Page 98 of The Duke's Dream
William kicked away his trousers. The fabric rustled as it hit the floor.
Bare, he removed her wings and was finally ready to fly after her.
She was real—more than a sylph, more than a dream.
She was fire and flesh and form, and she was his.
He wasn’t sure who closed the space. Maybe both. Maybe neither. Maybe something between them simply collapsed. He cupped her face, kissed her deeply, hungrily. Her hands roamed—over his shoulders, his arms, his nape—as if memorizing the real man under the coat.
They fell to the bed in a tangle of limbs and mouths, sliding against each other. Skin on skin—no velvet, no lace, no lie. They merged, curve and prominence, sinuous elevation, and overwhelming desire. They rolled across the mattress, the old iron frame protesting their urgency. He pressed his chest to hers, needing to feel her softness against his roughness, her curves against his edges.
Their legs entwined. His knees brushed her calves, and her thighs gripped his hips—a storm of limbs and gasping breaths.
William stretched out beneath her and pulled her atop him, anchoring her with wide hands and wide eyes. She straddled him, and with a grace only she possessed, she guided him inside.
Her head dropped back, and a moan slipped from her parted lips.
He clutched her hips, her thighs, everything he could reach.
It wasn’t enough.
He wanted to pull her into him. To inhale her, consume her, dissolve into her until nothing remained but their sweat and their breath and their pounding hearts.
She circled her legs around his waist and clamped them tight.
“Don’t let go,” he rasped.
She didn’t.
He kissed her with a fervor that bordered on desperation.
She bit his cheek, the seam of his jaw, her teeth grazing his skin, making him shiver. She licked him, the warmth of her tongue igniting a fire that spread from his neck down to his core. She moved her hips against him desperately, the friction driving him wild with lust. His muscles tensed, his grip on control slipping. He would keep control. He would restrain the urge. He willed his body to obey, every fiber of his being taut with the effort.
He would be… In. Control.
Her touch, her scent, the heat of her skin—everything conspired against him. His chest tightened as he fought the rising tide within him. She lowered her mouth to him. Her lips tasted like longing and fulfillment, making his head spin. William splayed his hands over her breasts and then lower, touching her entrance. Her blood boiled under his fingertips, her pulse racing as fast as his own. Her breaths came shallow and urgent, matching the frantic beat of his heart. He could feel his resolve crumbling, the beast clawing to be free.
Helene climaxed in a breathless sob, her body convulsing around him, her channel milking him with an intensity that pushed him to the edge. A scream tore from his chest as he allowed the beast to take over. His vision blurred with raw, unbridled need as he turned her over. He was in her in less than a heartbeat, driven by an unstoppable force. He thrust, he advanced, he surged, his rough cries rising to the roof. His hands gripped her hips with a desperation that bordered on pain, but he couldn’t stop, didn’t want to stop. He licked her, bit her, the sharp tang of her skin driving him further into madness, and then kissed the hurt away, his lips gentle where his teeth had been fierce.
A flush spread across his skin, heat radiating from his chest and down his spine, and his movements took on a will apart from him. He lost himself, he found himself, he dissolved and solidified, he burst, and he became whole. He shouted, and he prayed, his breath ragged and uneven. He raged and loved, his heart pounding against hers. Nothing mattered but the softness of her skin, her warmth close to him, and the way they fit together perfectly, completely.
He thrust, he ground, he pounded. What was he doing? He didn’t know or care as long as it never stopped. This was freedom. This was what it meant to be alive. Raw, real, remarkable. Every nerve was alight, burning with the sensation of her, of them. He abandoned all rhythm, all metric, all rhyme, his thrusts becoming wild, desperate, uncontrolled. There was no gentleness, no delicacy, only lust, the primal need to possess, to claim her as his own.
Pleasure gripped his spine, and with a shout, he spent inside of her, filling her with his essence, the release like a giant wave crashing against the shore, leaving him trembling in its wake.
Everything in him quieted, and the storm within stilled.
His breathing slowed, his body relaxing against hers as he savored the lingering warmth, the afterglow of their shared passion, the sense of peace that only she could bring him.
He only was, around her, in her, he just… was.
***
William rolled away from her, staring at the ceiling, and Helene sprawled on her tummy, their breath shaking the rickety bed. Her body was warm, a light sheen of perspiration clinging to her skin, but her muscles had never been this relaxed, her limbs pleasantly heavy. The scent of lovemaking lingered in the air like the last notes of a love song.
Still panting, Helene propped her head over her bent arm and admired her lover, reveling in his glorious nakedness. William sprawled above the counterpane, one arm flung over his face, the other carelessly splayed over his stomach. He shared the same muscular build as Elgin’s Dionysus. Both radiated a quiet strength, even in godlike repose. While the marble god was flawless and smooth, William’s skin told a story. Softly, she traced the puckered scar beneath his left nipple and the small mark near his ribs. As she skimmed the ridges of his spine, his muscles rippled. Yet another difference. She doubted the statue would be ticklish.
A sprinkle of dark hair peppered his fair skin, flowing down his stomach and tapered torso like an estuary, the matting growing thicker until it reached the ocean of hair above his groin. Helene watched his semi-hard penis, and her sex tingled. It was here that statue and man differed the most. Where the Greeks showed modesty in their sculpture, William’s virility was bold and unmistakable.
