I pulled my fingers free of her and brought them to my lips, sucking them clean of her slick honey.
Blinding pleasure raced through me in response, my knees buckling as release hit me with no warning. I had to brace myself against the wall with my free hand to keep from falling as I came in my pants like an untried youth.
I went utterly still, the shock of my orgasm breaking through the pleasure-filled fog she’d wrapped me in. She continued to pant, but when she opened her eyes and stared up at me with absolute devotion, panic clawed its way up my throat.
She reached up and ran her fingertips between my brows. “I knew I would enjoy being your wife.”
What had she done to me? I was not this man. I didn’t evenknowthis man.
I pulled away from her, needing space, time to deal with the crisis her presence created within me. It felt as if I was at war with myself. One side begged me to take her to bed and finish what we started. The other wanted to punish her for making me act like something I wasn’t.
I couldn’t offer her sweetness or romance. She shouldn’t expect it from me. I had no love to give.
Shutting down, I rebuilt the walls she’d taken a wrecking ball to in one night. “Go to your room. I’m done with you.”
Her face fell, and she stopped looking at me with those dangerous emotions flickering behind her eyes. Now I saw the expression I’d grow accustomed to. One of hurt. Eventually it would be apathy. She’d distance herself and learn to keep her unwanted feelings to herself. Then I could go back to what I needed without guilt eating away at me.
“Good night, my lord.”
Anxiety boiled, rising in my chest to constrict around my heart. I had to reclaim the man I was. I had to control myself, my needs. I had to prove that she hadn’t changed me with a single taste.
I was still the demon I knew myself to be. The one who desired above everything else to inflict pain. I’d earned my name long ago, and I would not have the title stripped from me by a pretty virgin with a cunt that tasted like sugar. I simply needed to remind myself exactly who I was.
The Duke of Tears.
ChapterSeven
ROSIE
Iforced my legs to hold me up as I watched him walk away, his posture tense while I was still mostly boneless, aftershocks of my release skittering over my body like small bursts of lightning.
What did I do wrong?
Biting my lip, I thought back to the whirlwind of the last hour. For a moment it felt as if we’d been completely in sync. Two souls straining toward each other, attempting to become one. I’d even thought... perhaps that was simply the dream of a hopeless romantic—a fool. There was no way Gavin Donoghue was my mate.
His actions proved it.
I’d imagined it all.
I’d wanted it all too much.
I’d seen my parents, brother, and uncle all find their fated mates. How much more rose colored could my glasses have been? True mate bonds weren’t commonplace. The likelihood I’d find mine here with this man was slim to none. Just because everyone around me found their soulmate didn’t mean I would. In fact, the odds were against me.
Three out of four pairs in the supernatural world weren’t destined matches. So why would I think I’d be so lucky?
The way he shut me out after stealing my pleasure still burned in my mind as I stared down the empty hall. I still couldn’t figure it out. He’d urged me on, pushing me over the edge into sweet oblivion, and then seemed almost angry about it. He hadn’t even found his own release. Had he?
I may not have much—any—experience in the sex department, but I knew where things were supposed to go. Insert tab A into slot B and wiggle it around. His tab hadn’t gone anywhere near my slot. But those fingers did.
I shivered at the memory, another jolt running through me.
God, those fingers. Who forking knew? I’d touched myself. Obviously. I’d have to be dead not to have urges, but I’d never found that little spot he’d pressed inside me. The one that turned me hot and cold and shut down all autonomous thought. He’d owned me body and soul in that moment. He had absolute control over me. I’d have given him anything he wanted. Everything.
But instead he left.
Finally gathering myself enough to stand without the support of the wall, I opened the bedroom door and stumbled inside, my pleasure bleeding into shame. I was so undesirable my own husband couldn’t bring himself to take me.
The heavy gown rustled with each step I took, the sound grating, the thing feeling more like a straight jacket than a dress at this point. I’d hoped Gavin would be the one to remove it in a flurry of need, but now, thinking of our encounter in the hall, perhaps I’d repulsed him instead. I’d been a panting, moaning harlot. Ready to roll over and welcome him inside me, this man I barely knew. Desperate. Bloody shameful.