I shook my head. Trying to sweep away the daze of feelings I was experiencing.

Think of something else.

The sin of this moment.

For a moment I wondered how many women he'd had.

How many have been taken in this castle? In this bed?

He was moving over me. His smooth body, slicking with a sheen of sweat as he slipped in and out. Stretching me to accommodate his length. Then moving back out.

At first, I was very still. Unsure what to do because I was so shocked by the sheer intimacy of having a man's body in mine. His thighs moved within the nest of mine. His ankles draping over mine. One hand caressed leisurely circles around my breast. The other held my cheek as his lips descended. Tasting mine from different directions as he stuffed me full.

"Please..." I begged. Not even certain what I was asking for.

"Not yet, Sweet Thing. Not nearly yet."

***

I understood why soon after that. Muscles in my body began to draw tight as a bowstring. My knees curled up slightly. My toes winding tight. My back bent at an angle I'd never contorted before, dropping my weight to the back of my head. My hips shoved themselves more firmly against him to meet his writhing thrusts. Even when he ground his hips into circles against me. Dragging himself through me at different angles.

I made some short, primal, female noises as he took me. Soon writhing beneath him as everything in me tensed.

Then I exploded. My body feeling like it shattered into a million fragments. Lights burned behind my clenched eyes and the air became purer. My nostrils filled with his alluring male scent. My nails raking into his back and down his arms only made him give a low, pleased chuckle.

He wants it all.

All of me. I suddenly understood that with him I could do no wrong.

As long as I'm beneath him. At mercy to his sway.

"Let me go." I croaked.

He laughed unsympathetically. "Why would you ever want to leave. When I could take you each night. Cover you in this sweat. Bring you to these heights and watch your towers crumble night after night until you are vulnerable to only me. Mine entirely."

"And who would you belong to?" I countered viciously. Trying to gather something to put between us, at least mentally.

"You." He pushed into me hard to make his point. "Don't you feel that I do right now. You have me. My most vulnerable places at the mercy of your body. The things you could do to harm me." His voice dropped dangerously. "To please me..."

Why did he make me shiver when he said it like that?

***

Before I could even clear my muddled mind, he sat up and caught my legs tighter around his waist. Working into me more deeply and becoming more feral as he took his pleasure from my body.

I wanted to resent him. Wanted to feel filthy for what he was doing to me. But looking at his chorded, beautiful body, all I could think was that I wanted more of him.

I want to possess him.

I want him for mine. But instantly a tiny voice asked me how many other women had lain beneath him in this bed wondering these same things.

I won't be one of those hapless women! I promised myself.

But despite all my valiant thoughts, I came again. Quaking around him. Vibrating him inside me as my walls caved to suckle him warmly. Taking the wild spurting of his pleasure deeper within me. Touching my very womb with the evidence of his animalistic ecstasy.

"See, Sweet Thing?" His head fell and his dark eyes were on me again. He was very still, buried inside me. "I told you it would be like this. And don't we belong to each other now?"

***

Before he could say anything more in that persuasive, appealing voice, I lifted off him and skid between his elbow and hip to slide from under him. Rolling to my feet and taking the sheet with me. Twisting it around me hastily.

"No! I do not belong to you!" I looked out the window and saw the first glimmers of an orange dawn creeping through the gold trees. Making the light explode of their gilded leaves.

"See! It is morning already!" I cried. Pointing triumphantly. "And I ate none of your blasted food!"

The fiend had not won. My body may have surrendered shamelessly to him, but my spirit has not.

He sighed and rolled onto his back. A pillow tucked behind him as he sat up against the headboard. Carefully inspecting his fingernails.

"Be careful you don't annoy me in your triumph, Sweet Thing." His voice held a harsh, commanding note now that warned me of something bad.

My stomach sunk. Why not?

What more will he do to me?