The soft, padded indigo cotton of the bathing robe was a cold whisper against her fevered skin.
Sari didn't bother to tie it closed.
The two weeks since their wedding night had been a slow, exquisite torture, a constant hum in her blood that sleep only amplified with dreams so vivid she'd wake up aching, her sheets tangled, her body slick with a need that felt like a separate, desperate creature living inside her.
Tonight, the creature was winning.
She lay in her own bed, in the Lady's Suite of the sprawling, too-quiet house, her fingers tracing the dip of her own stomach. The memory of his hands, his mouth, the shocking, perfect fullness of him from that single night was a film reel stuck on repeat behind her eyes. She could almost feel the ghost of his weight, the imprint of his hips against hers. A tremor started deep in her core, a familiar, tightening coil. Her own touch drifted lower, a fleeting thought of taking the edge off herself—a quick, shameful release in the dark.
No.
The word was a crack in the silent room. She was married. He was her husband. The law, the ceremony, the ring on her finger—it all meant something. It meant he was the answer to this. This wasn't shameful. It was claiming what was hers and using who was hers.
Decision, hot and sudden, burned through the haze of arousal. She slid from the bed, the heavy cotton robe falling open completely. The midnight air in the hallway was freezing on her nakedness, a stark contrast to the heat she carried within. She didn't walk; she moved with a purpose that was almost a run, her bare feet silent on the polished cypress floors. One hundred feet felt like a mile and an inch.
The heavy painted door to the master suite was slightly ajar, a sliver of moonlight cutting across the floor from the tall windows.
He was a dark shape in the center of the vast bed, the sheets rumpled around his waist. Nobu sat up as she entered, the movement sharp with alertness. "Sari?" His voice was sleep-rough, edged with immediate concern. "What's wrong? Are you—"
She didn't let him finish. The sound of her name in his mouth, that protective worry, only fed the fire. She went to the bed, the indigo robe slipping from her shoulders to pool on the floor at the footboard without a sound. Moonlight caught the curve of her hip, the slope of a breast, the nervous-triumphant beat of her heart at the base of her throat. She crawled onto the mattress, the cool linen under her knees and palms, and moved directly into the space he occupied.
Without ceremony, without a word, she climbed into his lap, straddling his thighs under the sheet.
His breath stopped. The concern in his stormy blue eyes melted, replaced by a stunned, dawning intensity. He was shirtless, the hard planes of his chest warm against her. She felt the rigid line of his arousal through the thin sheet, a thick pressure against her inner thigh that made her own body clench in greedy response.
"Sari," he said again, but this time it was a different word entirely. A question. A prayer.
"I can't sleep," she whispered, her voice trembling not with fear, but with the sheer force of want. Her hands came up to frame his face, her thumbs brushing the high cut of his cheekbones. "I dream of you. And then I wake up, and you're not there. And I'm so… empty." She pressed her hips down, a slow, deliberate grind against him, feeling him swell and harden further. "I don't want to be empty anymore."
A muscle jumped in his jaw. His hands, which had been frozen at his sides, came up to settle on her waist. His touch was hot, possessive, his large fingers spanning the narrow curve. "You came here for this?"
"I came here for you," she corrected, leaning in until her lips were a hair's breadth from his. She could feel the warmth of his breath, could see the dark dilation of his pupils. "To use my husband. To let him ruin me in all the ways that make me shake. The way you did before. The way I haven't stopped thinking about."
That broke him. A low, rough sound tore from his chest. His hands slid from her waist to her hips, gripping, anchoring her as he finally closed the infinitesimal distance between their mouths.
The kiss wasn't tender. It was a claiming, a conflagration. His mouth was hot and demanding, his tongue sweeping past her lips to taste her, to conquer the little gasp she made. She met him with equal hunger, her fingers tangling in the thick silk of his black hair, holding him to her as if he might vanish. He tasted of sleep and mint and something uniquely, essentially Nobu—a dark, spicy flavor that went straight to her head. She moaned into his mouth, the sound swallowed by his kiss, her body arching to press her breasts against the solid wall of his chest. The friction was exquisite, the softness of her yielding to his hardness.
He tore his mouth from hers, his breathing ragged. "Two weeks," he growled against the corner of her lips, his own mouth trailing a searing path down her jaw to her throat. "Two weeks of watching you across the dinner table, smelling your perfume in the hall, hearing you laugh in another room… and thinking I was going to go out of my fucking mind."
His teeth grazed the sensitive cord of her neck, not biting, but promising. She cried out, a sharp, wanton sound, her hips rolling against him in an instinctual rhythm. The sheet between them was a maddening barrier. She reached between them, her fingers fumbling, and he helped her, shoving the fabric down impatiently. His cock sprang free, thick and heavy and hot against her stomach. The sight of it, the feel of it, made her mouth water and her inner muscles flutter with anticipation.
"Look at you," he murmured, his voice a velvet rumble. One hand left her hip to cup her breast, his thumb circling her nipple until it was a tight, aching peak. "Coming to me like this. Naked and desperate in the moonlight. My wife."
"Yours," she breathed, the word a vow and a surrender. "Only yours. Please, Nobu…"
"Please, what?" He pinched her nipple lightly, sending a jolt of pure pleasure straight to her core.
"I need you. Inside. Now."
He didn't need more invitation. His hands gripped her ass, lifting her effortlessly as he guided himself to her entrance. The broad head of his cock pressed against her, and she was so wet, so ready, she could feel her own slickness coating him. He didn't thrust up. He let her control the descent, his eyes locked on hers, watching every flicker of sensation cross her face.
She sank onto him, a slow, inexorable slide that stole the air from her lungs. He was so much. The stretch was breathtaking, a delicious, burning fullness that erased every lonely ache of the past fortnight. She took him inch by agonizing inch, a low, continuous moan vibrating in her throat, until she was fully seated, her body sheathing him completely. They were joined, pelvis to pelvis, her heat enveloping his.
"God," he choked out, his head falling back, the cords of his neck standing out in stark relief. His hands tightened on her ass, his fingers digging into the soft flesh. "Sari… you feel… unreal."
She began to move—a tentative rock of her hips, then another, finding a rhythm. The angle was deep, perfect. Each rise and fall dragged his length against a spot inside her that made stars burst behind her eyelids. She braced her hands on his shoulders, her head thrown back, her hair a dark curtain down her back. The room filled with the sounds of their joining: the slick, wet sounds of her body taking him, their ragged breaths, the soft creak of the bed.
"Faster," he urged, his own hips beginning to piston up to meet her downward strokes. "Use me, Sari. Take what you need."
She did. She rode him with a growing frenzy, her need coiling tighter and tighter with every driving thrust. The pleasure was a white-hot wire, pulled taut from her core to the very tips of her fingers and toes.