Catryn was stunned speechless. She was also intensely aroused. At least she thought arousal was what made her clench her thighs in reaction to a sudden rush of heat in her nether regions. His voice was deep and rougher than usual and it moved over her skin like a lover’s hands.
“Perhaps I would not object,” she said, and a soft voice in her mind gasped in shock over her brazen words. She ruthlessly ignored it.
Orion studied her face as he idly stroked her hair. Her cheeks were flushed but he could not be certain if it was from arousal or simply a blush. She made no attempt to hide the hard, inviting tips of her breasts. They still shaped the front of her girlishly modest night shift. With any other woman he would have already been carrying her to the bed, but this was Catryn. Despite being a mother and a widow, he knew she was no well-practiced lover or confident seductress.
“Do you understand what you are inviting me to do, Cat? All of it?” he asked.
“I am no virgin, Orion.”
He almost smiled. She was no virgin but she was still very innocent. Orion suspected she had never truly been made love to, not even on her wedding night. She had been used to breed an heir and little else. Everything she had told him about Henry confirmed that opinion. The man had not even tried to please her. It would be wise to begin slowly with her, but he was not sure he would be able to be so wise. Despite all his bachelor-loving instincts telling him to stay far away from her, he wanted her too badly to heed them. That could well mean he wanted her too badly to gently introduce her to the pleasure a man and woman could share.
“You have until I remove my boots to change your mind,” he said as he sat down and began to tug off his boots. “It is not much but it is all I am inclined to grant.”
“I will not change my mind.”
A nervous part of her badly wanted to, but Catryn ignored that voice. That cowardly part did not have the strength to conquer the need that had been growing inside her since the first time she had seen Orion. It did not matter that she could be inviting pain into her heart because he was not the sort of man who had any intention of settling for just one woman. It did not matter that she was certain she knew she was not the sort of woman, being neither daring nor sensuous, who could hold the interest of such a man for long. She would take what she could get and remember it well.
That conviction wavered a little when he tossed his second boot aside and stood up. He took a step toward her and she was strongly reminded of what a big man he was. Catryn stiffened her spine and did not give in to the urge to take a step back. She had been failed by her husband in so many ways, slighted by him again and again, but now she had a chance to mend one of those slights. Now she had a chance to discover exactly what pleasure a man and a woman could share. This man would not fail her in that. She would not allow herself to retreat from the promise in his eyes.
She stood like a soldier ready to be given her orders, Orion thought, as he stepped up to her and brushed his lips over hers. Soft, warm, and sweet, the taste of her lips only added to the craving he had finally stopped fighting. He would have her and deal with the consequences, if and when there were any. A man could suffer many a worse fate than having to spend a lifetime with Catryn.
He picked her up in his arms and took her to the bed. Her soft gasp of surprise pleased him. Orion gently set her down on the bed then sprawled on top of her, resting on his forearms so that he did not put all of his weight on her slender body. As he bent his head to kiss her, he noticed that she had begun to frown.
“You have not darkened the room yet,” she said.
“Why would I have you in a darkened room?” he asked as he undid the front of her night rail and kissed the space between her breasts. “Then I would not be able to see your beauty.”
“But that is the way it is done, is it not?”
Catryn fought hard to hold on to the warmth his light kisses and gentle touch stirred within her, but it was difficult. She was far too aware of all the light in the room. It was a soft light, thrown out by a low fire and a small lantern, but she could see him easily. That meant he could see her with the same ease. Even her late husband had never seen her unclothed body in the light, any light, soft or bright.
“Did you not know that?” she asked.
A heartbeat later she silently cursed her stupidity. This man was neither inexperienced nor saintly. She knew he had had more experience with women, bedded more women, than Henry probably ever had or ever could have hoped to have done. Willing women, pleased to climb into his bed, who did not have to be drugged. It was not something she wanted to think about, either, especially as it clarified in her mind the idiocy of her question. So did the sting of a blush upon her cheeks. The faint smile he was giving her revealed both kindness and a touch of amusement. She supposed she was fortunate he was not laughing outright. Loudly.
“Your husband preferred the dark?” Orion continued to undo her nightdress. “Such a foolish man. Perhaps he did not wish you to view his many faults.”
“Henry was handsome and quite fashionable.”
Orion slipped his hands inside her nightdress, gently clasping her full breasts. She had known Orion would give her an experience she had never had before, could show her that a woman could actually enjoy the bedding, but she now wondered if she had the courage to let it happen. With each stroke of his hands he was stirring a wildness within her she did not recognize and a craving she feared would linger long after he left her.
And he would leave, she thought, shivering with pleasure when he lightly nipped the side of her neck. This affair she had daringly embarked on would not last. She had known that from the first moment she had begun to wonder what his lovemaking would be like. It was foolish to give in to cowardice now, just because of a little light. Instead of worrying over what he was about to see, she would savor all that she was about to see. A smile curving her mouth, she began to undo his shirt.
Just as she bared his chest and slowly moved her hands from his taut stomach up to his broad shoulders, he kissed her. This was what she wanted, what she needed. The weight of his body on hers, the warmth of his skin, even the scent of him. It all fed the pleasure that was rushing through her body.
That pleasure dimmed ever so slightly when he removed her nightdress and tossed it aside. She had never been naked with a man, and it was not as easy to allow it in the heat of passion as she had thought it would be. Suddenly she was far too aware of her vulnerability, of the exposure of all her physical faults, of those faint scars left by childbirth. The fact that Orion was still more dressed than undressed did nothing to still her growing unease. Nor did it please her, for she had a need to see him, to freely touch his skin.
“You have not yet shed your own clothing,” she whispered against his mouth.
“Oh, I will shed all that is necessary. Soon.” He nipped at her bottom lip.
“Do you have a large, hairy wart you are trying to hide?”
His warm breath flowed over her lips as he laughed. He did not answer her jest, however, just kissed her. Catryn knew she ought to press for a reason why only one of them was naked, but her determination faded with each stroke of his tongue within her mouth. He tasted so good, made her feel so good, that she did not want all the pleasure she was enjoying to be disrupted by questions.
Orion savored the way she softened beneath him, the last of her inconvenient curiosity fading. He had not considered the possibility that she would question him about how slow he was to shed his own clothing. The women he bedded usually believed it was their beauty and the lust they stirred in him that made him too eager to remove all of his clothes. He let them believe it, even encouraged the idea that he was in such great need of them that he simply did not wish to waste a single moment. Catryn had so little vanity he doubted she even considered that possibility.
Since he was not sure he could stop her from catching a glimpse of his back if they remained lovers for any length of time, Orion decided this one night would be all they would share. T
hen he looked down at her lush body, ran his fingers over the warm, soft skin of her breast, and kissed her. He knew that plan would never work. He had known it from the first time he had kissed her. She tasted too sweet to turn away from. All he could do was ply all his usual tricks to keep anyone from getting a good look at his back and pray they continued to work. Orion realized that seeing that look of distaste or horror on Catryn’s face would cut him far deeper than the whip that had scarred him ever had. His mind told him she would not react in such a way, but the rest of him cringed at the thought of running the risk that he was wrong.
Catryn held Orion close as he kissed her, stroking the inside of her mouth with his tongue as he stroked her body with his clever hands. Everywhere he touched her, her skin came alive, growing warm and sending that warmth into her veins to reach each and every part of her. When he did as he had threatened and licked at the aching tips of her breasts, her breath caught in her throat. For a moment she forgot how to breathe. The ability returned when he drew her nipple deep into his mouth and sucked, her captured breath escaping her in a long, soft moan of delight.
This was what those happily married women and daring widows whispered and smiled about. Catryn had both disbelieved and envied them. Now she knew those smiles and whispers had been born of sweet memories, and envy pushed aside disbelief.
Lightly calloused fingers slipped between her legs and Catryn’s thoughts scattered. The only time she had ever been touched there was just before the joining had begun. She struggled to cling to the pleasure Orion had filled her with and push aside the cloudy memories of discomfort.
“You have become a little tense all of a sudden, Catryn,” Orion said, his breath warming the hollow of her throat. “Have you changed your mind?” He lifted his head to look at her.
“No,” she replied in as firm a tone as she could manage. “It was but the unwanted intrusion of an old, bad memory.” She wrapped her arms around him and held him close again.
“Ah.” Orion realized her husband had not only cared nothing for her pleasure, he had cared nothing for her comfort either. “I am not him.”
Before she could reply, he moved his long fingers in a way that made her gasp and arch into his touch. She rubbed her body against his as he continued to intimately caress her, her desire growing so swiftly and fiercely that she could not remain still. With every skillful caress, every kiss, and every brush of his warm skin against hers, Catryn felt an ache deep inside her belly grow tighter and more demanding. She whispered his name against his mouth and, even lost in desire’s madness as she was, Catryn could hear the demand in her voice.
Then he was there. Inside her in one clean, hard stroke. Surprise over how perfectly he filled her was nearly swept away when he began to move. Catryn wrapped her body around his, arching into his every thrust. The soft growl that escaped him was enough to tell her she was returning the pleasure he was giving her. Then the tightness in her belly bloomed, spreading throughout her body and she cried out with the joy of it. A heartbeat later she felt him thrust deeply and shudder in her arms as he groaned out her name.
Orion eased the weight of his body from hers, moving to the side just a little. He brushed the tangled hair from her face and reveled in the glow he could still see coloring her cheeks and brightening her eyes. He had pleasured women before, but he had never taken as much pride in the fact as he did now. Then he watched her gaze clear a little as she looked at his shirt and then his breeches. That soft glow of pleasure faded fast.
“You do not like to be naked?” she asked as she tugged up the covers to hide her own nakedness as best she could while struggling through the lingering haze of sated passion to try and understand why he had remained partly clothed.
For a moment Orion considered telling her what he usually told women, and then he sighed. It was necessary for him to be honest, just as honest as Catryn always was with him. Just telling her that he had scars might be enough to make her cease wondering why he kept some of his clothes on, yet he knew he would be disappointed in her in some way if that proved true.
“I have a lot of scars on my back,” he said.
“Oh.” She slid her hands beneath his shirt and around to his back. Beneath her fingers she could feel the ridges left by old wounds. “Were you wounded? I know you and Giles speak of how you are a king’s man. Did something happen during a time when you were working for the king?”
“No. I have had them since I was a child.”
“A tutor?”
There was a faint hint of hope in her voice and he wondered at it. “No, my mother.”
“Your own mother beat you enough to leave scars?”
Suddenly he was being held tightly in her slim arms. “She was a rigid woman who wished to beat the devil out of me,” he confessed even as he wondered why.
“How could a mother do that? No, no need to answer. I have heard of other sins mothers have visited upon their children and been just as puzzled. It was but a question that did not exactly seek an answer, for I do not believe there ever can be a satisfactory one. The same when it is the father who commits the crime.”
“Spare the rod, spoil the child.”
“Oh, I did not suggest one never discipline a child, but there are ways to do so without beating them to the point that they are scarred for life.” She started to tug off his shirt. “Well, now that that secret is out, take this off. I refuse to be the only one who is naked.”
“They are upsetting to—”
“It might be wise if you do not speak on the times you have taken your shirt off for other women.”
“Ah, a good point.”
“So? Off with the clothes.” She blushed. “Unless you mean to return to your own room now, of course. I may be presuming too much by thinking you mean to stay here.”
“Not at all. I just felt I should warn you.”
“If you can accept my scars then I shall accept yours.”
“You do not have any scars.”
“I do.” She touched the marks low on her belly. “The birthing marks are still a bit stark, and probably always will be.”
Orion bent to kiss each of the scars running alongside her hip bones. “Marks of honor. You survived and gave the world a bright, gifted boy.”
Tears stung her eyes as she watched him stand up, but she fought them. He was tense as he began to shed his clothing. Catryn did not want him to think her tears were because of what he was about to show her and misinterpret the cause. The man was clearly very sensitive about his scars.
When he was fully disrobed, it took her breath away, and not just because she had never seen a grown man fully naked before. She had the passing thought that it was a wonder he could fit what was dangling between his legs inside her, and then she clenched her hands into fists because she wanted to reach out and touch him. The lustful cause of that urge ended when he turned around. His back was a mass of scars obviously made by a cane or a whip. They crisscrossed his broad, strong back from his shoulders to the tops of his well-muscled thighs.
Shock was her first reaction but she was glad she hid it, for she could see him watching her closely in the mirror over the fireplace. Then fury surged up through her. His mother, the woman who had given him life and should have cherished him, had done this to him. She heartily wished the woman was near at hand because she wanted to give the wretched excuse for a mother a taste of her own vicious medicine.
“Why? What possible reason could she think she had to do that to her own child?” she demanded, fighting the harsh images that tried to form in her mind.
Orion turned and stared at her. She was furious. He did not think he had ever seen anyone that furious before. Perhaps rumors about a redhead’s temper were not as exaggerated as he had always thought. For a moment he had believed he was about to suffer that look of shock and horror he so desperately did not wish to see in her eyes. Instead he was seeing the urge to murder someone there, and he suspected it was his mother. He moved back to the bed and settled d
own beside her before pulling her into his arms.
“My mother is already dead,” he said.
“How?”
“She was going to church as she so often did and was run over by the minister’s carriage.” He could not fully repress a smile at the look of angry disbelief she gave him, clearly believing he was making a poor jest. “Truly. She was so busy reading her prayer book as she walked that she stepped out right in front of him. The man was from our old parish, but my father had removed him after he found out it was one of the man’s sermons that inspired my mother to try and beat the devil out of me.”
“So your father put a stop to it?”
“Only if he happened to be around, and he rarely was. Recall how I said he died.”
Catryn frowned as she slid her arms around him. “Do you think that your mother may also have been using you in place of the one she truly wanted to beat?”
“When I was older and understood how my father had betrayed her practically from their wedding night, I began to think that. At the time, I just thought I had the devil in me.”
“That is utter nonsense. It was your gift, one you gained from your father, whom she married. Do not tell me she did not know the full truth about who your father was when she married him.”
“She did, but as with too many who come from outside the family, she did not truly understand. I do not believe she knew she would be bearing a child with a gift, either.”
“Oh, she knew. Even the most innocent of women, one kept utterly in the dark about men and women and marriage and babies knows that making a baby requires a man, and that baby could look just like that man or be like him, or look like her and be like her, or even a bit of each. She had family, correct?” He nodded. “And siblings?” He nodded again. “Then she knew. She was either trying to make you pay for the fact that your father was a faithless swine. . .” She grimaced. “Pardon.”
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