Page 81 of A Duke Makes a Deal
Worried that her words would fail her, she shook her head slightly as she stared into his eyes, acknowledging his statement. Emboldened by her acceptance, Silas’s fingertips bit into her buttocks as he held her up, pushing into her repeatedly as her breath caught.
“Tell me you believe me,” he said.
“I—I,” she tried to speak, but he continued to move inside her.
She nodded, but his grip tightened, unsatisfied.
“Say it,” he demanded.
“I believe you,” she whispered against his mouth.
“Have you always doubted me?” Clara closed her eyes. She did not want to say. “Answer me.”
“Silas, please,” she begged, but he wouldn’t let her skirt away from his questioning.
“Answer me.”
“No!” she said louder than she had intended. “I never doubted you, Silas. I just… I just…”
“You just what?” He sneered.
“I just want you to be happy.”
It was a pathetic statement, but Clara couldn’t possibly tell him that she wanted him to love her. She had desperately wished that Silas could love her just as ferociously as he had Cynthia butto say it out loud, to beg him to care for her, would be too much. Her pride wouldn’t allow it, not when she was so frightened that he would never be able to love her after all.
“Please,” she said, tears coming to her eyes. “Silas, please.”
“Tell me,” he began through clenched teeth, his voice gruff. It seemed her words had affected him greatly. Her fingernails dug into his shoulders as his muscles tightened beneath her hands. “Tell me you…”
Clara felt her heart break for some reason when he couldn’t finish. The desperation in his voice, the desire to be in complete control of himself, made her think back to the panic attacks he had suffered in the beginning of their relationship.
“What? Tell you what?” she asked.
But the words would not come. Silas’s strong body seemed to barely contain itself. His head dropped to her shoulder as he breathed and for the faintest of moments, Clara heard him speak so gently that he almost sounded desperate.
“Tell me you love me.”
Clara’s arms clutched to him with all her strength. She did. She really did.
“I love you, Silas,” she said softly into his ear.
Silas’s mouth found hers and the urgency with which he kissed her tore at her heart. Clara wrapped her arms as tightly as she could around him as he crushed against her. The heavy need she felt break over her just as Silas’s body became rigid seemed to hold itself in limbo. He shook and jerked in her arms, and Clara peppered his head with kisses, disappointed that her own release had not come but thankful to be in his arms.
As their breathing calmed, Clara waited for Silas to release her. But even after a long moment, his grip did not slack.
Clara frowned.
“Silas?”
Without warning, Silas turned, Clara high in his arms against his chest as he walked across the room. She gasped slightly as he dropped her on the bed. Clara pushed herself onto her elbows as she watched her husband undress fully, removing his jacket and shirt, before coming over her once more.
Surely, he didn’t mean to do that again so soon? But when he crawled over her body, his mouth moving over her chest and stomach, she felt herself relax under his touch. He was far gentler now than he had been moments ago and yet, he was so intent on the task, as if he was completely unaware that he had already reached his peak.
Clara wanted to ask him how he could be so ready to continue, but then his hands were on her and she couldn’t think quite right.
Silas moved his hand down her body, the pad of his thumb pressing against the bud of her. Clara arched into his palm as he worked, and she squirmed beneath his mouth as it descended to meet his fingers. She wanted to push him away, to clean herself before he continued, but it was as if Silas was possessed. He didn’t have any thought to stop and his sheer determination to bring her to orgasm sent a carnal sense of power and pleasure through her body.
Silas pushed her knees down and when his tongue finally reached her, lapping slowly at her most intimate part, Clara felt a sudden break. Her body convulsed with the rapid jolts of pleasure that enveloped her. She cried out as her hips tilted up and Silas’s hands moved around her hips and buttocks as he pulled her up, feasting on her without restraint.
