But he didn’t want her help. He wanted to show her what it was for a man to make love to a woman, for a husband to bed a wife, and he wanted to do all of the work so she could understand what it meant to physically please another person. He knew she had no concept of such things.
Also, he was being the slightest bit impatient because he didn’t want to stop and explain things to her. There; he’d admitted it. He didn’t want to talk his way through this. He simply wanted her to be silent while he had his way with her.
His plans were working quite well until he came to her shift and Patrick considered it a barrier to his wants. He was frustrated because it was rather snug and he wasn’t able to yank it over her head in one movement. He actually struggled with the thing, trying to pull it off and being denied more than once. He was coming to think that it was like the damnable walls around a fortress – the shift was the walls and the keep was Brighton’s naked body. He had to breach those walls and make way to the keep. Another couple of tugs and the shift finally came up over her head. He heard her shriek softly, perhaps embarrassed by her nakedness, but he didn’t pay much attention. He was more concerned with unfastening his breeches.
Once they were open, Patrick fell upon her, once more, coming into contact with her soft, warm skin. His mouth found her neck while a hand went straight to her breast. Victory! He’d breached the walls and now he was beginning his assault of the keep! As he suckled the tender skin of her neck, he could feel her nipple hardening beneath his palm and he squeezed gently, feeling her jump with surprise. And probably some fear. But that was to be expected considering she’d never had anyone breach her keep before.
Oh, God, was that what it had come down to? The wine was making him think most foolishly, equating bedding his virgin wife to laying siege. But that’s essentially what he was doing – assaulting the woman he had married. In order to consummate the marriage, that was exactly what he had to do – breach her. She wasn’t fighting him but she was probably somewhat terrified.
Therefore, he slowed his onslaught. He truly didn’t want to frighten her. Taking a deep breath, Patrick lifted his head from her neck and saw that she was laying there with her eyes tightly closed. He tapped her gently on the cheek.
“Are you well?” he asked huskily.
Brighton’s eyes popped open. When she looked at him, he could see the fear. “Aye,” she breathed.
“Are you sure?”
She simply nodded her head and he kissed her mouth, gently. “I am sorry if I frightened you,” he murmured. “Lie still and you will enjoy this. If you do not, tell me. I will do all I can to make you comfortable.”
Hesitantly, she nodded and he kissed her mouth again and stroked her cheek before continuing onward in his tender offensive. His kisses slowed and he shifted his body weight off of her, the hand on her breast moving gently now, tenderly, acquainting her with his touch. But she was full-breasted, with both nipples hard, and his vow to slow his pace was in danger of breaking. He very much wanted to sate his lust but, for once, he pushed that primal need aside.
This time, it was different.
“Relax,” he murmured against the swell of her breast. “It will make everything easier.”
He could feel her take a deep breath as she struggled to calm her racing heart; he could hear it when he lay his head upon her chest. His tongue snaking out to toy with a nipple and she shuddered. He shuddered. The wine was giving him very little control in spite of the fact that he had vowed to go slowly with her. His lust for her was so great that he evidently wasn’t capable of moving slowly. Shifting his big body, he wedged himself between her supple legs.
Unused to the vulnerable position, Brighton kept trying to close her legs as Patrick kept trying to keep them open. He got into a wrestling match with her knees until he was finally able to overtake them and keep them pinned, one on either side of his body. Then, and only then, did he resume his gentle kisses on her belly while a big hand moved down to the junction between her legs.
There was a soft matting of dark curls there and he touched her very carefully at first, allowing her to become acquainted with his touch, before moving forward with his fingers gently probing her. The pink flower was quivering and wet. He put his fingers into her body, listening to her gasp. Something between ecstasy and alarm. Patrick could hardly hold himself back as he lowered his breeches around his thighs and slowly, firmly, entered her body.
Even if Brighton was utterly naïve to the ways of men and women, her body was innately sensitive to the primal mating ritual, something that men and women had been doing for thousands of years. It was in her blood even if it wasn’t in her mind. She was hot and wet, but Patrick could feel her tensing up beneath him even as he slipped into her body. When he could slip no more, he drew back, coiled his buttocks, and drove into her.
Beneath him, Brighton gasped at the sting of possession but she didn’t cry out and she didn’t try to pull away. Patrick’s gentle kisses eased her as he worked his way in, making way for a manhood that was proportionate to his large body. In truth, Patrick was glad she hadn’t seen his engorged manroot before he made an attempt to bed her. He’d had women cry at the sight, fearful of the size, but with Brighton, he seemed to fit her easily.
As if she was made for him.
Surely, she was.
She was slick and Patrick used that to his advantage, thrusting into her repeatedly until he was fully seated. Her virginal walls gave way to accommodate him. The knees that had given him such trouble were now rubbing up against his legs, growing more curious about his position within her as her hands began to move over his back. Her soft hands, warm and calloused, threw him over the edge and he began to move in and out of her, his hips doing the work, as his mouth lingered on her forehead, her ear, her neck. There was nothing about her that wasn’t sweet and delectable, and he told her so. Soft whispers filled her ear, telling her how beautiful she was and how sweet she tasted. He’d never meant anything so much in his entire life.
His pace quickened but his release wasn’t close. Wine gave him the ability to last a very long time before releasing himself and he had no real concept of just how long he thrust into her. All he knew was that it was an emotional experience as well as a physical one. He’d never made love to anyone he truly cared about, at least not like this, and at one point he stopped his movements, withdrew, and flipped her over onto her belly. Lifting her hips slightly, he entered her from behind.
Beneath him, Brighton groaned and he propped himself up on his hands so he could look down at her body. The weak firelight illuminated her and his hungry eyes devoured her slender shoulders, the curve of her perfect back, and, finally, her heart-shaped buttocks. The sight of her perfectly rounded arse fueled his desire to epic proportions and he could finally feel his release approach. His entire body was tense with it, like pins and needles in his belly, spreading outwards. A few more thrusts and he released his seed deep into her body, feeling satisfaction as he’d never felt before. Even after he climaxed, he continued to move for the pure joy of it and, soon enough, he could feel Brighton’s body tighten around him with her first release.
The still air of the chamber was filled with her gasps as Brighton was swept up in something she’d never experienced before. Patrick lay down next to her pulling her into his arms as she convulsed with pleasure. It was incredibly arousing but, more than that, he felt whole and content as he’d never felt in his life. He never known such utter fulfillment and, even after her tremors had calmed, he continued to hold her against him, his body still embedded in hers, listening to the faint roar of the common room and thinking that the decision to marry Brighton had been the best decision he’d ever made.
Perhaps not the most popular decision, or even the most reasonable given the circumstances, but he didn’t regret anything. He belonged to her, body and soul, and nothing on earth could change that. He’d go to his grave before he let her go.
He honestly hoped it didn’t come to that.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Castle Questing
The Next Day
“I have never known you to behave foolishly or irrationally, but in this case, you have. You have gotten yourself into a load of trouble, Patrick. Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
Patrick stood calmly in his father’s solar as the man, having been informed that his third son had married Lady Brighton the day before, let loose on him. Between his parents, William tended to be the calm one of the pair, but at this moment, he was positively livid. Patrick had never seen him so angry. But before Patrick could reply to William’s statement, his father reached over onto the big, scarred table where he kept his maps and writing implements and grabbed an unrolled piece of vellum. Patrick could see that it had writing on it as William thrust it at him.
“Read this,” William demanded.
Patrick eyed his father before taking the vellum. He made sure to keep a distance from the man in case William decided to physically demonstrate his anger, but so far, William had kept his head. Not his tongue, but his head. Patrick moved away from his father and over to the hearth for more light as he held the vellum up and read the carefully scribed words.
He read it twice. When he was finished, he simply lowered the vellum.
“So the missive from Coldingham came yesterday after I had left,” he said softly.
William nodded. “Aye,” he said. “Did you read all of it?”
“I did.”
“And?”
Patrick cocked a dark eyebrow. “None of this matters now,” he said frankly. “I have married her and the marriage has been consummated. Not even the church can dissolve the marriage so I will simply write to the mother prioress and inform her that Bridey is now my wife. There is nothing she can do about it.”
The veins on William’s temples were flaring unnaturally. “Aye, there is,” he said. “If the mother prioress calls on the Bishopric of Durham, which controls most of the borders, the church can take sanctions against us. Did you ever think about that? We support the church with manpower as well as coinage and your mother is a patron of Kelso. They can ban all of us from participating in communion and they can lean on Henry to punish us. You essentially stole from them, Patrick. Do you not understand that?”
Patrick knew that butting heads with his father would get him nowhere. He’d tried before and it had never worked. William was more stubborn than his mother at times. But Patrick had returned to Questing staunchly determined to show absolutely no remorse in what he’d done yet he could see that being unmovable wasn’t going to force his father to see his side of things. In fact, it was doing the opposite. The more he resisted, the more furious William became. Therefore, he switched tactics.
Averting his gaze from his father, he moved away from the hearth, vellum still in-hand. As he moved to one of the lancet windows overlooking the stables and kitchen yard in the distance, Kieran opened the door to the solar. Concern was written all over the man’s face, but William held up a hand to the big knight, silently telling him to keep quiet. Obeying, Kieran slipped into the solar unnoticed by Patrick, who had made it to the window and was gazing away from him. He leaned against the sill as a warm summer breeze lifted his hair.
“I think I knew I loved her from the start,” he mumbled. “It is not a matter of defying the church or disobeying you. I had to answer my heart, Da. You of all people should understand that. You fell in love with Mother when she was pledged to your liege and you carried out a clandestine relationship with her until it was discovered. Is there anything about that you would change? Knowing what you know now, would you not have engaged in that relationship with her?”
William took a deep breath and cleared his throat softly. He turned away from Patrick. “We are not speaking of me,” he said. “We are speaking of you.”
Patrick looked at him. “You defied the king to be with mother,” he pointed out. “I am only defying the church. Why can you not understand that this has to do with love and nothing else? I love the woman and she is now my wife. I refuse to believe that what I did was wrong.”
William was losing ground. He had been young and in love once, as Patrick pointed out, and there was nothing he would have done differently. In that respect, he couldn’t take the moral high ground with Patrick. Sitting heavily, he leaned on his table.
“I am not saying it was wrong, lad, but you should have sought permission from Coldingham,” he said. “Did you read that missive? They want her back. She is meant for the veil.”
Patrick moved away from the window. “Then I will ride to Coldingham and offer them everything I have,” he said. “If paying them will ease whatever anger they may have that I married her, then that is what I will do.”
William shook his head as Kieran, who had been standing back in the shadows, came forward. “Coldingham used to be a rich priory,” he said to William. “They have fallen on hard times over the past few decades so I am sure a generous donation would go a long way, William.”
William looked at his longtime friend. “Now you side with Patrick?”
Kieran shook his head. “I am not siding with anyone,” he said. “But given the situation, it’s not as if he can take the lady back. She is his wife now. Did you consummate the marriage, Patrick?”
“I did,” Patrick replied.
Kieran turned back to William. “Then Coldingham is going to want compensation at the very least.”
William knew that. God help him, he did. He knew that Patrick couldn’t take the woman back now, which meant her problems had just become his problems. Everything that was happening with the woman – her Norse father, her Scots mother – had now become a de Wolfe problem. He was so furious and distressed he could hardly see straight.
“Damnation,” he hissed. “Patrick, do you realize what you’ve done to all of us? Now we are all targets because you married her. Now she is a de Wolfe and, as our kin, we are honor-bound to protect her. Is that why you really did this? To circumvent me when it came to taking the woman back to Coldingham?”
Patrick shook his head. “I told you I married her because I love her,” he said steadily. “I will not apologize for that. I will not apologize for any of this. In fact, I will take her back to Berwick and deal with this myself. I do not ask for your help, your pity, or your money. I will deal with this myself so that if the church is going to sanction the family, then let it only be me. You needn’t worry that I would jeopardize everyone else since that is what you seem to think I set out to do. You are not thinking of me at all, only of yourself. That is clear.”
He started to head for the door but Kieran stopped him, putting his hands on the man’s arms. “Atty, that is not it at all,” he said softly. “You know we would never allow you to go this alone. You married the woman and she is part of us now, just as you are. ’Tis simply that this complicates things a bit.”
Patrick’s jaw ticked angrily. He wasn’t going to be lectured by men who, in their youths, had done the same thing he’d done – defied authority to marry a woman. Their pious attitude infuriated him.
“You were there when my father fell in love with my mother,” he said. “You saw everything. You saw how he lied to his liege, how he defied the king. And I am the one who has done something wrong by loving a woman who is in a complex situation? If I did, it is because of the example he set. He led me to believe that love was the most important thing in the world. Did he lie to me about that, too?”
Kieran did something at that moment that he would have never done under normal circumstances. He reached up and slapped Patrick across the face, open-palmed. “You will never speak of your father that way again,” he said, his dark eyes flashing. “I will never hear those words from your lips again. Do you understand me?”
Patrick wouldn’t answer him. In fact, he had to back away from Kieran, moving around the old knight for fear of what he might do. Any man who would strike him as Kieran did would, under normal circumstances, end up with a sword in his b
elly. Therefore, Patrick would not be humiliated by the man, even if he did love and respect him. He didn’t think he’d said anything wrong in the least.
With a lingering glance at Kieran, Patrick walked around the man and quit the solar in tense silence. When the door shut behind him, Kieran turned to William.
“He speaks his mind much as you do,” Kieran said. “But I will not let him show disrespect to you. I am sorry that I hit your son, William, but that is the way I feel.”
William was weary of the contention with his favored son; he and Patrick had such a beautiful bond that he was deeply grieved at the anger between them. He sighed heavily. “Am I wrong, Kieran?” he asked. “Am I wrong to scold him for this?”
Kieran moved towards the desk where William was sitting. “What does your heart tell you?”
“That I should not have lost my temper with him.”
Kieran snorted softly. “I should not have, either.”
William leaned forward on the table, pondering his next move in the battle with Patrick. Perhaps there was no next move. “I wanted such a great marriage for him,” he muttered after a moment. “I had great dreams of a duke’s daughter or even a royal niece. I wanted to see him marry well. It never occurred to me that he would have different ideas on the matter.”
Kieran lifted his eyebrows in agreement. “Much like you, he fell in love with a woman he wasn’t supposed to have,” he said. “But he is right… love is the most important thing in the world, William. I would much rather see my sons married to women they love even if it meant living a simple life than see them married well with unlimited wealth to a woman they were miserable with. And Patrick loves Bridey, William. You should be happy for him because you, of all people, understand what it means to love a woman. He needs you now, more than he ever has. He is in trouble. Do not fail him.”
The Original de Wolfe Pack Complete Set: Including Sons of de Wolfe Page 155
