CHAPTER 100: CHAPTER HUNDRED

Carcel didn’t stop. He didn’t let her breathe. He kissed her, his body moving forward, forcing her backward step by step until her back hit the solid wood of the library door with a heavy thud.

The impact knocked the breath out of her, but she didn’t complain. Ines wrapped her arms around his neck, standing on her tiptoes, and returned the kiss as desperately as he gave it. It was a clash of teeth and tongues, a release of a month’s worth of silence and longing.

Carcel pressed his hips against hers, pinning her to the wood.

She said she doesn’t want a loveless marriage, he thought, his mind racing as his lips devoured hers. She said we should call it off. But her body... her body is begging me to take her.

He could feel it in the way she clung to him, in the small, frantic sounds she made in her throat. She didn’t want to leave him. She was scared.

His hands moved. They left her waist and slid around to her back. He found the zipper of her blue morning dress. With a sharp, decisive tug, he pulled it halfway down.

The cool air of the library hit her skin. The dress loosened, sliding off her shoulders, past her hips, until it pooled in a blue heap at her waist.

She was exposed to him. Her chest rose and fell rapidly in her chemise.

Carcel didn’t wait. He lowered his head. His mouth covered her breast through the thin fabric of her chemise, wet and hot. Then, impatient, he pulled the fabric down.

He took one nipple into his mouth, sucking hard.

"Ah!" Ines cried out, her head falling back against the door.

He looked up at her, his eyes dark and dilated.

"Do you know what love is?" he asked. His voice was rough, a growl from deep in his chest.

Ines shuddered under his touch. She couldn’t speak. She could only feel.

"This," Carcel whispered, his hand squeezing her waist. "This intense passion. This desire for each other that hurts. To me... this is love."

He moved to the other nipple, teasing it with his tongue until it was hard as a pebble.

"This intense longing for the other," he murmured against her skin. "Thinking about you when I wake up. Dreaming about you. Wanting to be inside you so badly I can’t think straight. That’s love. At least... that’s the love I know."

He moved his hand down. He slid it under the ruin of her dress, past her petticoats. He found the heat of her.

He plunged two fingers into her.

Ines gasped, a loud, sharp intake of air. Her legs gave out. She reached back blindly, her hand gripping the brass door handle for dear life to keep from sliding to the floor.

"If your view on love is different," Carcel whispered, moving his fingers in a steady, claiming rhythm, "you can teach me. Tell me I am wrong."

Ines couldn’t think. She couldn’t argue. There was only the sensation of him, filling her, stretching her, making her burn.

"Car... Carcel..." she moaned, her head rolling side to side.

Carcel heard her moans. They were the sweetest music. They were the truth she was trying to hide.

"Do you think," he asked, pressing his forehead against hers, staring into her glazed eyes, "do you think you can feel this way from another man’s touch? Do you think Evans or any other man can make you scream like this?"

Ines shook her head frantically. The thought of anyone else was impossible. It was repulsive.

"No... no," she stammered, tears of pleasure pricking her eyes. "It’s only you. It is only you who makes me feel this... this heated. This excited."

It was the admission he needed.

He pulled his hand out.

The loss of him was sudden and shocking. Ines’s legs, which had been trembling violently, finally gave way. She couldn’t stand.

She slid down the door, falling to the floor in a heap of silk and lace. She sat there, panting, catching her breath, her dress bunched around her hips.

She looked up. Carcel was standing over her. He looked powerful. He looked like a god. And the front of his trousers... it was straining.

She remembered the night in the guest room. She remembered the "sausage." She remembered her curiosity.

She crawled forward. She moved on her hands and knees until she was in front of him.

She reached out and touched the front of his trousers.

"I want it," she whispered.

Carcel looked down at her, surprised. "Ines?"

She looked up at him, her hazel eyes wide and innocent and full of hunger.

"I won’t bite it," she promised solemnly. "I promise."

Carcel let out a ragged breath. He reached down and undid his trousers. He pulled it out.

It sprang free, heavy and thick.

Ines didn’t hesitate this time. She didn’t study it. She leaned forward and took the length of him into her mouth.

Carcel groaned, his hands flying to her head, tangling in her hair. She took him little by little, learning the shape of him, until she was sucking him with a rhythm that made his knees weak.

He let her continue for a minute, two minutes, enjoying the wet heat of her mouth. But he couldn’t last. Not like this. He wanted more. He wanted all of her.

He reached down and pulled her up. He swept her into his arms and carried her.

He walked to the reading table—the same table where they had shared their first kiss, the table where she wrote her stories. He swept the remaining books onto the floor.

He laid her down on the hard wood.

Ines looked up at him. She was ready. She was scared, but she was ready.

Carcel positioned himself between her legs. He looked down at her, his face softening. He saw the trust in her eyes.

"I will be gentle," he vowed.

Ines nodded. She bit her lip. "Will it hurt?" she asked, her voice small.

Carcel brushed a lock of hair from her forehead. "Just a little. Just at first."

"Go ahead," Ines replied. She spread her legs wider, inviting him in.

Carcel guided himself to her entrance. He pushed forward, slowly. Gently. He felt the resistance. He felt the tightness of her.

He entered her, little by little, giving her body time to adjust, time to accept him. He watched her face, looking for any sign of pain.

He pushed past the barrier.

Ines gasped, her body tensing. She squeezed her eyes shut. She couldn’t take him anymore. It was too big. It was too full.

Carcel stopped immediately. He held himself still, buried deep inside her.

He pulled away a stray strand of hair that was sticking to her damp cheek.

"Does it hurt?" he asked softly.

Ines nodded, a tear escaping from the corner of her eye.

"Should I stop?" he asked. He would. If she asked him to, he would stop right now, even if it killed him.

Ines shook her head. She reached up and touched his cheek, her hand resting on his rough jaw.

"No," she whispered. "Don’t. I’m okay. Keep going. Please."

Carcel let out a breath. He kissed her palm.

He began to move.

He thrust himself slowly, pulling back almost all the way and then sliding back in. He let her get used to the friction, the fullness.

Slowly, the pain on Ines’s face began to fade. Her brow smoothed. Her breathing changed from sharp gasps to soft, rhythmic pants. Her hips began to move, rising to meet him.

She wasn’t hurting anymore. She was feeling.

Carcel increased his pace. The pleasure was building, a hot, tightening coil in his belly. He looked at her face, flushed and beautiful. He felt her hands gripping his shoulders.

He leaned down and kissed her, his mouth covering hers to muffle the sounds of their passion, their moans mixing together.

He was close. He was on the edge.

He looked into her eyes, his gaze burning.

"If this isn’t love, Ines," he said, his voice straining as he reached the point of no return, as he was at the edge of exploding. "Then what is Love?"

He couldn’t hold it.

He pulled out.

He removed himself from her warmth just in time. He poured his semen on the floor, his body shaking with the force of his release, his seed spilling onto the wood where they had stood just moments before.

He collapsed forward, resting his weight on his elbows, his forehead touching hers. They lay there on the table, panting, hearts beating together, in the quiet, sunlit library.