wild cries urging him faster. What felt like hours later, Callie clung to her husband and let pleasure consumed her, a long, low moan breaking from her lips at the exquisite bliss. She sobbed with the ecstasy of her own surrender and with a deep groan he tumbled into bliss with her.
Graham rolled with her, so she was splayed atop his chest. He dipped and pressed a kiss to her temple. “I love you, Callie.”
“I love you,” she murmured with drowsy contentment, then fell asleep with a smile on her lips and pure, unguarded happiness in her heart.
Letters to Emily
Two years have passed since Lady Emily’s beloved Maxwell went to fight in the war. With only letters and one hot night of loving to keep her warm on the coldest of nights, she tries to embrace the future after learning of his death at the Third Battle of Picardy. One way to forge forward is to marry his twin brother, Marcellus Alexander Wynwood, The Marquis of Blackthorn, a man she does not love, but one who rouses dark needs in her.
Marcellus wanted Emily from the first moment he saw her two years ago but had watched from a distance as his brother Max charmed her into falling hopelessly in love with him. In her state of grief over Max, Marcellus ensures her needs are met, breaking down her barriers, tormenting her with wicked erotic loving as he slowly binds her to him.
Despite this, he fears he will lose her once it is revealed that her beloved Maxwell lives. Marcellus prays Emily can surrender to his needs and soul deep desires, and accepts the scandalous lifestyle he shares with his twin.
Chapter 1
England, West Oxfordshire
December 1918
October 20, 1916
Dearest Emily,
The cry of the dead haunts me. The battle at Flers-Courcelette is one of the most horrific I have fought. The carnage and the grief are palpable. Many lives were lost: sons, fathers, brothers, all my comrades. Terror is a constant companion I sleep with, nightmares of what I’ve had to do to protect you, to protect my fellow countrymen. My sanity is preserved only by the joys I found in your arms, the passion I tasted from you. The screams, the horrors are chased with visions and memories of your sweet wildness in my arms, of how you gripped me with your tightness, how you cried my name in passionate release, how you loved me unreservedly. I dream of returning and making you my wife, and I hold close to me the gift that you bestowed on me before I left. I love you, my heart and my reason.
Your love, Maxwell Wynwood
It was the season to be jolly, but Lady Emmeline Isabella Langford felt everything except merriment. A deep loneliness haunted her. Her hands trembled, and Maxwell’s letter fluttered to the carpeted floor. She dipped, motions mechanical, crouching to pick it up. She gently eased out the wrinkles. It had been read hundreds of times by her, the blotched water stains testament to the emotions it ushered her through. She wished for his arms to hold and to comfort her, to wring cries of pleasure from her shadowed and tormented mind.
She rose and went to the sofa closest to the crackling hearth. She sank in the sofa’s plush depth, reading Maxwell’s letter for the last time before she would walk down the aisle into the arms of a man she did not love but who roused her desire. It mattered not that their wedding date was set several months in the future. To have any semblance of a happy life with her new fiancé, she needed to banish the old, release the ghost of the past, and embrace the future.
The words swam before her eyes as tears gathered behind her lids. Emily folded the letter, not needing to see the words that wavered; she knew them by heart. Her soul whispered them late at night when she only had memories of him to keep her warm, to slide her into pleasure when she caressed herself. Oh, Maxwell! She held tight in her heart the bittersweet memory of their night of loving.
The door of the library creaked open, and she lifted her head. Coldness seized her, but it had nothing to do with the draft that crept in. Marcellus Alexander Wynwood, the Marquess of Blackthorn, heir to the Dukedom of Harcourt, twin brother to her beloved, strolled into her safe haven.
“You have not been to dinner. I brought you a light respite.”
The sensual drawl had her heart stuttering, and she nodded, watching him enter with the tray.
His gaze bored into her and she could feel the intensity that vibrated from it kissing her skin with hunger and fear. He laid the tray with sliced ham, cheese, honey-crusted bread, a small teapot, and a cup on the black lacquered table in front of her.