“I am not afraid,” Arabella lied boldly, staring into the dark curls upon his chest.
“Good!” The earl grinned wickedly into the firelit gloom of the bedchamber. “Let us begin your tutelage, madame.” He stretched his length out next to her, reclining upon one hip.
He had the longest legs, she thought, fascinated.
“Gie me yer hand, wife,” he demanded of her.
“What for?” she answered suspiciously.
“That ye might meet wi’ the instrument of yer maidenhead’s destruction, lassie,” he said, grasping her hand in his. “Ye must learn to touch me, for in touch there is great pleasure.”
Arabella snatched her hand away. “I cannot!” she cried.
“Perhaps it is too soon,” he agreed with her in a reasonable tone. “In that case I shall touch ye.” And before she had the chance to fully comprehend his meaning, his arm was cradling her back, and a hand was fondling her bare breasts.
“Ohhhh,” she said softly, as much taken aback by the melting she felt in her bones as by his touch upon her sensitive flesh. Aware that her naked body was fully exposed to him even as his was to her sight, she found she had no time for embarrassment, for everything about this moment was so new and unfamiliar.
Tavis Stewart sighed deeply with pleasure at his first real look at Arabella. “Lovely,” he said almost to himself as he cupped a breast in the curve of his palm and found that it fit perfectly. Bending his dark head down, he leaned forward to kiss the nipple, his tongue snaking out to encircle the hard crown of flesh which had been soft and pliant just moments before. Unable to restrain himself, he took the nipple into his mouth and suckled upon it.
“Ohhh,” she cried out again, her resolve not to hinder him disappearing as she considered that perhaps her lack of knowledge in these matters would put her at a severe disadvantage with him. Squirming away from his teasing tongue, she fended him off. “My lord! Please, I beg of you, do not do that! If you would couple with me, then do so, but this dallying unsettles my nerves!”
Tavis Stewart burst into laughter, much to his bride’s extreme mortification. He was unable to help himself, but seeing her outraged expression, he quickly regained control of himself. “If, lassie, I was of a mind to simply couple wi’ ye, I would not,” he told her. “Yer a virgin, lovey, and I would nae give ye any hurt; but such delicacy of feeling aside, I canna couple wi’ ye until I am ready to do so, and alas, I am not.”
“Why not?” she demanded, her tone quite plainly asking why he did not find her irresistible enough to be driven by blind lust.
“Because as lovely as ye are in face and form, Arabella Stewart, I am nae aroused by ye yet,” he said bluntly, forcing his face to remain unsmiling, though he was near to another fit of laughter. “That part of me that ye refuse to entertain wi’ yer soft, wee hand needs to be encouraged. That’s what the kissing and the touching are for, lassie.” Leaning forward, he nibbled on her earlobe.
“I do not understand any of this,” Arabella admitted grumpily, thinking that his attentions to her earlobe were not unpleasant at all.
He could not restrain the grin that simply refused to be stayed, despite his efforts not to offend her, and Arabella, really looking at him for probably the first time, was suddenly aware of what an attractive man her husband was when he was not frowning.
He was not handsome like Sir Jasper Keane, but though that craven was fair to gaze upon, his soul was as black as night. Tavis Stewart was surely not pretty, for his face was too angular, but for all that his features appeared to have been hewn from rock, he was pleasant to gaze upon.
“Now, lovey,” the earl said gently to her, “ye must tell me exactly what ye do know of lovemaking, for though yer mam did nae instruct ye as she might have, lasses have an instinct in these matters, I know.”
“I have seen the horses in the pasture and the dogs in the hall,” Arabella told him honestly. “Once my father even let me watch as the bull was brought to the heifers, though my mother complained, but even I know that people do not mate in such fashion.”
“Nay, they do not as a rule,” he answered her.
“Must we do this thing now, my lord?” she pleaded with him.
“Aye, we must,” he said quietly, and tipped her face up so that their eyes met. “Are ye nae the least bit curious, lovey, as to what all this fuss over love is about?”
His eyes were green! A dark, foresty green. She had never before dared to look so deeply into them, and the open look of passion in them almost took her breath away. Arabella shivered, and silently damned her mother for her silly thoughtlessness, for something within her desired to please this man. She wondered if Sir Jasper Keane would have been as patient with her as Tavis Stewart was now being. Nay, he would not have. Jasper would have put his own pleasure above all else, and the realization that admission brought her somehow angered her. What a little fool she had been!
“Dinna be afraid of me, lassie,” the earl murmured softly. “I am said to be a skilled lover, and I will treat ye gently.”
Still aggravated with herself Arabella snapped, “Is your man-root as big as your pride, my lord?”
“Only sometimes, lovey,” he shot back with a chuckle, and kissed her mouth.
With the touch of that firm mouth against hers, Arabella felt her body flooded with a delicious warmth. Thoughts not in her head minutes before were suddenly swirling about in her brain. She was in bed. Naked. With a handsome man. Equally naked. They were going to make love, a not wholly unpleasant prospect, even if she was more frightened than she chose to admit. Well-schooled in kissing by her husband over the autumn months, Arabella opened her mouth to him, and his tongue plunging between her lips began a leisurely exploration.
She felt scalded as his tongue boldly caressed hers, and as he enfolded her within his embrace, the nipples of her breasts thrust forward suddenly to press against his furred chest. The softness of those dark curls was more irritation, however, than soothing. She found herself squirming nervously, which only increased their proximity to one another, and she sought to pull away.
“Nay, lass,” he whispered against her mouth, and then his voice thickened slightly. “Jesu, yer sweet!” His head dipped once again to her breasts, which were now firm, the nipples so engorged that she thought they might burst open.
Her head began to swim as he kissed the sensitive flesh of her bosom. His tongue encircled her nipples again, each in its turn, and he suckled once more upon a sentient little point, groaning with his pleasure. Each time his lips tightened and drew upon her, Arabella could feel a corresponding tug in that secret and forbidden place between her thighs. Was this pleasure she was beginning to feel beneath her nervousness? She suddenly yearned to touch him, and yet she did not know if she should, or even quite how to go about it.
His mouth continued to give her pleasure, transferring itself from one nipple to the other while his other hand began to smooth over the taut flesh of her belly. She almost cringed beneath this new touch, not that she found it unpleasant, for she didn’t. It was simply odd to have a man caressing her so intimately. His fingers strayed lower, brushing over her Venus mont as if by accident, and Arabella shifted nervously again. The hand returned to her belly and her breasts, causing her to murmur with soft contentment.
“Open yer eyes, lovey,” Tavis Stewart said to his bride, and Arabella’s light green eyes flew open to look blushingly into her husband’s dark green ones. She had not even realized her eyes were closed. “Yer the bonniest lass I have ever known,” he told her tenderly, and then he brushed her lips with his.
“You do not have to tell me that, my lord,” she answered him shyly. “I know my duty as your wife, although I will admit to being grateful for your patience with me in this matter.”
“If I tell ye that yer bonnie, Arabella, ‘tis because I think ye are,” the earl replied. “This marriage had come about through matters not of our making, lovey, but I think myself a fortunate man to have found so beautiful a ma
te.”
“And had I not been bonnie, my lord?”
“I would hae still made ye my wife, lassie, but nae gained a hundredth of the pleasure from ye that yer beauty gies me. Dinna be angry wi’ me, for ‘tis man’s nature to appreciate beauty.”
“You are blunt, my lord, and honesty, I have been taught, is a great virtue,” she answered him.
“Will ye gie me yer hand now, lassie?” he said. “I need yer touch. Nay! I crave it.” He took her hand in his and drew it, unresisting now, to his burgeoning manhood. “Dinna be afraid, lovey,” he encouraged her. “He’s a fierce laddie in battle, but easily tamed if ye’ll be but kind to him.”
Bravely Arabella reached out, her fingers wrapping about the length of hard flesh. To her great surprise it felt warm and alive. Indeed, it pulsed with a vigorous life force that she could feel most distinctly beneath her touch. “Are all men fashioned so, my lord?” she asked him. “It seems overlarge to fit within my sheath,” she noted, careful not to look at either the earl or his manhood, for she was yet shy.
Tavis Stewart was astounded to discover that his bride’s gentle touch was like being scorched with wildfire. He was hard put to maintain his equilibrium. For the first time in his life he seriously understood the real meaning of lust, and he was not quite certain that he felt just a little ashamed. He wanted this exquisite girl adorning his bed. He wanted her body with every fiber of his being, and he was not sure that a man should feel so strongly about his wife, about any woman. “Some men,” he answered her carefully, “are smaller, while others are larger, although we Stewarts are said to be endowed better than most.”
“Is my touch pleasurable to you, my lord?” she inquired of him innocently.
“Aye,” he said slowly, hoping his voice did not betray the fierce fire within him that he was so desperately trying to bank. He could scarcely fall on his bride like a mad dog. “Does my touch please ye?” he asked her, although he knew the answer, he did want to hear it from her lips.
“Aye,” she said, nodding, carefully choosing her words, “but I am not certain, Tavis, that I should feel such pleasure. Is it right and proper? Does the church not teach us that copulation is for the mere purpose of procreation only?”
“I dinna think there should be any shame in a man and his wife enjoying themselves as they go about God’s work, lassie,” he said with a rich chuckle.
“My lord! You come close to blasphemy!” she scolded him.
The earl had suddenly had enough of talking. Rolling swiftly onto his back, he drew Arabella atop him, kissing her most soundly.
“Ohhhh,” she gasped, coloring with embarrassment at this new position in which she found herself. It was so intimate.
His hands clasped themselves about her slim waist. She could actually feel his fingers marking her tender skin. Slowly he lifted her up and drew her forward until her breasts hung like two small ripe fruits just above his handsome face. Lifting his head up slightly, he began to tease her nipples with his lips, and teeth, and tongue once more.
Instinctively her hands flew out to brace themselves against his shoulders. “Ohhh! You must not do that, my lord! Ohhh! Ohhh!” She was beginning to tingle all over.
His answer was a noise that sounded like a cross between a growl and a groan. His face pushed itself into the valley between her lovely breasts, and then with an agility that stunned her, he turned them once again so that she lay beneath him now. He was careful not to crush her beneath his weight, pinning her with only half of his great body. His mouth fused against hers, and Arabella’s head spun wildly. Even so, she was cognizant of his fingers once again straying to that forbidden zone.
“Don’t,” she pleaded with him.
“I must,” he whispered against her lips, and she felt the invading digits slipping between her nether lips, touching for the first time a part of her that sent a wave of pleasure into the core of her very being. “Easy, lass,” he soothed her trembling body as he gently aroused her, caressing the little bud of her sex until she was squirming beneath his hand, until she was unable to suppress a confused whimper, for she had suddenly and quite distinctly felt the pleasure, yet she was still not certain she should admit to it. He leaned forward to feather soft kisses across her brow, her cheeks, her quivering lips. Then his fingers began a far deeper and more intimate exploration of his bride.
Arabella stiffened. She could not help it. Her awareness of the serious intent this dalliance intimated could not be denied. She was unable to prevent the words that tumbled forth from her mouth.
“My lord!” The words were half sobbed, though she had struggled to keep her voice calm. “I am afraid!”
“Aye, lassie, I know,” he answered her, rubbing his cheek against her face, “but dinna be afraid of me, lovey. I would only gie ye sweet pleasure.”
“Are you…aroused by me now?” she asked him, and trembled at his reply.
“Aye,” he told her honestly. “Yer nae just bonnie, Arabella Stewart. Yer damnably desirable, and I desire ye more than I can tell ye, lovey.”
His fingers invaded her more deeply, and she cried out softly, more with fear, however, than with any pain he was causing, for indeed he strove desperately not to hurt her. He was discovering that the knowledge that he was the first man to ever touch her was a far more potent aphrodisiac than he could have anticipated. He was burning to possess her completely. He could never remember wanting a woman so badly as he wanted his young bride. Acutely aware of every nuance of her virgin body, he knew that he could no longer deny himself the pleasure of possessing her.
His teasing fingers had more than confirmed her virgin state. Now he moved them gently back and forth within the innocent silken casing of her warm, perfumed flesh, coaxing forth the sweet evidence of her own artless desire. Unable to hide that desire, not even totally aware of it, her ingenuous young body moved in a way that encouraged his fingers. He knew that she was now ready to receive the full measure of his bridegroom’s love and homage.
Swinging over Arabella, he fit her slender form between his two powerful thighs, pinioning her firmly so that she could not escape him and do herself harm. Leaning forward, he kissed her mouth, her fluttering eyelids, her forehead. He could see the simple truth of her fright in her madly beating heart, which fluttered quite plainly in the shadowed valley between her breasts.
Arabella hated the helplessness she was feeling at this moment. He was so strong, and even though she knew the act of love between a man and his wife could be good and was certainly acceptable in both the church and polite society, she felt a small flame of resentment. A small whisper of fear still nagged at her, and despite her good intentions to allow him his way, her arms flew suddenly up to fend him off. She would not yield herself to him!
Tavis Stewart caught her wrists between one of his hands and firmly held them captive above her head. With his other hand he guided his engorged manhood between her resisting thighs and directly to the mark. For a brief moment he debated the course he would take, finally deciding the pain would be no less for her whether he went gently or ended the agony for her by taking her without further ado. The look of terror on her beautiful face settled him on the latter course.
Arabella was pale and trembling. Her obviously overactive virgin’s imagination was frightening her beyond all reason. Better to make the unknown the known, he thought, and so deciding, the earl thrust hard into his bride’s unyielding body, leaning forward as he did so to absorb her startled cry into his own mouth as he kissed her a most passionate kiss.
Her body ached with his entry. She felt as if someone had driven a red-hot poker into her vitals. Although his kisses successfully silenced her sobs, Arabella could hear her own cries within her very brain. She was being stretched and stuffed beyond bearing! The burning pain of his possession almost suffocated her with its intensity, but then as fiercely as it had begun, the agony began to drain away, until suddenly it was simply no more, or at least not enough to complain about. The very walls of her
tight sheath seemed to have stretched to accommodate his manhood. Though a light sheen of perspiration dotted her face and her body, at least her initial fear had vanished. As he lifted his lips from her own, Arabella gasped in a mouthful of air.
“Yer a brave lass,” Tavis Stewart said approvingly. “The worst is over now, my sweet, wee wife. Now will come the pleasure.” He began to move on her, slowly, drawing himself almost completely out of her, plunging himself back within her. Each time appearing to drive deeper and yet deeper into the seemingly endless depths of her. He had freed her hands now, but they remained where he had confined them.
The tears she had tried not to shed were now slipping down her face unchecked, and she understood them not. He had not been unkind to her. Indeed, he had done his best to make her passage into womanhood as easy for her as possible. This was the way her life was supposed to be. A woman wed. Rarely was the man of her own choosing. This man appeared to be a good man, and she could consider herself fortunate. Love was a rarity, like a unicorn, a fairy tale. Perhaps it would come later. Perhaps not. Could she love this big, fierce Scot now delving into her with such passion and vigor? She suspected that through some odd quirk of fate she had wed a better man than she perhaps deserved. Her poor mother, who had known only kindness and caring from her father, was undoubtedly finding her life much harder as the wife of Sir Jasper Keane.
“Lass! Lass!” groaned the earl desperately, and then he rolled away from her.
It was the tone of his voice that brought Arabella back to herself, and as the fullness of him drained away she felt, much to her surprise, regret. An almost sad and poignant regret.
“Damn!” her husband swore angrily. “I gave ye nae pleasure, lovey, and for that I do most humbly apologize. Ye made me feel so like a green boy again, I seemed to hae nae control of myself.” Raising himself up upon an elbow, he kissed her forehead. “Will ye forgie me, Arabella?”
“I do not understand you, sir,” she said softly, feeling shy of their new closeness. “Ye were kind to me, and more than honest. You said there would be pain first, and there was. You said it would fade away, and it did. What more is there? What else do I not know?”
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