Free Starlight by Isadora Rose, Kate Monroe

against him with another desperate cry, he picked up the pace of his movements against her clitoris and reached up with one hand to roughly tweak one nipple between his thumb and forefinger in the manner he had come to learn she so enjoyed.
    The little tease proved to be all Esther needed to send her flying towards her climax. Even had it not been for the Comte’s command she would have been unable to restrain her screams of pleasure, the Comte’s name the only discernible word amidst the jumbled sobs and cries of ecstasy as the explosive climax rocked and inflamed her aching body.
    Tristan hastened up the bed to gather her into his arms as numerous tremors shot through her and tears began to roll down her burning face. Esther gladly accepted the possessive embrace and sobbed out her release into his shoulder, still desperately crying out his name like an intimate caress even as he carefully lowered her head onto the pillow and wrapped his body around hers.
    When she finally found enough breath and energy to speak coherently again, she stared up at him in awe. “Tristan...Tristan, thank you.”
    “No, ma chére , it is I who should be thanking you.” He brushed her damp hair back from her face as she twisted against him, concealing a small yawn with the back of her hand as she writhed invitingly against his cock.
    Tristan smiled but shook his head. “Not tonight. You are exhausted, Esther, and you have already given me exquisite delight this evening. Go to sleep, if you like. We can always linger in bed a little while longer than we ordinarily would come the morning.”
    Esther was too tired to protest. Before he had even finished tenderly tucking the sheets around her bare body she had fallen asleep, the rhythmic rise and fall of her breasts entrancing him as he stared at her with eyes that were full of emotion.
    It seemed to him that hours passed in such a way, but in truth it could only have been a few minutes during which the most unwelcome of revelations finally worked its way into his agitated mind.
    Her blonde curls had fanned out on the pillow as she slept, an angelic cloud to frame the flushed cheeks that were still inflamed with the glow of their impassioned and tender lovemaking. He had enjoyed her pleasure more even than his own. With every other woman, delivering their pleasure to them was simply a prelude to his own, a way of massaging his overlarge ego and winning his own climax; but not with her.
    Finally, Tristan saw the truth.
    Dieu. The belated realisation took his breath away as he sank to his knees on the bed and ran his hands through his hair in abandoned agitation. He loved her – and she hated him.
    Once his six days were up, she would never want to see him again. That much she had made abundantly clear.
    His low, agonised cry stirred her from her slumber. He battled furiously to regain control of himself, calling on all his years of practicing the charades of the French court; and by the time that Esther’s heavy eyelids fluttered open, a forced smile was upon his face to greet her with. “ Ma chére , you are adorable when you sleep.”
    “Then why did you awaken me already, Tristan?”
    Her drowsy yet indignant demand amused Tristan deeply, momentarily pushing aside the tumultuous emotions still churning inside him. He laughed softly as he pulled the sheets away from her heated body and stretched out against her. “My apologies, Esther, but you see, you are even lovelier when you are awake. Might I make it up to you, though? I find that waiting until the morning to take you again may not be possible after all.”
    Esther could not reproach the Comte, not when her body was already curling into his and his cock was already stroking against her slick entrance in a mute and feverish demand. All of her earlier agitation was forgotten, for she could think of nothing but how good it felt to be in his arms.
    Fierce, painful love raged through his veins and there was nothing he could do to suppress