Until she’d been compensated for five years of marital frustration and five years of wasted widowhood.
“Just let me hold you. Take a moment to gather your wits.”
“I will never have wits again,” Ellen muttered, curling up more closely on his chest. “I don’t even believe wits exist at this point. What on earth did you do to me, Valentine Windham? That was different from what happened at the stream. You are an awful, awful man.”
There was such affection in her tone, such pleased, bewildered exasperation, that Val felt the very opposite of awful. “I didn’t mean to be so rough with you. You are a lady.”
“I was rough with you,” Ellen countered. “I became a beast.”
“An awful beast.”
“God above.” Ellen’s sigh breezed over Val’s heart. “I was awful, wasn’t I?”
She sounded so proud, Val hugged her tightly, odd feelings coursing up from his chest. “A tigress pouncing on her prey could not have produced more awe in me than you did.” He nuzzled her neck. “You have got such a mouth on you.”
Her tongue flicked out and Val flinched away.
“For shame,” he scolded. But when she merely nuzzled lazily at his neck, he stroked his hand over the back of her head in an easy rhythm. “Insatiable tigress.”
“Mmm.”
He let her find simple comfort in his arms for long minutes, because it appeased some need he had as well, to hold her, pet her, and stay close even as his own arousal still hummed through his body. He couldn’t go at her like that again, not so soon, and maybe not ever.
No matter she was pleased as punch with herself and he with her. On a sigh, she turned her head so her ear was above his heart.
“Does this mean I’m wicked?” she asked, appallingly serious.
“It means you are passionate,” Val corrected her, tipping her chin up and holding her gaze. “Passionate is a good thing, Ellen. It is the antithesis of being asleep in the midst of life.”
“Asleep.” She sounded as if she understood his use of the term and frowned at him. “I was falling asleep, you know, before you came. It hurt too much to stay awake.”
“And right now,” Val observed with dry humor, “not much of anything hurts, does it? And a nap sounds just the thing?”
“Hmm.” Ellen curled down again so he couldn’t see her face. “Is that why men like swiving so much? It puts one in charity with the universe?”
“Or one’s little corner of it. But there’s much to like about it.”
“Really?” Ellen stacked her hands and rested her chin on the back of them to survey him like the feline he’d compared her to. “Like what?”
“To see you overcome with pleasure. I have never beheld anything as lovely.”
He saw the wind drop abruptly from her sails.
“It felt lovely,” she admitted, closing her eyes. “You made me feel lovely.”
“No,” Val said firmly. “You are lovely, and you allowed yourself to see it and feel it and know it for a few moments.” He believed that with every fiber of his being.
“I want to be under you again,” she announced. “Please.”
She wanted sheltering and comforting, and Val could not have denied her one thing at that moment. If she’d asked for his right hand, he would have passed it along to her without a word.
“Are you going to cry?” Val asked quietly as he rolled them and obligingly crouched over her. She scooted down until her cheek was against his heart and she could wrap both arms and legs around him.
“I might. I don’t understand it.”
He held her tighter without being asked, and she clung to him more closely. “I am your friend, Ellen,” Val murmured, stroking her hair.
“And my lover,” Ellen reminded him, stretching up to kiss his throat. She reached around to stroke his nape, and beneath him, Val felt their sheer bodily intimacy calming her. She shifted and caressed him with her sex, and he didn’t for an instant mistake the invitation.
“You’re sure? I can see to myself, if you’re not.”
“I want you inside me. Please.”
“I want to be inside you, but you have to trust me on this, Ellen.”
“Trust you?” She licked his chest as if it were smeared with the brandy glaze from a hot apple tart.
“No dragging me back to your cave by my hair, hungry tigress,” Val teased, but his tone was serious. “I could hurt you if I’m not careful, and I will not be responsible for that.”
“I’ll try to behave, but you won’t hurt me.”
“Depend upon it,” he growled, shifting down to meet her eyes. “But recall you are to pinch me if you think I’m even getting close to the near occasion, right?”
“And on your… arse”—she managed the word—“doesn’t count, because in certain moods, you like that.”
“You were paying attention.”
She smoothed her hands up his chest. “And I expect in certain other moods you like to be pinched here.” She tested his nipples gently and was rewarded with a groan and closed eyes.
“Love it.” Which was a small revelation to him. “Adore it, but you said you’d behave.”
“I am behaving.” Ellen blinked up at him and pushed his hair back from his forehead. “You are stalling, though, Valentine. Make love to me, please.”
“Yes, love.” He lowered his forehead to hers, and the enormity of the moment threatened to overwhelm him. He wanted her desperately, and she was willing and even eager.
“Valentine…” Ellen singsonged his name as she lifted her hips, just grazing the tip of his cock with her sex. He didn’t flinch away but pressed minutely forward.
“Kiss me, Ellen,” he instructed sternly. “Now.”
Oh, ye bloody blue blazes… He teased and nibbled and flirted with her mouth as his hips teased and flirted his cock against her sex. She twined her arms around his neck, her legs around his waist, and let him manage as she rubbed her tongue over his and her breasts against his chest.
“Valentine, please…”
“Patience.” But to his own ears, his voice had a hoarse, distracted note to it, as if he were concentrating just as hard as she was.
And then, like an answer to a craving, the broad head of his erection was more than just teasing her, it was gently, so gently, pushing against her wet heat. Ellen shifted restlessly, maybe trying to impale herself on him, but Val went still and lifted his face from hers.
“You gave your word,” he reminded her, stroking her hair back from her cheek. “This is important, my love, and you promised.”
She nodded, meeting his gaze and drawing in a steadying breath. “For the love of God, please hurry.”
He had to smile, for she was flat out begging. “We will make haste slowly,” he assured her, dipping his head to kiss her cheek. “Hold on to me.”
She wrapped him closely and closed her eyes. He didn’t kiss her now, didn’t distract her with any other caresses or words or sensations, but let her concentrate on the lovely sense of being filled, joined, and physically loved by a man who treasured the privilege.
Treasured her.
He wasn’t quite thrusting, but rather pushing carefully then holding his position, retreating only minutely, and then pushing even more carefully. There was progress, but it was maddeningly slow.
“I want to move,” Ellen whispered.
“Not yet,” Val muttered, his teeth clenched with the effort of his restraint.
“You won’t hurt me,” she assured him, but on the next tentative shift of his hips, she fell silent.
“Close yourself around me. Inside, as if you’d draw me into you a little or hold me still.”
She made an effort to comply.
“God, yes.” Val drew in a slow breath. “Now let me go.”
Her body eased, and he pushed one small increment farther into her heat.
“Again,” Val ordered. She slowly caught his rhythm and slowly, push and squeeze by push and squeeze, he was filling her, jo
ining with her, and sharing with her the most incredible depth of pleasure. Her second orgasm welled up without warning, barreling out of the quiet around them just as she was constricting her muscles around him.
“Valentine…”
“Yes.” His voice was a satisfied growl as he moved more strongly inside her, intensifying the orgasm even as he manacled his own lust in self-discipline. He was excruciatingly careful with his timing, and already he’d shown her how not to struggle against the pleasure, to go with it, to embrace the drowning glory of it, and even seek its greater depths.
As he let her catch her breath, Valentine waited above her, his hips moving in a slow, relaxed undulation. Her body could accommodate him now, easily and eagerly, because he’d been patient and careful. His fingers brushed her hair back from her forehead in a slow, tender caress, and then, sensing her emotions welling, he cradled her head against his shoulder as he kissed her temple.
“All right, then?”
“Undone. Hold me.”
“Bossy.” Val tucked her closer and hiked one of her legs higher on his hip. “I’ll distract you, good sort that I am.”
He rocked and petted and teased her from one orgasm to the next, balancing his caresses to both soothe and arouse. Then he shifted rhythm and angle and hooked one of her knees in the crook of his elbow, startling her into another orgasm. After another pause for Ellen to catch her breath, he went still, just studying her face for long moments as he traced her features with his fingers while his cock was hilted in her depths.
He gathered her close and twined his fingers with hers on the pillow. Knowing he’d already asked much of her, Val shifted to firm, measured thrusts. Beneath him, Ellen began to pant as her hips rose and fell in counterpoint to his.
“You too,” she got out, not yet having the sophistication to hold her pleasure at bay. She turned her face into his shoulder, and Val felt her teeth, not biting but pressed to his flesh in a hungry, silent scream.
“Ah, God… Ellen…” Val hilted himself against her and pushed hard repeatedly, spending in the depths of her body as his ears roared, his body shook, and his soul sang. The relief of it was tremendous, to not merely dally but to join. He thrust on and on, swamped by a transcending pleasure of not just the body but the heart, as well. And God bless the woman, she held him tightly through it all, even as his movements ceased and his world gradually righted itself.
“You won’t be able to breathe unless you let me go, love.” He kissed her temple. “I won’t go far, but you need a little room.”
Her hands unclenched, her legs slid down his flanks, and her body eased from his. He shifted up, maybe an inch, and immediately felt her cling more tightly.
“Not yet,” she said, pressing her face to his sternum.
Val went still and realized the unjoining was going to take as much forbearance and finesse as the joining had, particularly as he wanted nothing so much as to flop to his side, drag Ellen over him, and stay in that bed until Judgment Day.
Joinings, he corrected himself. Where he’d found the stamina to go on as he had was a mystery, as he’d never in all his years of dallying and swiving and carrying on been quite that virtuosic before. After weeks of abstinence, he should have been on a murderously short fuse, but with Ellen, the sheer pleasure of being inside her had been tremendous, and the pleasure of bringing her to fulfillment even greater.
Val’s own orgasm had come along as a rousing cadenza, a flourish at the end to dazzle and delight, but completely beside the point of the larger composition.
Ellen had been the point, and she still was.
“I’ll be back,” Val assured her, “but we’re going to leave a mess if I don’t bestir myself for a moment now.”
She went pliant in some indefinable way, letting him ease himself from her then from the bed. As he crossed her bedroom to a basin and pitcher on her hearth, his body felt looser, his skin more comfortable to be in than it had in weeks. He dipped a flannel, wrung it out, tended to himself, and dipped it again.
He sat on the edge of the bed, holding the dampened cloth in one hand as he tossed back the covers with the other. “Knees up, love.”
She lifted her knees, drawing in her breath as Val gently pushed them open and held the cloth against her most intimate parts. He watched as he did it, staring at her in frank appreciation as he first held the cloth against her then swiped at her in slow, careful strokes.
“You’re going to be sore. A soaking bath might help, but I do apologize.”
“Sore how?” Ellen asked, her gaze on his face as he refolded the cloth and placed it against her again.
“Here.” He reached over with his free hand and ruffled her pubic hair. “I am a greedy pig, and I belong in your hog wallow.”
“You are a tiger,” Ellen corrected him, pulling him down against her midriff. “Lovely, fierce, and not afraid to take what bounty you find before you. You belong in my bed.”
Her hands stroked through his hair, calming him, helping him adjust from passion to reality. But the leap was long and fraught, in part because Ellen had taken to lovemaking with stunning enthusiasm.
Lovemaking, with him. Val smiled against her stomach and crawled up her body to rest his cheek against her breast.
“Hold me,” he murmured against her breast. Her arms came around him, tentatively, as if she were just now considering he might feel the same need for comfort and cuddling she did.
She settled in to the embrace, spelling on his back again, and Val closed his eyes to picture the letters she made. Earlier, she’d been bold and naughty with her vocabulary. Now, she spelled his name, which pleased him. She spelled the whole thing, not just the conveniently brief “Val.” He let his mind drift toward slumber until he realized she was repeating a pattern on his back in the soft gray light of the rainy morning.
Like a finger exercise or a scale.
He focused, resisting the pull of sleep, and felt her fingers start the pattern over again: I-l-o-v-e-V-a-l-e-n-t-i-n-e-W-i-n-d-h-a-m.
He wanted to weep but held perfectly still, listening to her practice over and over again, until the rain on the roof, the gentle caress of her fingers, and the aftermath of passion conspired to lull him to sleep.
* * *
For the first time in her life, Ellen awoke in the arms of an intimate.
In the arms of her lover, she corrected herself, keeping her eyes closed the better to savor the sensations. Val’s chest was ranged along her back, his right arm draped casually over her waist, his legs tangled with hers. His left arm was tucked under her neck and splayed along the pillows.
She opened her eyes and peered at his left hand. “It looks improved to me,” she said, looking more closely. The thumb and index finger were still visibly discolored but not as swollen. The third finger looked almost normal.
Val flexed his fingers without moving any other body part. “It feels a little better, but then it should. Between wasting much of Thursday at Great Weldon and spending the weekend at Candlewick, that hand has seen a great deal of rest in the past five days. But perhaps”—Val’s voice dropped half an octave—“if you kiss it regularly, it might heal more quickly still.”
“Scandalous man.” Ellen wrapped her hand over his right forearm. “So tell me how we go about this.”
“About this?” Val placed a kiss on her nape and nuzzled her neck.
“This getting up, getting dressed, and going about our day, as if…” She trailed off, frowning at his hand.
“As if?”
When Ellen remained silent, he gently pushed her onto her back and peered down into her face. “As if?”
“As if we haven’t just misbehaved intimately.”
He cocked his head, his beautiful green eyes shuttering. “Are you going to castigate yourself and resent me now?”
“I am not ashamed. I am shy.”
His dark brows flew up and then down as his lips curved in a smile. “Shy. I am shy too, you know.”
“Shy you mi
ght be.” Ellen tried to roll back to her side. “You are not plagued by a great deal of modesty, though.”
“I am modest, for a man raised with four brothers. What are you really asking me?”
“I don’t know.” She subsided beneath him, not truly bothered by his show of… curiosity? Caring? With men, the two could be related. “I just don’t want… awkwardness. I find it amazing we’re here in this bed, not a stitch between us, and I can even look at your face without burning alive with mortification.”
“You amaze me too, in many ways. But tell me, do you think Axel and Abby Belmont don’t romp away the occasional morning? She’s expecting, and it’s no secret the child will not be born nine months after the wedding.”
“They anticipated their vows.” Ellen reached up to trace one of his perfectly arched dark brows with her finger. “It happens.” Then she had a disconcerting thought. “You said we’d take every reasonable precaution, Valentine. What precautions did we take?”
“You are not fertile for another few days.” He turned his cheek into her palm, so she felt the slight rasp of his beard. “Your menses started on Thursday, and thus you will likely not come in season for another few days. I would not have risked making love to you beyond tomorrow.”
She eyed him curiously. “How do you know this?”
“St. Just explained it to me when I was twelve, among other things. You are also not likely to conceive the week before your courses start, but there are those many women whose patterns do not fit the usual. There’s a name for them, in fact.”
Ellen’s lips pinched with disapproval. “What is this name?”
“Mothers.” Val grinned at her. “Or brides. Now, are you going to waste this entire day trying to locate your misgivings, or will you share an apple tart with a hungry tiger?”
Ellen smiled as he bit her neck playfully. “I do have misgivings.”
“I know, dear heart.” Val growled and teethed her shoulder this time. “But I’ve put them out in the springhouse where they will not trouble you as much. Did you know tigers are fond of apple tarts, particularly when consumed naked in bed?”
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