A Portrait of Love (The Academy of Love #3) - Minerva Spencer Page 0,119

are so cruel,” he murmured, his big hand curling around the base of his endlessly fascinating organ. “Can’t you see my need?”

She snorted. “I think your need is probably visible from several miles away.”

He gave a roar of laughter. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

Honey yanked her gaze away from evidence of his need, fetching the salve from his dressing table before returning to the bed.

He was stroking himself, beads of moisture leaking from the tiny slit.

A mortifying grunt of desire slipped from between her lips before she could catch it. “Stop that,” she ordered shakily.

“I don’t know if I can.”

“Simon.”

His eyebrows shot up. “Oooh, I like that stern voice, Mistress Fairchild.”

Her cheeks heated at the sensual taunt. “Stop it,” she repeated.

He dropped his hand. “I’ll behave. Come up here.” He patted the bed.

Honey cautiously approached him and set the glass container of salve on the bed. His hand shot out so fast it was a blur. He caught her wrist and pulled her on top of him.

“Simon—you need—”

His mouth crushed hers, his arms closing around her like iron bands.

Honey managed to resist for perhaps a second before giving in to her own need.

His lips were hot—almost desperate—his stubble rough and scratchy against her skin. He nibbled, sucked, and left marks all up and down her throat.

“God,” he breathed against her, his chest heaving beneath her, “I am desperate for you, Honey.”

She shivered at the savage desire in his voice.

He flipped her onto her back, his mouth ravaging her throat and chest before landing on a nipple, sucking her so hard she cried out.

“Poor baby,” he breathed against her tortured, pebbled nipple, kissing it tenderly before moving to her other breast and assaulting it with a sharp nip.

He slipped a hand between her thighs, stroking and penetrating and driving her quickly toward the summit of her pleasure.

“I need to be in you,” he rasped, his hips pushing her legs wide, his actions almost frantic.

He entered her with a violent, claiming thrust. “Oh God, yes.”

Honey didn’t know where her moans ended and his began.

He stroked into her with brutal intensity, as if he were chasing something that was just out of reach.

“So good,” he gasped, plunging hard enough to drive her up the bed. “Can’t get enough—need you so much.”

His hips drummed and he ground himself against her, angling his body in a way that shattered her into a thousand pieces.

“Honey!” he yelled as she convulsed around him, his big body shuddering.

He thrust into her twice more before freezing, his shaft jerking and flexing in her sensitive sheath, warmth flooding deep inside her body.

“I love you, Honey,” he whispered.

***

As Simon came to, he realized three things at the exact same moment: first, he’d told his wife that he loved her; second, he’d meant what he said; and third, he’d spent inside her.

He pushed up onto his elbows and looked down, afraid of what he’d see.

Honey looked up at him, her gray eyes wide, her lips parted with what looked to be shock.

He grimaced; this did not look promising. “Er, I’m sorry. I’m afraid I lost control and—”

“Did you mean that?” she asked, her voice so low it took his brain a moment to decipher what she’d said.

Simon sighed. “I’m sorry.”

Impossibly, her eyes opened even wider. “What?”

“I promised you a marriage of convenience and it seems I’ve—”

—fallen deeply, madly, hopelessly in love with you. If you try to take a lover it will be pistols at dawn for him, even though I told you—no, I promised you—before we were married that you could do what you pleased and—

“Oh, hell.” Simon rolled onto his back, wincing as he pulled his sensitive shaft from her body, which reminded him—

“I spent in you,” he said, glaring at the canopy—as if it were to blame for his weak will. “Yet another promise I broke.”

She remained motionless beside him. Had she fallen asleep?

That might be just as well, Simon.

“Simon?”

He jolted at the sound of her voice. “Yes?”

“I’m pregnant.”

His head whipped around so fast he cricked his neck.

Her eyes were still wide, but now worried rather than stunned.

“I’m sorry, I know you didn’t—”

“Are you?” he blurted. When she gave him a confused look he explained, “Are you sorry that you’re pregnant?”

She opened her mouth, but then closed it. Finally, she bit her lip and shook her head. “No. I’m glad.”

Simon let out a half-moan, half-sigh. “Thank God.”

“But—I don’t understand,” she said. “I thought you’d be angry? You said—”

Simon shuddered. “Don’t remind me of what I said, Honey. I