His voice darkened. “You will not refer to sex with me as your duty.”
I nodded against his chest. “I want to have sex with you. Right now, please.”
There was a moment of silence, and then a huff of laughter. “Isabel, you turn my world upside down. One moment you are as shy as a virgin, the next you are as bold as a pirate.”
“Sex is not a mystery to me,” I told him. “Just because I am not good at it does not mean I know nothing about what happens between most men and women.”
“Actually, that is reassuring.” He rubbed my back again. “I suspect we will not consummate our marriage until many hours from now.”
“Hours?” I didn’t mean to sound horrified, it just happened. I rested my forehead on his chest and released a shaky sigh, resigned to hours of this torture. “W-what should I do n-now?”
“Nothing,” he murmured. His arms wrapped around my waist and he pulled me closer. “Just let me hold you while you remind yourself that you can trust me.”
My body gradually relaxed the longer he held me. The odd feelings of safety and security that I’d always felt in his arms returned and proved an effective cure. Eventually. My tears dried, the trembling subsided. I rubbed my cheek against his shoulder and then I reluctantly lifted my head. I had barely looked up when he gave me another order. “Kiss me.”
I blinked once, and then obeyed. As usual, I became enthusiastic when he deepened the kiss, and then panicked when it deepened too far. That kiss ended much the same as the first, except the trembling was not as bad, and there were fewer tears.
I lost count of the number of times we repeated that routine. He would order me to kiss him, I would get excited again, I would begin to fall apart, and then he would stop and simply hold me. It was nearly dark outside my windows when I began to anticipate being held and petted afterward, and each kiss became a little more erotic, each touch a little more sensual.
My heart still beat too fast when the kisses went on too long, but I no longer felt the suffocating sense of panic. Faulke had accustomed me to being in his arms half naked, and to touching his bare skin as much as he touched mine. When he just held me, he actually made me feel safe.
He became bolder, his hands stroking my hips, and then my breasts. When he touched my breasts through the thin fabric of my chemise, I felt as if he had touched me with lightning. My hips pressed against his, and I heard myself moan. He took my hand and pressed it against the front of his pants.
“This is what you do to me, Isabel. You can arouse my body just by looking at me.” He pressed my hand more firmly against the warm, tight leather. “The feel of your hands on me gives me pleasure. Does it please you to touch me?”
I gave a distracted nod. His hand was on my breast, kneading, playing, sending fire streaking through me. He leaned down to kiss me again, and then his lips moved along my jaw, down my neck. He pushed my chemise off one shoulder until I felt the fabric slide away to expose my breast. His lips moved along the swell of my breast, and then brushed over my nipple once, twice, and then a gentle nip that made my knees tremble…perhaps in a good way. I didn’t have time to analyze the feeling before he began to suckle. My whole body felt as if it had caught fire. I fisted my hands in his hair as one of his arms wrapped around my waist to hold me in place while his hands and mouth taught me about pleasure. I made odd little sounds in the back of my throat when his fingers pinched on one side while his teeth bit down gently on the other, but it wasn’t exactly painful, and I had no control over the noises I made. I would have been embarrassed by the sounds, but he seemed to enjoy them. He laved away the small stings with his tongue, which made me want to bite him, or encourage him to bite me again. It felt good. It felt deliciously wicked.
The fact that all men seemed fascinated by women’s breasts was common knowledge, and even Hartman had shown some interest in the early days of our marriage, so I wasn’t surprised by Faulke’s preoccupation with mine. Each tug of his mouth made my loins clench, and I could feel a slick warmth between my legs that had never been there before.
Faulke finally lifted his head to look down at me, and then he wrapped his arms around me in another one of those comforting hugs. “Tell me how I made you feel when I was touching you.”
“It felt as if I had touched lightning.” It was starting to feel almost natural to be held in his arms, and to tell him things I would never admit to another soul. “My breasts ached, and sometimes it was almost painful, but that only made me ache in more places.”
“Tell me where,” he said, his voice suddenly hoarse.
“Between my legs,” I admitted. “I feel warm and wet there.”
This time it was his body that was wracked by a shudder. “Take off my pants. I want you to see what you do to my body.”
He would be naked. He wanted me to look at him when he was naked. I felt my own shudder, but I resolved to continue to play the part of obedient wife.
The laces at the front of his pants were impossibly tight. I fumbled with them so long that he finally made a sound of impatience and reached over to the trunk that held his weapons to grab a dagger. A moment later, the laces were cut away and the front of his pants gaped open. He gave an obvious sigh of relief. It must have been painful to keep that much hard, swollen flesh contained within the tight leather.
I had managed a few glances at Hartman’s sex in the past, but it had always looked pale and half limp. Framed by black leather, Faulke’s erection stood rigid against his belly, long and thick, and darker than the skin of his stomach. It twitched every once in a while as I studied him, and twitched harder when I licked my upper lip. When I bit my lower lip, his hand wrapped around his shaft to give himself a slow stroke. I don’t know why, but it was the most erotic thing I had ever seen.
“Do you see that drop of liquid?” he asked as he rubbed his thumb near a pearly bead at the tip of his cock. He stroked himself again when I nodded, and the pearl began to slide down his shaft. “That is my body weeping for yours. It wants to be inside of you. Some call these milky drops warriors milk, and it is a well-known aphrodisiac for women. It gives a woman power over a man. Sexual power.”
I gave him a dubious look, but he was staring at my mouth. My gaze dropped again to his sex, and I just knew what he would order next. Sometimes it was good to be wrong.
“One day you will kiss me there,” he said, holding himself toward me in a shameless offering.
I took a deep breath and imagined my lips pressed to the tip of his sex. I wondered what he would taste like. I might have licked my lips.
Faulke groaned and pulled my hand to his shaft, and then he encouraged me without words to explore. His skin was impossibly hot beneath my fingertips, and yet impossibly soft. I could not take my eyes from his sex, the way it throbbed almost constantly, as if it had a pulse of its own.
He gave a sharp tug on my braid and I looked up at his face. His thumbs rubbed into my shoulders harder than I think he realized, his gaze fastened on my mouth, and then he leaned forward to lick the seam of my lips before his mouth closed over mine in a rough kiss, his tongue thrusting into my mouth in the same rhythm his hips thrust against my belly. His urgency began to overwhelm me and I began to tremble again.
Before panic could take hold, his head dropped to my shoulder and he wrapped me in his arms while he took deep breaths. I calmed almost immediately, knowing he would give me the time I needed to soothe my fears.
I could admit it now, the fear that seized me whenever Hartman had announced his intention to bed me. Hartman had always bedded me in the midst of those bouts of fear. Now I knew there could be pleasure as well. A great deal of pleasure. Faulke would not plow into my rigid body just to do his duty and consummate our marriage. He wanted me soft and willing. Unlike Hartman, he knew how to make me soft and willing.
Faulke’s mouth closed over the pulse on my neck and he suc
kled a little until he ended the kiss with a gentle bite. I liked that, a lot. There was a growing list in my mind of things to ask him to do again in the future.
“I am imagining your mouth on me,” he growled. “The pleasure you will give me. We’ll have to try that. Soon.”
His bawdy words took a moment to register, and then they reignited the warmth in my own loins. A newfound sense of feminine power rippled through me, along with a sensual craving for him. I felt on edge and aroused. My body ached for his.
“I want to please you, master.” My submissive words actually made him shudder again. Playing the part of the obedient wife added to my power over him. The discovery made me smile. Feminine wiles might be more intriguing than I had ever imagined.
“Finish undressing me,” he said, his voice hoarse.
This time I obeyed without hesitation. The sight of his body no longer intimidated me, and I even purposely trailed my fingers across his shaft and hips as I set about my task. I knelt down to remove his slouch boots, and then I rose up on my knees before him to work the pants down his hips. His sex was directly in front of me, and I heard him suck in his breath when I leaned closer to push the backs of his pants down his legs. The size and shape of him fascinated me, his male body strangely foreign to me, and yet I wanted to know everything about him, the taste and feel of every part of his sex, how to please him. Even his scent aroused me. It seemed natural to rub my face against him like a kitten, so I did it before I could overthink my actions. His shaft was scorching hot against my cheek, and his reaction was somehow satisfying. He groaned and pulled me to my feet.
“Your boldness amazes me,” he said as he cupped my buttocks and pressed me against his arousal. He smiled down at me. “Kiss me again, Isabel.”
Of course I obeyed. He took control almost immediately, his kisses overpowering, smoldering, burning a trail to my shoulder as his hand tugged at the ribbon that laced my chemise. He used both hands to pull the gathered neckline apart until he could slide it down my shoulders.
My arms were trapped at my sides, my hands fisted, unable to touch him, which made me feel like some sort of pagan sacrifice. It was erotic and sensual, and yet I was starting to tremble like a leaf. It seemed impossible that I could be aroused and panicked at the same time, but I was. Faulke was so attuned to my body that he recognized the change in me immediately. He began to trail kisses upward across my chest, then my neck and cheek, and then a lingering kiss to my forehead before he tucked my head against his shoulders and wrapped his arms around me.
I buried my face against his neck and took deep breaths while he soothed and petted me, murmuring low, comforting words, nonsense about my boldness and bravery.
The words were sweetly spoken, but far from the truth. I was such a coward. But the refuge he offered was irresistible. My heartbeat and breathing began to slow as I relaxed in his arms. His patience was amazing. He acted as if it would not bother him to spend the rest of his life in these endless rounds of arousal, panic, and comforting. However, I knew he had a very specific goal in mind, and it seemed he had a will of iron to reach that goal.
“I’m going to finish taking off your chemise,” he said without moving. My body stiffened. “Hush. I am just going to hold you afterward, exactly as I am holding you right now. And that chemise is so thin that it can hardly be called a garment. It does not hide much.”
I felt him tug at the fabric, and then the garment pooled around my feet. Just as my breath began to come in gasps, his arms wrapped around me and I burrowed into the comforting safety of his embrace. I could feel his shaft burn against my bare belly like a brand, but he just held me as he had promised, his hand smoothing up and down the line of my back, calming me as he had at least a score of times already. The trembling began to subside again.
“The spells are not lasting as long,” he said, his hands still moving in soothing motions. “You are doing better than I had hoped. You are very brave, Isabel.”
Spells. That was a good word for what happened to me, for the unreasonable fear that assailed me. His patience humbled me. “I am a coward.”
His hand cupped the back of my head and he pressed me closer. “You are a lion, a Plantagenet lion. Do not doubt me.”
“Forgive me,” I said, meaning to sound flippant and failing.
“Who are you asking to forgive you?” he said. It took me a minute to figure out what he meant.
“Forgive me, master,” I said.
Despite my trembling, I managed to smile against his shoulder when his sex swelled against me. I liked the physical proofs of his attraction to me. It was a balm for all the years that Hartman had hurt me while he made me feel unwanted and undesirable.
There was no possible doubt that Faulke wanted me physically, and his tenderness showed that he also cared for me in some measure. He handled me as if I were some sort of breakable treasure. Come to think of it, I was broken. Faulke was fixing me.
Everything was so new and different with him that I knew—at least, I hoped—that sex with him would be just as new and different, rather than the endurance of discomfort and shame that I had come to expect. Already he made me feel proud of the way his body responded to me, and I had never known that I could react to a man the way I did to Faulke. The emotions were all so new and raw that I had trouble sorting them out in my head, but then the “spells” would strike and my whole body would shut down. Except for the shaking.
The way he held and comforted me through each of the spells made me feel humbled and treasured at the same time. And the edge of arousal never quite left me. I knew he would continue his assault on my senses as soon as I recovered. Each time the trembling subsided, I began to anticipate what would happen next.
“I am going to step back and look at your body,” he warned, “and I know the sight of you is going to arouse me even more. Indeed, I suspect we will soon move to the bed, although I will stop and hold you whenever you have another spell. Even though I might not act like I want to stop, do exactly as I say.”
I nodded against his shoulder, even as he began to move away from me. He would stop if I started to shake again. I closed my eyes and clenched my fists at my sides, willing myself to remain as still as possible.
“Look at me,” he ordered. “See what the sight of your beautiful body does to me.”
I opened my eyes. In all honesty, his body looked much the same as it had before. He was still rampantly aroused, and his sex jerked against his belly as I looked at him.
“Get into bed and lie on top of the quilts.” His voice was a little hoarse. He held up one hand when I turned to walk away from him. “Walk slowly. I want to watch you.”
I slowed my pace, but I could not slow my pulse. This was it. We were finally going to have sex, and prove once and for all if I were capable of enjoying it. I lay down on the bed and stared at the sea of white stars sewn into the pink fabric of the canopy above me. Faulke would not hurt me. He had promised.
I felt the mattress give, and then Faulke was beside me. He gathered me into his arms again.
“Shh,” he murmured as he tucked my head against his shoulder. “You are a brave, beautiful woman, Isabel. You should never be afraid of anything we do together.”
I heard the ring of truth in his voice. He believed what he was saying. My mind knew it, but it still took time for the tremors to subside and my body to grow calm again. The soothing motions of his hands became more sensual. He turned me so that I lay on my back again while he stayed on his side, his head propped on one hand to look down at me.
“You have the most intriguing curves,” he said. His fingers skimmed one side of my breast, then my waist, and then my hip. They trailed down to my knee, and then made the return trip again. He touched my lips with the pads of his fingers, and then dragged them over my chin, along my neck and down the center of my chest. “Your body was made for me, my beautiful li
oness. Every time you become aroused, your body is trying to tell you that even greater pleasures await.”
He leaned down to kiss me, his lips feather light as they brushed across mine, his touch tender as his hand cupped my breast. My hands fisted in the quilt when he licked a sensual line down to my belly button, and then flicked his tongue into the indentation until my hips lifted off the bed.
He put one hand on my hip to hold me in place and sat up beside me. His gaze never left mine as he swung one leg over mine, and then he straddled my hips. His weight rested on the back of his heels, and the position spread his legs apart to fully expose his sex to me. He captured my hands and pressed my palms to the tops of his thighs.
“No touching,” he said in a strained voice. “I am just going to sit here for a while and look at you. I want you to be comfortable being naked in front of me, because I will always want you to be naked in our bed.”
I knew a blush stained my cheeks, and probably my chest as well, but I felt no sense of shyness, no maidenly urge to cover myself from his sight. He was the only man who had expressed any interest or pleasure in seeing me naked. I was proud of the fact that the sight of my body could arouse him. My palms smoothed along his thighs and I shifted restlessly beneath him. He drew a deep, shuddering breath.
“No moving. You will keep your hands on my thighs until I tell you otherwise.” His hands encircled my waist, and then he pushed his hands upward until his thumbs were just beneath my breasts, his big hands spread out to span my ribs. “Just the sight of you arouses me so much…I need to distract myself.”
His hands moved upward to cup my breasts. My hips bucked up and my breath caught in my throat. He shifted his position to rest more of his weight on me, pinning my hips to the mattress until their rhythmic thrusts met an unmovable wall of resistance and I was forced to be motionless. Only then did his hands continue their carnal assault, pulling, tugging, twisting.
“Does that feel good, Isabel?”
I managed to nod.
The Princess Page 19
