"I should think you're sick of the sight of that chamber by now, and my bed is the one where all the family children have been born. I'm guessing it's where many of them were begotten as well, but I don't really care to discuss family history at the moment," he said breathlessly as he placed her gently on the bed and began to kiss her deeply.
"But Thomas, it's still daylight. Isn't this awfully wicked?"
"Nay, not when two people are so in love and married to one another. Then everything is permitted. I appreciate your shyness, darling, but I don't want to wait another minute. And I want to see all of you. No more secrets between us any more."
Charlotte reached up for him, and pulled him down onto the bed close beside her. She remembered their first carriage ride together, and gave herself up to the sensations she had had to fight ever since.
Soon his jacket, cravat, waistcoat and shirt were off. He had responded in kind by working loose the rest of the tiny mother of pearl buttons on the back of her dress and stripping her down to her chemise.
Placing torrid kisses along the slender column of her neck and down to her bosom, his hands explored under the hem of the garment, filling her with delight.
"Mmm, this is more than I could have ever dreamed."
"For me too, my love. But I need to make you more ready for me. Do you trust me?"
She stroked his cheek tenderly. "With my life."
He untied her laces, and pushed the bodice off her shoulders, trailing molten kisses upon each breast, tautening the nipples with his enticing tongue. Then he moved lower, kissing his way down to her stomach, and then even lower.
"Oh, Thomas. No, you can't mean to..." she gasped in alarm.
"Just enjoy it."
"Really, how can you..."
"Because I love you, and want to make your first time magical."
"Being with you is magical, always."
"This will make it even better," he promised.
She surrendered to the feeling, and admitted with a sigh a short time later, "Oh, it does."
"And it can get even better than that."
"That's not possible," she gasped, as she began to ripple inwardly.
His hands now came into play, teasing her warm moist flesh. "Trust me, it will be."
Charlotte made a final token resistance, but lay back on the pillows again as his hand swept upwards over her body and fastened on one rosy nipple.
"Take down your hair for me, darling. I want to see all of you as naked as a nymph, as gloriously lovely as God made you."
She reached up as if in a trance to do as he asked. Her fingers trembled with nerves and barely suppressed passion. As the pins scattered everywhere, she wondered vaguely where and when on earth she had lost her bonnet to her husband's deft and compelling fingers.
Charlotte's shimmering dark hair spread out over the pillow in a lustrous cascade as she rolled her head from side to side in utter abandon.
Soon Thomas knew he could not hold out any longer. He waited until her ragged breathing grew almost desperate, and moved upwards again to take her mouth in a stirring kiss.
"Now please, Thomas," Charlotte beseeched urgently.
He needed no second invitation. Her legs were spread wide, and she was reaching for him so eagerly, there was no question of loss of willpower or seduction.
She wanted him.
And he needed and loved her. He positioned himselg between her dew-drenched thighs, and with one careful, sure thrust he was inside her.
She gasped once, her eyes flying open to meet his burning gaze. "Oh, Thomas, yesss...."
His iron control slipped as he pressed deeper into her tightness. She arched her hips to meet his with an instinct which caused him to fill her even further. It was a perfect fit, so thrilling he could barely hold on.
"God, Charlotte!" he shouted, as he cupped her buttocks and pounded into her, his climax ripping through him.
He trembled from head to toe, and began to grow almost frightened as his pangs seemed to go on forever.
He felt her inner muscles tighten around him, and if anything his pleasure increased as she cried out his name and her fingernails dug into his buttocks.
Finally they quietened, though Thomas felt so drained he lay on top of her for several moments.
"Lord, I'm sorry, I must be crushing you," he murmured.
Charlotte pleaded, "No, love, it's nothing. Please stay."
"Did I hurt you?" he whispered, as he brushed her tumbled tresses back from her face, and saw the tears glittering on her cheeks.
"No, my love, never."
"But you're crying," Thomas insisted, kissing the tears away gently.
"Oh, Thomas, it was so wonderful. It was like finding the other half of myself at last. I've wanted you so much, ever since we first kissed. Making love with you like this has been all I could have ever imagined, and so much more.
"Only now that we've tasted bliss, it's going to make things that much worse. How can I ever bear for you to be separated from me after knowing such joy?"
"I'll always be by your side, love you forever," Thomas declared fiercely, stroking his left hand up and down her shoulder and breast.
He felt himself stir within her once more, and made love to her all over again, slowly and thoroughly, exploring all of her most secret places, leaving no part of her body untasted or explored.
She was limp with surrender, but every new peak he coaxed out of her only left them both wanting more. The burgeoning ache within her blossomed anew, making her ripple outwards as time stood still, with no past or future, only an endlessly unfolding present of complete bliss as each kiss and caress sent them both higher.
Much later, when she cried out his name for the hundredth time, and he could hold back no longer, Thomas knew Charlotte was right.
Their joining and blending into one was like the union of two halves of a whole, and they could never be complete without one another again.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Charlotte awakened slowly some time later, just as the first rays of moonlight peeped through her window.
No, not her window. Thomas's. His window, his chamber, his bed. His wife in every way.
She hugged the knowledge to herself and reached over for him, her hand skimming over his hard, lightly downed chest. She started, and then sighed, feeling the play of muscle, bone and sinew under her fingers as her husband purred with pleasure.
"Are you all right?" he whispered.
"Mmm, wonderful," she said, curling into his lean, hard frame. "You?"
"Happier than I ever thought possible."
"I'm glad. And so very sorry-"
"As am I, Thomas." She stroked down the wonderful tattoo she had seen and so admired before. Or rather, the muscle it decorated. She was sure her husband was perfection itself, inside and out. "I should have trusted you-"
"You had little enough reason to, with all my fibs and Paxton's unlimited capacity for evil."
He held her close against him. "I overheard them, you know. He and your aunt and Agnes, plotting against you for your money."
"Overheard them?" she gasped, sitting up slightly to peer into his face. Her ebony hair cascaded down over her shoulder and his chest in a sensual caress.
The sheet draped over his loins began to stir, waving like a flag. He blushed, glad her gaze was directed elsewhere. She would be shocked if she knew just how much he wanted her again.
"Yes, in the orangery that night. I was just about to leave, out the side door. I, well, I was so disappointed that you hadn't paid me a blind bit of notice apart from saying thank you for your birthday gifts that I decided there was no point in putting myself through any more torment, being so near you, yet so far."
"Oh, my love, if only I had known. But go on, darling, tell me all of it."
He twined his leg over hers to settle more comfortably. "I was about to walk off some of my dismay in the orangery when I overheard the three of them talking. I guessed it was your aunt from the mezzo voice,
and eventually figured out Agnes was the third party in the plot, a lighter soprano. As soon as they had gone, I confronted the snake. I told Paxton I had heard everything. Then I bribed him to stay away."
"Oh, Thomas!"
"But I should have known that even more than money, he wanted to make us all miserable. He could still--"
"He can do whatever he damn well likes," she said vehemently, her sapphire eyes blazing. "All three of them can go to the Devil."
"Charlotte!" he protested, shocked at how his demure wife had taken on the demeanor of a furious tigress.
"It's true. I don't want to waste another moment of our marriage with him standing like a shadow between us. You and I love each other." She cupped his cheek, caressed his full lower lip with her thumb. "The rest doesn't matter now. I just can't believe you felt so strongly about me and never said one word."
Her fingers continued their maddening caresses downwards, until Thomas could bear no more and rolled her under him.
She gasped, but her eyes lit with a knowing eagerness.
"I couldn't say anything. You were so young. And to admit anything would be to blurt out my feelingS for you. That I desired you beyond all reason."
The sensual pressure of his body told her that even more eloquently than his words, driving away all reason for them both.
"Show me," she urged in a husky tone. "Tell me the whole truth at last, with your mouth, hands-"
"Yes, my love, always."
Charlotte gave herself away completely to the pressure of his hands upon her hips and soft delicate flesh, his mouth upon her breasts.
His tongue licked flames of passion along each tip, until the coursing tumult of passion throbbed within her so violently she felt her back arch and her whole belly convulse.
Thomas chuckled softly. "If I'd known how sensitive your breasts were, I could have pleasured you a thousand times in the past few months. I'm sorry."
"Don't be. I don't think I would have been ready for all, well, all this," she said, blushing. She swept her hands downwards. "The novels can certainly never do the sensation of true love justice."
"Well, let's see if we can't try to capture its perfection in a marvelous scene of our very own."
"He Stoops to Conquer?" she said softly.
"Nay, my love, no stooping at all. In fact, I think it was more like having to climb up to touch you on your pedestal."
She shook her head vehemently, arching her hips to seek the elusive stroke that would join them together as one at last. "No pedestal for me, Thomas. I'm a flesh and blood woman now, thanks to you, not some lofty little miss, untouchable and aloof. I want you to touch me, love me. Now and always. But especially now."
He smiled down at her, and took the hint, filling her damp tight core with infinite care until he was so far up inside her he felt sure he would never come out.
He could feel her whole slick center grip him, and now risked his tenuous control to start moving. Fast to slow, shallow to deep, he teased her, gauged her reactions, until she was begging him to stop the erotic torture.
"Just let it come. Come with me, love," Thomas rasped against her lips.
"Yes, oh, yes."
The first waves of the ultimate pleasure swelled upwards in a tidal surge and she found herself drowning in a swirling vortex which cast her up on the shores of oblivion.
She clung to Thomas like a drowning woman. He anchored her between his strong arms until her last passionate sob echoed in the room, and then allowed himself his own tempestuous release.
At last the aftershocks faded, and Thomas collapsed on his beloved like a spent swimmer on a sandy shore.
Much later he bestirred himself, and lifted his heavy weight off her lithe form. He pushed back the thick fall of hair tumbled over her exquisite heart-shaped face, and kissed her berry-ripe lips.
"Mmm."
"Yes, indeed," he chuckled. "I'll be right back, pet."
"But where are you-"
"Not far."
He disappeared into the bathing chamber, and returned a short time later with a basin, soap and some clean cloths. He struck the tinder box and lit a couple of candles, then undraped his wife's lissome body from the sheet.
"I'm sorry. I should have been much more solicitous of you," he whispered. "But you touched me and I lost all reason."
"I'm fine, Thomas. You have nothing to reproach yourself for."
"But I do. It's never easy for a woman's first time."
"It was wonderful, I promise. And I seem to recall it being at least six times..."
He laughed happily. "Open your legs for me, love," he said, holding up the cloth.
"Oh, no, Thomas, really. I can-"
"Let me, please. No secrets or shame between us."
"All right," she said hesitantly, and did as he told her.
The cool cloth and slippery soap was both soothing and arousing. His lean strong fingers explored her most intimately, until she felt the increasingly familiar breathlessness tautening in her belly.
Soon the slightly abrading cloth was removed, and she was rinsed and thoroughly clean. But just to make sure, Thomas dipped his head, causing her to nearly rocket off the bed.
"Oh Lord, not again. You can't like--"
"It's perfectly natural and safe. Just let me love you. Give you all the pleasure you deserve."
"I do want you to, Thomas. But it can't be nice for you."
He gave her a warm, reassuring smile. "Not just nice, delicious, delectable. Your own most intimate taste that you will only ever share with me. Just as one day you might like to share mine. But for now..." He slid into the bed more fully head first, and draped her calves over his shoulders.
Charlotte was put in mind of a loving cup as he sipped from her as though drinking the nectar of the gods, and then forcefully worked at the small dimple of flesh on her mound with his thumbs until she was screaming, bucking and writhing like a wild thing, begging for him to come into her.
He laughed throatily and told her how much he loved to watch her lose control, and continued with his torrid loveplay...
Much, much later that night, when he had put aside the tray of delicacies he had ordered the servants to bring up, he wrapped her in the top sheet while he began to strip off the bottom one.
She had certainly bled enough, and his pride knew no bounds that he had been the first and would be the only man to love this incredible woman.
Once he had finished remaking the bed, he tucked her back into it, and went over to his dresser. He rummaged in the top drawer for a brief second.
"Ah, here they are."
She raised her brows in silent inquiry.
"Elizabeth put them back in the box for me. This was what I really wanted to give you for your eighteenth birthday, my sweet," he said, coming to sit beside her in the bed.
"But I didn't have the nerve. It would have been far too excessive. As it was I thought I had betrayed myself by discovering from the modiste in Bath that you patronize exactly what gown you were going to wear for your ball."
Charlotte's eyes lit with understanding. "So that was how it came to pass that the fan and reticule matched the embroidery on my gown."
"Guilty as charged."
"So what is this?" she asked, hefting the black velvet box in her slim hand.
"Open it."
"But it's not my birthday, Thomas."
"No, it's a far more special occasion, the true beginning of our marriage, the completion of all our vows. In the Middle Ages, the husband would give the bride a gift the morning after to show just how pleased he was with her. I would give you a wagonload full of jewels if I could for what we've just shared, but for now this will have to suffice."
"Oh, Thomas." She opened the box and gaped at the exquisite collar of sapphires, with matching hair pins and bracelets. "I thought they were your mother's. I would have chosen them to wear for our wedding if the emeralds hadn't reminded me of your lovely eyes." She cupped his cheek and smiled up into them.
"I saw these stones, so blue and glittering, and they were so like your eyes that I knew no other woman could ever do them justice."
She began to cry then. "You've always given me so much, and I-"
"Have been the best of friends, once you got over your initial anger. And now I want to be the best of husbands to a most wonderful wife. I want to gift you with far more than jewels. You have my heart and soul, Charlotte Eltham. Now I want you to know pleasure, passion, sensuality such as neither of us have ever dreamed. Do you trust me?"
The Rakehell Regency Romance Series Boxed Set 1 Page 62
