Rare and Precious Things

by Raine Miller

“What’s that sexy smile about?” he asked without barely a hint of labored breath despite hauling me all the way up one impressively carved oaken staircase. The inside of this house was gorgeous and I couldn’t wait to see more of it, but had a feeling I wouldn’t be seeing much beyond our bedroom for the foreseeable future.

  “I was thinking about your special brand of charm, Mr. Blackstone.”

  He cocked a brow and gave me a wicked grin. “Does my charm have anything to do with you and me naked on our wedding night, Mrs. Blackstone, because I’m dyin’ for you here.”

  I laughed at his veiled complaint about the recent lack of sex. I was dying for him too, but figured this had been a good test for us. Regardless, the anticipation of the moment was so much more intense because we’d taken the sex break before the wedding. I planned on making it up to him very soon. “Of course, naked and wedding nights go hand in hand I’m pretty sure.”

  “Anything else grinding around with the cogs, my beauty?”

  “Oh nothing much besides remembering how my beautiful husband looked standing at the end of the aisle waiting for me to walk down to him,” I paused, “and how I’m going to reward him for being so patient with me for the last two weeks.”

  He sucked in a quick breath and took faster steps.

  I brought my hand up to his cheek, feeling the stubble of his beard, remembering how I’d told him under no uncertain terms was he to be clean shaven at the wedding. I loved his scratchy whiskers abrading my skin when he kissed me and dragged his lips over my body. It was, again, one of the many parts that made up my Ethan. I loved him as I’d known him from the very first, and wanted him just that same way when we said our vows.

  He’d listened to me apparently.

  When we reached the top of the stairs, he took us left, down a long hallway. At the end of that was a room. Our wedding night suite, I assumed.

  “We have arrived, my lady.” He muttered the rest. “Thank fucking hell.”

  I stifled another laugh.

  Ethan carefully set me back onto my feet but he kept his body close, his hand brushing up and down my upper arm. Always touching me. He needed to do it, and for me, his constant contact was something that helped me to flourish. I’m sure it was one of the reasons we connected so explosively from the first. He did those things I needed in order to awaken the part of me that was so very broken down. But now? I didn’t feel broken defined me anymore as a woman. And I had Ethan alone to thank for that.

  “Yes, I see. It’s very beautiful here.” I skimmed the room, taking in what looked to be at least fifty white candles flickering in glass containers of all shapes and sizes, their warm glow reflecting over the walls and furniture, making everything look a little otherworldly. Or, as if we had just slipped back into a time and place that existed many long years ago. As I took in the surroundings, I felt like I could be walking into another century, especially wearing my long formal dress. “I still can’t believe you bought this house, though,” I said, glancing back. “I love it so much, Ethan.”

  I couldn’t help wondering about the people who had lived here before us either, and what they might have done in this beautiful room, in times past. Had there been other wedding nights like the one Ethan and I were about to have?

  I took in the size of the bed situated right in the middle, intimidating every other piece of furniture in the room. A massive carved four-poster with white linens and gauzy drapes shifting ever so gently in the summer breeze floating in from the open window. The oak glowed with the fine craftsmanship of artisans from a lost era.

  “Believe it…and I love you so much.”

  Ethan’s deep voice behind me broke the quiet stillness.

  I stood still and waited.

  My veil was lifted off my neck, and then the sweep of my hair was brushed aside. Then I felt his soft lips touch my nape firmly, as if to brand me. I felt his warm tongue roll over the spot in a swirl, rendering me breathless and shivering with wanting all in a second. Ethan barely had to touch me and still I was reduced to a wanton creature desperate for his touch. But he was well aware of that about me.

  “You didn’t have to buy it though,” I whispered. “Just you, Ethan. You’re all I really want or need.”

  He stilled and then spoke softly. “And that…is why you are the only girl for me.” He kissed soft sweeps up the side of my neck. “You don’t care about all the other trappings. You just see me, I knew that about you from the very beginning.”

  He turned me and held my face in his big hands, thumbs brushing back and forth, blue eyes searing me with intensity. “I need you like I need air to breathe. You are my air, Brynne.”

  And then his mouth engulfed mine, deep plunging swirls of his tongue took me over as he struck his claim. I felt my lower body pool with instant heat, desire and craving sparking to furious life. Ethan showed me how much he did indeed need me.

  My hands dove into his hair and gripped it in handfuls, edging the passion up a notch. I heard myself moan as he swallowed me up with even deeper kisses that had me literally shaking with desire. I knew I had to slow things down before it became impossible to stop.

  My hands left his hair and found their way to his chest where I barely managed, with Herculean effort, to press him back enough to break our kiss. It was not easy, neither physically nor emotionally. I wanted nothing more than to be wrapped up in him all night long, but I also had a plan and I intended to see it through.

  We both stood there panting, our faces so close, but yet, not touching; him in his tux with the purple brocade vest, me in my vintage-inspired lace wedding dress, the sexual tension crackling in the air between us like a raging electrical storm about to go nuclear.

  I told Ethan what I wanted.

  “I n-need to get ready for you… Please?” I managed on a shaky breath, hoping he understood this was something important to me.

  He swallowed hard, making his Adam’s apple flex at his throat. “All right,” he said evenly, as if it were a calculated effort for him to respond to my request without showing me what he really thought of it. I had the feeling he didn’t like being asked to wait some more, but he was agreeing for my sake, because he was sweet like that with me. “I'll do the same then, Mrs. Blackstone.”

  “Thank you, Ethan. I’ll make it worth your while.” I stood on my tiptoes and planted a kiss on the side of his bearded neck.

  “Oh, I have no doubts about that.” My lips felt the vibration of his growl as he spoke his thoughts. “Everything you do is worth my while, baby.”

  I released him and looked back to where the glow from the en-suite bathroom showed me the way. “Where will you go to get ready?” I felt more than a little guilty about kicking him out of the bedroom, even if for just a short while.

  “The adjoining bedroom is also very nice.” He gestured toward a door in the wall to the left of the bed. “These old manor houses always had lord and lady connecting bedrooms so they could meet up for the really important, private stuff that happened in the night.” He drew a finger across the low neckline of my bodice, moving especially slow over the swell of my breasts sitting against the lace of my gown.

  “Oh? The important private stuff, you say?”

  “Undoubtedly, baby. The shagging…is…very…very…very…important.” He gave me soft, seductive kisses between each of the words.

  “Which room are we in right now? Lord’s or lady’s?” I asked breathlessly, feeling like all the air had suddenly been sucked out of the room.

  He shrugged. “No idea. Don’t care, either. I shag and sleep wherever my lady is, and I always will. Pick a room, Mrs. Blackstone.”

  He picked up my hand and kissed the back of it in his gallant way, his eyes slipping up seductively to capture another slice of my heart. Who was I kidding? He already had the entire portion…and he always would.

  I sighed with need and forced myself to take a step backward, creating some distance between our bodies. My arm stretched out as I slid back, my hand still clas
ped in his much bigger one. “Okay…how does this room in fifteen minutes sound?” I stepped backward again, moving closer toward the bathroom door, my eyes never leaving his blues as they tracked my movements.

  Those same beautiful blue eyes also glittered with all the shuttered heat of a man who would be ravishing me very soon. He allowed my hand to be released from his grip; the heat of his skin noticeably absent the second contact was lost.

  He gave me the serious Ethan-stare, the one I’d seen many times and was well familiar with by now—the one raw with male prowess…and the overpowering sexual dominance that made me burn.

  “Like fifteen minutes too fucking long, my beauty.”

  I had to suppress the slight moan that escaped my throat at the effect his words had on me. I was just a mortal woman after all. Ethan was the one who looked and acted like a Greek god to me.

  He seared me with another look dripping with the promise of the molten sex to come, before turning away, walking through the door, and closing it with a soft click.

  Once he was out, the room was instantly quiet and I felt more than a little bereft without him. I just stood there and absorbed the reality of where I was in the moment. I’m getting ready to make love with my husband. The idea jolted me out of my stupor and sprung me into action pretty fast.

  I fled for the bathroom and worked myself out of my dress, which gratefully was not difficult at all with its easy access placement of a side zip. I hung it up carefully on the boudoir hanger which had been arranged, for what I assumed, especially that purpose. I would have to remember to do something nice for Hannah. She’d thought of everything.

  I set my veil aside while I brushed my teeth and drank a glass of water. I stripped out of my lingerie, except for the stockings and garter belt in pale lavender silk, and looked at my side profile in the mirror. I had a bump. Not much of one yet, but it was definitely there. I gave our sweet little peach a caress and reached for my veil again. I reattached it and stepped back out into the bedroom. I climbed up onto the raised bed and sank down into the downy softness of the duvet on my knees. I was careful to arrange myself with my back facing the same door Ethan had used when he left the room. He would pass through it again when he returned, and I wanted him to have a first vision of me as I’d planned it out in my head. I was ready even though my heart was racing.

  I closed my eyes.

  And waited for Ethan to come to me.

  THE sounds of the door opening and then closing told me when he was back in the room.

  I sensed him staring and the idea gave me a thrill to know what he was seeing of me. I turned my head and found him with my eyes.

  “I just want to look at you for a moment,” he said, remaining still, a few feet away. I could tell he was affected—his hooded eyes and the set of his jaw—and that knowledge emboldened me.

  “Only if I can do the same.”

  My Ethan had prepared for me as well. The beautiful tuxedo with the purple brocade vest had gone the same way of my wedding dress probably. In its place just one garment. Silky black pajama bottoms slung low at his waist. The contrast of the black fabric to his skin displayed his golden muscled chest and carved abdomen to perfection. And I got to drink him in. The muscular cuts which tapered into a spectacular V below his waist made my mouth water, forcing me to swallow. One of the most beautiful parts of my man. I needed my mouth there.

  So gorgeously made in body, so full of male power and strength…it almost hurt to look at him sometimes.

  I lowered my eyes to the side.

  “Turn all the way around.”

  The deep command of his voice heated me instantly, rendering me completely enslaved to his unrelenting dominance when it came to this part of us. Ethan’s control of our sex. His control over me.

  It made me hotter than hell.

  He stepped closer, his body radiating power and desire, as he waited for me to comply with his directive.

  I rotated my body until I was facing him full on, my body completely bare except for my stockings and my wedding veil. I set my hands flat on the bed and made my arms straight, in effect thrusting my breasts up and out. They tingled under his intense perusal, my now ultra-sensitive nipples hardening from arousal almost to the point of pain. My gesture of offering myself to my husband as a bride on our wedding night had aroused me to an incredible level of anticipation.

  “Just for you,” I said softly, lifting my eyes to his.

  I saw the muscles of his neck tense as he moved forward. “Baby…you are so sexy-beautiful right now. Don’t move. Just stay as you are and let me touch you.”

  I knew how this game played out. The one where I was blissfully rewarded for following directions.

  The edge of the mattress dipped as he joined me on the massive bed, kneeling right before me, so close I could feel the radiating heat his body was throwing off.

  I remained still, but I tensed in anticipation of what he would do first.

  He hung there before me, for a moment, just studying me, claiming my body with his eyes. Ethan liked a splash of voyeurism in our encounters. A little kinky at times, and a lot dominant, but I welcomed it from him.

  Finally, after what felt like eons, he dropped his head to my sternum and inhaled deeply against my skin. Then I felt his tongue draw across the curve of one breast until he reached the tight bud of my nipple. He took the whole thing in his mouth and pulled it inside of him. I gasped in some air and steeled myself to remain still for his onslaught.

  “Just feel, baby. Let me suck on your beautiful, perfect tits for a while. I’ve been starved for them.”

  He took his time getting his fill as he worked me up with need.

  Swirling his tongue in relentless circles over the tender flesh, until he felt like giving me a rewarding jolt of sensation by clipping my nipple between his teeth for a gentle bite.

  I shuddered against his mouth, desperately aching for more, but knowing I would have to wait until he gave it to me. Those were the rules. And I was always a good girl.

  Despite that, I moaned, “Ethan…”

  “What?” he asked, busily working one nipple with his mouth, and the other one with his hand and two fingers to deliver the delicious pinch that made me nearly incoherent. How Ethan had known just how sensitive my breasts were, I do not know, but he’d figured it out from the first time we were together, and he used that knowledge to his advantage with me every chance he got. Please and thank you, Mr. Blackstone.

  I moaned, throwing my head back, pushing my breasts out and harder against him.

  “You want more than just my mouth on your beautiful fucking tits?”

  “Yes.”

  “Thought so,” he chuckled darkly. “My beauty, I’ve been dying for you for weeks,” he purred, as he dragged his mouth up to my neck and nibbled, “and I have to warn you, that I’m probably going to be a beast the first time I fuck my beautiful wife with her perfect tits.”

  “Yes, Ethan…”

  “You’d like that?” he asked teasingly, as his hand left my other breast and slid down my ribcage, over my belly, to right between my legs.

  I flexed my hips forward to meet his hand, dying for some glorious pressure to relieve the ache blooming at my core. “Yes, I do. I love when you’re a beast,” I rasped.

  He laughed wickedly, his finger sinking in between the lips of my sex to slide over my clit, causing me to jolt sharply. “Oh, God…I’ve missed touching you,” he warned with an eyebrow up, gently scolding me for thrashing around when I was supposed to be controlling my movements.

  “I need you, Ethan,” I protested as way of an apology, panting against the rising vortex stirring to life within me, struggling to stay still as he’d demanded, even though he was working my clit into a bundle of pleasure about to explode.

  “Oh, I need you too…so badly, and right now, I want to see my wife come for the first time. So many firsts…”

  He stared me down and worked magic with his fingers as I slipped over the edge, te
nsing and arching in gulfing waves of pleasure owning me from the inside out.

  “Ahhh…Ethaaaaaan,” I shuddered as my body’s responses took over, and I was helpless to do anything but accept.

  Ethan swallowed my mouth in an engulfing kiss as I climaxed, almost bruising from the pressure, but yet, very deeply sensual and romantic as only he can express himself to me. It was the most glorious feeling to be held like that as I came.

  As the wave of orgasm rolled over me, the aftershocks still sparking, he started talking. “I love you so much, and I’m going to give you everything I’ve got tonight, baby. Every part of you will be claimed and touched by me tonight. Every part. Taken. Everywhere your body can have me, I want to be there…filling you up.” He looked into my eyes then, his own intensely penetrating, asking for my permission, making sure I was totally comfortable with what he was asking of me tonight. I was. Completely.

  Moments like this made me love him so much, it was really too hard for me to process all of it. Even though Ethan was a demanding lover, he always put me first, with care and respect. And love. The domination in the bedroom was just sexual preference, with nothing to do with him and me as individuals. Ethan was no male chauvinist in the way he conducted himself in our life together. He was just male.

  All male, and all mine.

  My lack of a response must have spurred him because he said more to me. “Because if I don’t, Brynne, I’m not sure I can function another day and not be a madman.” He nipped at my shoulder and neck. “I love you so much it burns me. Let me show you how much I do.” He roamed his hands all over my body, my breasts, my stomach, over my garters and stockings. “So beautiful…waiting here for me like a goddess…”

  I answered him on a shaky breath, “I—I w-want you to show me. T-take me how you want me.”

  He groaned his response at my answer, the rough rasp of his beard stubble at my neck again, teasing and sucking over the spot with his lips, making me shiver with need.

  “Do you know why I have to?”

  “Yeees I do…”

  “Then tell me. Say the words I want to hear coming from your pretty lips.”