by Megan McCoy
“Hugh.” She echoed his name and did it willingly, even gladly. She saw his eyes close, heard him take a deep breath, letting out a deep, rumbling purr of a sigh as his eyes opened again. He seemed drunk, overwhelmed by something as small as the sound of his own name. When he looked at her again, she gently scratched the curve of his bearded chin. “I love that you enjoy watching me, my Hugh.”
“Always,” he said, letting more of his smile show. “A man can wait for a very long time for something if it suits him to.” He reached out, brushing his fingers across her face. “Sometimes-”
She didn’t hear the rest of what he said. The simmering heat in her belly died, smothered by a shock of discomfort as the growing passenger in her belly suddenly shifted positions. “G-God!” There was a discomforting sensation in her belly, like burning sparks popping in an open hearth. Her hands curled into fists in the blankets; her back arched; her mouth opened and she took a deep, cool breath.
“Elena?” Hugh stood up, leaned in close. “Is it the baby?”
“I think... Y-your son is moving, my lord.” It was painful for Elena, but not unbearable. She closed her eyes, riding the wave of it, arched into such a lewd and ribald position there on their bed, but she didn’t care. There were more sparks, more flashes of sharp fire, and she moaned aloud, as deep and loud as any sound she’d ever made in her husband’s bed in the throes of passion. The pain ebbed and faded away, and she fell to her elbows, taking slow, feathery breaths.
“Are you all right?” Hugh asked, his voice right next to her ear. Elena felt him leaning over her, so agonizingly and wonderfully close. He spoke more softly, brushing some of her hair back from one ear. “Elena, you may need to rest-”
On a whim, somehow afraid that he might coddle or be gentle with her when she wanted nothing of the kind, Elena released her hold on the coverlet, wrapping her fingers in his shirt instead. She pulled herself up, pressed her mouth hard to his, kissing him with all of the effort and heat that he’d used with her just a moment earlier.
His intake of breath showed that she’d surprised him again; his hands curled around her hips, pulling her against him, fingers digging into her flesh as the kiss continued.
She was the first to break it, taking a breath, looking up at him. “The pain... has ceased, my lord. The midwife told me to prepare for such a thing. The baby... your son is...” Elena paused, trying to sort out her thoughts. Refusing to let the tender moment between them vanish, she slid her fingers up and over his chest, deliberately pulling his shirt loose from his belted waist. “An unborn child must... prepare to be born. I was told he would move into the proper place in the proper time. Perhaps that explains it. I think I can feel him lower down. It’s even easier to breathe now,” she added. She crossed her legs underneath her, enjoying the new limberness she’d begun to feel in her hips, and the way her breasts hung down like ripened fruit when she leaned forward to slide her hands up under his shirt. It was liberating, lounging in their room without the constricting feel of fabric on her skin; it was actually a luxury having a room all to themselves at all. She’d be sad for the time when decency and society would require her to regularly cover herself again.
Hugh seemed to enjoy her touches. He licked his lips, took a long breath through flared nostrils. “That’s reassuring, then. Perhaps in the future, we should have a talk with the child about just what a ‘proper time’ does or doesn’t entail.” He tipped his head to one side. “You’re still certain it’s a boy, then?”
Elena slowly unfastened his shirt, nimble fingers working with careful precision. “I believe so, yes,” she said. “A mother knows some things, I’m certain of that. Just as I’m certain that I expect him to go back to sleep, and give us some much-needed privacy for tonight.”
Her husband was no fool, and he took to her meaning almost immediately. Yet, he was still gentle for a moment longer. After shrugging out of his shirt, baring his wide chest, he gave her a chance to take a long, deep breath and enjoy the smell of him. Hugh’s musk was a deep, grounded sort of thing, the smell of stone and horses, of freshly-tilled earth and the crisp edge of the early winter’s day. Sometimes Elena caught a whiff of him and could rightly guess whether he’d taken the time to eat that day or not. He touched her face, coiled his fingers under her chin. “I know your distaste for this time of year, Elena. You needn’t force yourself to be strong if you don’t want to be strong.”
“I don’t wish to be anything but yours tonight, Hugh.” Elena licked her lips, wishing her breath didn’t shudder so, inside her chest. “My entire body seems intent on betraying me more and more these days. Our son will be born soon, and I expect a thousand more changes and surprises will try to overwhelm me in the proper time. But,” now she breathed again, calmer, deeper, “they will keep for now.”
“I didn’t mean-”
When Hugh tried to speak, Elena ignored the dull throbbing of her usual aches and pains - her swollen feet and sore back - and kissed him again. The sound she made seemed more like a cry than anything, as if letting him finish might break the spell she was trying to will over herself. She wanted less words, more emotion; less tenderness, more hunger. She wanted to feel more and more beautiful, and to do that, she needed him to desire her, to want her. But she couldn’t just tell him that. The man had been so kind, so gentle with her in recent days, knowing that the pregnancy was beginning to wane and that the new pains of childbirth and nursing would be arriving soon.
Damn the man, but sometimes, a woman didn’t want gentleness. Sometimes she needed... something harder.
Elena curled her hands tight around his neck, holding on, pulling him down towards her. He realized what she wanted and the kiss grew stronger, deeper. His mouth had no taste, and she was sure it was hot enough to burn her, like tonguing a hot coal, but she couldn’t stop. She slid spread fingers up into his hair, down over his wide shoulders, over the curved span of his back. Touching him felt good. Touching him didn’t hurt.
“Do you love me?” he said, the softest of whispers, after he broke the kiss for a breath.
Elena’s heart soared and somehow broke at the same moment. For ten years, he’d loved her, and she had either refused to return it or denied its existence. But those days were gone, and now she could freely, willingly, happily answer in kind. “I do love you, Hugh,” she said, hoping her words would please him. She needed to please him, knowing that would please her in return.
Hugh shivered with pleasure, a smile on his lips, his heart shining in his eyes. Seeing it made Elena want to laugh, but she contented herself with a smile instead. Hugh pressed more kisses behind her ear, down her neck, across one shoulder. Her breasts were already full and heavy, and it felt good for them to be free and uncovered. She pushed down the unsought urge to cover herself, to feel self-conscious at the physical changes her body was experiencing. When Hugh took them into his hands, that gentleness was one she welcomed. She sighed, deep and long, letting the pleasure grow as it swirled in her abdomen, slithering down between her legs and up into her throat, sounding low and long as she moaned. Elena shivered and smiled, licking her lips as she leaned up to whisper into his ear. “I always thought you were more of an admirer of your wife’s... other assets, my lord.”
It filled her heart with undeniable joy, something that might have seemed unimaginable a year ago, when she heard him laugh. No words, no speeches or clever comebacks, just an exhalation and pleasure so real Elena was sure she could feel it on her face like a ray of summer sunshine. There was also the added benefit of it encouraging him to continue touching her, which she absolutely approved of.
His fingertips left invisible fire in her flesh, swirls and lines for her to feel if not to see, the proof of his love and his lust marking her, making her his. He bent down, pressing kisses into her flesh, scratching her with every straying hair of his mustache and beard as he kissed across both breasts, flicking his tongue on both of her nipples. Her skin felt taut, like a ripened fruit ready to burst, aching
at his touch, savoring his caresses. As he moved down to her belly, his kisses continued, his hands roaming across that swell, around her hips, across the curve of her bottom - that place, at least, knew his touch all too well.
Giving into another impulse, Elena raised both hands, sliding them into her hair, raising it in a chestnut curtain over her head. She felt wild and free, yet restrained and enthralled at the same moment. Her husband would never hurt her - within reason, of course - and she trusted him completely. It felt good to be his. It felt absolutely, totally good, and she wanted to laugh as well, to let it swell in her lungs and explode from inside of her.
She was Elena Isarnon. She belonged to her husband as surely as if he was one of the wild, barbaric Danes and had hammered a band of steel around her neck. Not so long ago, she chafed at that possession, but now she felt free to revel in it while they were alone together.
Hugh still wore his black woolen trousers, his heavy boots and the wide leather belt at his waist, while she was nude and supple, bare as the day of her birth. When he urged Elena to sit on the edge of the bed, he slid off of it, down onto his knees on the woven rug on the floor. She went willingly and without a struggle, giving a tiny sigh of relief as she straightened her back for a moment, stretching out sore muscles. Her husband’s caresses continued without ceasing as he kissed over her neck and collarbone, and she smiled down at him, knowing he couldn’t see it, but wishing that he could. It felt safe to be locked in that room with him, sealed away from the whole world, granting them a short reprieve from objectionable holidays or affairs of state.
A different kind of spark lit up in her belly when she felt his fingers slide up one of her open thighs; that spark then shot up and burst behind her eyelids as he found the apex of her opened legs. His fingers knew her better than anyone, and when one penetrated her, she closed her eyes and let out a long, heavy breath. The fingertip probed deep, pressing up, stroking the one, tender spot that made her shudder more than any other. Her lips parted, and she breathed between her teeth, brows furrowed, eyes nearly closed; the pleasure was strong, undeniable, but a sweet sort of pain flickered just behind it. In seconds, she could smell her own arousal.
Elena whimpered when she was urged, willing or not, to lie down on her back. Her husband, the scoundrel, crouched between her opened legs. She whimpered again - louder, more insistent, suddenly embarrassed - when he forced her legs even wider apart. She covered her face with both hands, peeking down at him through her fingers. “Do you desire me, husband?”
“Oh yes,” he answered, a growl of desire and heat in his voice. Elena felt hot all over, blushing at her wanton ways, at the habits he’d instilled in her to want and desire him, and at how she didn’t fight him - she could have, but she didn’t want to. Not anymore.
She gasped once into her hands when he pressed a first kiss at the bend of her thigh, and then she had to smother more of them as he kissed her all over, dragging that infernal beard of his across her flesh, sliding his tongue through the hairs of her womanhood, sliding his fingernails over her skin. Elena couldn’t speak. She wanted him to hurry, and she wanted him to stay there all night.
The feel of his tongue across her clit made Elena curl her toes, a delicious sensation of carnal delight and exquisite suffering, mostly because she had no control over the speed or urgency of his caresses. One hand thrust behind her back, curling her fingers tight into the covers again, squeezing so tight her fingers ached, while she slid the other into her hair. The swell of her belly blocked her vision, so that she could only see the top of his head through heavy-lidded eyes, but she knew her husband well enough. He enjoyed this sort of torment, and would prolong it for as long as she could possibly stand.
Time slowed, and her awareness narrowed to the tiny sliver of sensation between her legs, that meager bud of sensitive flesh and the motions of his tongue as he lashed it, again and again and again. Hugh took a vertical motion, up and down, up and down. She couldn’t move, even to shift her weight or try to escape his hungry mouth. He had both hands curled around her thighs, fingers pressed into her flesh, binding her tighter than any chain might have tried.
“M-more,” she said, a shuddering whisper. She felt so hot that it was any wonder her breath didn’t turn to steam above her.
“Mmm?” Hugh had the audacity to sound surprised, or pretend that he hadn’t heard her clearly. Elena knew he’d heard her, and also knew he wanted her to say it again. To plead for his tender mercies. To beg, just the way he liked.
“Please, Hugh,” Elena said, shivering when some part of his tongue touched at just the right angle to make her vision go white for an instant. “I need more!”
The feeling of his finger penetrating her again was so good she wept, a wild whimper across the lower lip trapped between her teeth. Hugh knew what she wanted, and right then he seemed happy to provide just that, giving her dueling caresses of tongue and fingertip, stroking both outside and in at the same time. In scant moments, Elena wasn’t sure she would’ve been able to see anything even if her eyes were open.
One moment became two, then three, and all of them melted together into a timeless void of heat, pleasure, pressure, darkness and desire. That pressure built up in-between her legs until it broke, and she broke with it. Elena turned her head sharply to one side, pressed the blankets to her mouth and screamed. The sound was blessedly muffled, concealing it from anyone outside the bedroom, but Hugh would hear it just as he’d always intended. Elena found that she loved her husband more and more in recent days, but he was still as cruel and manipulative as ever. When her climax began to wane and the liquid heat started cooling in her belly, he continued his scourge of combined caresses, and she bit the blanket so hard her jaw ached, while reaching down and trying to push him away, begging for mercy with no words. She had none - she could hardly breathe.
When he pulled away, sliding his finger free of her tight walls, Elena moaned into the blankets, mouth open, back arched, legs splayed wide for his enjoyment. But soon even that little bit of strength left her and she rolled onto one side, curling up as much as her round belly would permit. All she could do was lie there, breathing hard, trembling in the aftermath of the pleasure forced upon her, which she’d been all too happy to receive. It was a reminder of how fortunate she was, that sometimes his satisfaction was contingent on her own.
She felt his heavy weight upon the bed a moment later, coiled both of her arms with one of his as he lay down behind her. “I believe the blame for that is mine, as well,” he whispered into her ear.
Elena was too out of breath to laugh, or even to chuckle. Instead, she pressed her face into the thickness of his arm and granted him several kisses in silent accord.
Chapter 2
“Here.” Hugh pulled her up to the pillows at the head of the bed and draped the blanket over her. He was a strong man, and she felt so very small then, worn and momentarily exhausted. “Rest for a moment. I won’t be long.” The lord husband pressed a kiss on his wife’s temple before he slid out of bed. Where he went was anyone’s guess, since Elena didn’t even have the energy to roll over and watch him go. Instead, she closed her eyes and basked in the memory of his caress, wondering just what the rest of the night held for her.
Elena floated in a state of drowsy half-slumber, tucked up in their bed. When Hugh returned a moment later, he slid up next to her without a word, stroking her hair while they lay together in the dark. She contented herself with recovering from her husband’s amorous attention, letting her heart slow, catching her breath, soaking in the satisfaction that comes after an orgasm - pleasure only a woman could truly understand.
Out the slender window, she could see the dark evening sky, could tell that it was late, saw that the stars were shining bright from their places in the heavenly canopy, but without looking at a candle clock, she didn’t know how late it actually was. Thick tapestries and quilts hung on their bedroom walls to ward off the chill, and several thick rugs were strewn about on the wooden floo
r for the same reason, but she was glad to be wrapped up in the covers and the warmth of her husband’s arms all the same.
A short time later, there was a soft knocking on the bedroom door. Elena turned and looked over her shoulder, following Hugh’s silhouette in the dark as he again used his key to unlock their bedroom door. There was a warm, golden glow beyond the open door, but whoever knocked appeared to have withdrawn. Elena watched her husband, admired the shape of him, his dark back and shoulders, and she could see the curve of his leg and bare buttocks as he bent down to pick up something left outside their doorway.
He locked their door again, returned the key to its place, bearing the offering to the bed. From the glow of the candles, she saw him carrying a wooden tray with a large plate piled with what was left of the evening meal, several beverages sloshing carefully inside their cups, and even a tiny bit of decoration in the shape of a small ring of mistletoe, studded with deep-red berries. She’d heard the servants say that when a couple kissed, they should pluck one of the berries off for good luck. If the night went on the way she’d hoped, Elena wasn’t sure that a dozen more such bundles of mistletoe would be enough.
“Very considerate of you, my lord,” she said with a smile as she sat up again.
Hugh set the tray down upon the bed, then bent at the waist, a hand to his chest. “Milady’s servant.”
Elena snorted a laugh, unable to help herself. “Heaven forfend. I think the staff might have a conniption if they ever saw you do that.” She eyed their dinner while Hugh sat next to her: a mix of cuts from both roast goose and venison; a small mince pie, a pastry stuffed with meat portions, cinnamon and other spices for them both to share; and a pudding of mixed porridge, with pieces of currant and dried fruit. One of the cups was filled with mead, a fermented, amber beverage made with crushed honeycomb, while the other appeared to be small ale, a weaker alcoholic drink than regular ale, likely from the stock made by their own in-house brewer.
