Part 14 (1/2)
”It is why you came, is it not? For rea.s.surance that this marriage need not be so terrible?”
She resisted at the threshold. His hand returned to her breast and his lips to her neck.
”You saida you said that today you wouldn'ta”
”I said probably,” he murmured. ”And I lied.”
He took her face in his hands again. ”His shadow is between us and I would banish that ghost. Today we even the accounts and turn the page. It will be easier for you this way, too.”
She read the decision in his eyes.
”Do not be afraid. I will wait until you are ready and until you want me. It will be all right. I will make it so,” he promised.
I am helpless against these feelings, she thought. It is unnecessary to fight them. This is inevitable anyway. I am his forever.
She turned her face and kissed his hand.
He lifted her in his arms and carried her into the chamber.
Chapter 11.
Her thin arms encircled his neck and tightened as he approached the bed. It will be all right. I will make it so. Brave words from a man who hadn't taken a virgin since he was sixteen. Still, he would indeed make it so. Whatever lies he told her today, that would not be one of them.
He should have known. She's just a girl, Andrew had said. One moment they are brave and the next shy. Remember?
He sat on the side of the bed and settled her into his lap. He kissed her until the arm grasping his neck loosened a bit.
Innocent and ignorant. All during dinner it had been all he could do not to stare in astonishment. While he ate and spoke, his mind had recalculated what this revelation meant. Perhaps it made today unnecessary and he should wait. Perhaps it made it essential. In the end his own desire chose the course. He would not let her leave without claiming her. He wanted her and there was only one way to possess her securely.
She touched his face in that tentative way, and his desire surged. He took her mouth hungrily and fought back the cataclysmic storm that threatened to thunder through him. Slowly and simply, he reminded himself again.
He caressed her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and when her arms tightened this time it was not in fear. Her body relaxed into his. She tried to imitate his deep kiss and probed cautiously and delicately. The artless effort almost undid him.
The joy he found in her innocent pa.s.sion surprised him. He had never sought it in other women. It shouldn't matter with Christiana either, but it did. He felt her body responding to him and listened to her sharpened breathing. He delighted in her awkward embrace and in her startled gasps when his hands raised a new pleasure. He reveled in the knowledge that despite what had occurred with Percy, no man but himself had ever aroused her.
He kissed her again, savoring the soft taste of her and the compliant arch of her back. His hand sought the lacing of her cotehardie, and he began undressing her.
The virgin stiffened for an instant as the garment loosened, but then those glittering eyes watched his hands ease the gown off her arms and down to her waist. Her mouth trembled open and her eyes closed as he touched her breast through the thin batiste of her s.h.i.+ft.
A small hand left his shoulders and caressed down his chest, and the thunder tried to erupt again. Her fingers slid under the flap hiding the closures to his pourpoint. He watched her earnest expression as that hand fumbled down his chest. Aye. Having chosen to yield, the sister of Morvan Fitzwaryn would not play the reluctant victim.
He slid the straps of the s.h.i.+ft down and uncovered her beautiful b.r.e.a.s.t.s. His gaze followed the path of his fingers as he traced their high, round swells. Her breath quickened and she buried her face shyly in his shoulder.
She was beautifully formed, pale and flawless. Her skin was not translucent and white like so many Englishwomen, but rather had the opaque tint of new ivory. It was the color of the bleached beaches along the Inland Sea. He caressed her, whisking and grazing the tight nipples, and her whole body reacted. With a faint moan she arched into his touch. The light brown tips beckoned like an offering. He lowered his head and gently kissed one before taking it into his mouth. She almost jumped out of his arms.
He held her firmly and looked at the startled shock in her eyes. He kissed her cheek rea.s.suringly. He lowered his kisses until that sweet breast was in his mouth again. Jesus, the man must have barely touched her. No thought to her at all. If Idonia hadn't found them, he would have brutalized her. A picture of that formed in his mind, and his spirit reacted with a surge of protective anger followed by a wave of tenderness. He played at her with his tongue and teeth until her bottom pressed against his thigh in her search for relief. He reached back and pulled down the bed coverings. Slowly and simply, but before she left him he would show her the glory of the pleasure. She was all that mattered this time. He rose with her in his arms and turned and laid her down. Dark eyes, liquid with pa.s.sion, regarded him cautiously. He gazed down at her lying there, naked to the waist with her clothes falling around her hips, and he considered leaving her thus. She looked sweet and fresh and reminded him of the girls of his youth lying back in hay and gra.s.s. He thought of the carpet of ivy in the small garden below. If he lived until summer, the warm starlit nights promised a special ecstasy.
Gently he pulled the cotehardie and s.h.i.+ft down her slender curves.
Christiana bit her lower lip as shock and excitement merged at the sight of him undressing her. She watched her naked body emerge. When the gown and s.h.i.+ft were gone, he untied the garters at her knees and slid off her hose.
A p.r.i.c.kly expectation twisted in her. The fear had not completely disappeared. It acted like a spice in the stew of emotions and sensations that boiled inside her.
He shook off his pourpoint and removed his s.h.i.+rt before lowering down beside her. She watched his hard body come to her, and sighed with relief when he was in her arms again. She let her hands feel his shoulders and back, and she noted the ridges of scars there. He moved into her caress. The heady warmth and closeness overwhelmed her. That strange pounding need went all through her now, shaking her from shoulders to toes.
He kissed her deeply while his hand followed the tremor, sliding down her stomach and belly, reaching down her thighs and legs. Possessive, hot and confident, his caress took control of every inch of her. Her body arched into his touch and rocked to the rhythm of that hollow hidden pulse. Everything began to spiral into the need now. Her breathing, her blood, her awareness, even the pleasure flowed to and from it.
He cupped her breast in his hand and rubbed the tip with his thumb. ”I am going to kiss all of you now,”
he said. ”Do not be shy. Nothing is forbidden if it gives us both pleasure.”
And he did kiss all of her, his mouth pressing and biting and drawing down her body, creating new pleasures and surprises and leaving her breathless. Down her stomach and belly, down even to her legs. Several kisses even shockingly landed on the flesh of her thighs and then on the soft mound above them and she cried out as long, hot streaks shot through her.
His lips closed on one breast while he caressed the other and the excitement rose to a frantic level. She grabbed desperately at his back and hair. His muscles felt tense beneath her fingers, and his breath sounded ragged to her ears.
He rose up and loosened the rest of his clothing. She reached down to help and her hand brushed his arousal. She felt a reaction all through him, and she bravely touched him again as he kicked off his clothes.
Fear spiked through the oblivion of desire.
Impossiblea He returned her hand to his shoulder and then stroked down her body to her legs. Teasing her thighs apart, he slid his hand up and under to her b.u.t.tocks. His arm pressed up against her while his tongue and lips aroused her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.
The pounding need exploded, obliterating the renewed fear. She pushed down against the pressure of that arm offering relief but only bringing torture. Her whole body wanted to move in abandoned, base ways, and she controlled it with difficulty. Over and over she bit back wanton cries that threatened to fill the room.
The warm water of his voice flowed over her. ”Do not fight it, Christiana. The sounds and moves of your desire are beautiful to me.”
Gratefully she submitted to the delirium. When his hand came forward, she opened her legs without encouragement. She felt no shyness or shock as he caressed her, only a torturous desire that would surely explode into flames if it was not fulfilled.
The sensations of his magic touch led her into madness. Gentle caresses created streaks of concentrated pleasure. Deliberate touches summoned a wild and desperate excitement. His quiet voice penetrated the wonderful anguish. ”Do you want me now, Christiana?”
He touched her differently and she cried out. She managed to nod.
”Then tell me so. Say my name and tell me so.”
In the distance somewhere she heard her voice say it. The frantic need completely took over and her hips rose to meet the body coming over hers.
She reveled in the feel of his long length along her and the total closeness of their bodies. She delighted in the concentrated pa.s.sion transforming his face as he looked at her.
He took her slowly and carefully and she marveled at the beauty of it. With gentle pressure and measured thrusts he seduced her open. The feared pain was not really pain at all but only a stretching tightness lost in the wonderful relief of him filling that aching need. Without thinking, she rocked up to meet his gentle invasion.
She froze as a burning shock stopped her.
He kissed her softly and pulled back. ”It cannot be helped, darling.” He thrust and a sharp pain eclipsed the pleasure for a flas.h.i.+ng instant.
His body didn't stop and the hurt and its memory quickly disappeared as he withdrew slowly and slid in again. It felt desperately good. Instinctively she embraced him with her legs, holding him closer, taking all of him to herself. She found his rhythm and rocked with it in a soundless chant of acceptance. Nothing, not the songs or his touch or Joan's lesson, had prepared her for the intimacy that engulfed them. Skin on skin, breath on breath, limbs entwined and bodies joineda the physical connections overwhelmed her senses. Each time he withdrew, it was a loss. Each time he filled her, it was a renewed completion. It awed her and she sighed her amazement each time they rocked together. He paused and she opened her eyes to see him looking at her. The careful mask was gone and those blue eyes showed the depths that he never let people see. She moved her hand and touched the perfect face, then let her caress drift down to his neck and chest.
He moved again and it was less gentle this time. He closed his eyes as if he sought to contain something, but if he fought a battle he lost it. ”Aye,” she whispered when he moved hard again. It hurt a little but the power of it awoke something in her soul. She wanted to absorb his strength and his need. She wanted to know him thus without his careful defenses.