“I could not hear your answer,” he prompted.
“Aye, it feels good,” I gasped.
“Then open your eyes and look at me, know who it is that gives you pleasure.”
I opened my eyes and forced myself to look into his eyes.
“Are you wet for me, Isabel?”
I could feel the slick heat between my legs, even on the insides of my thighs. “Aye…master.”
His groan was low and sensual. “You must prove it to me, or I will find out for myself.”
My wrists were suddenly pinned to the mattress above my head, and his body was stretched out on top of mine. He held both wrists with one hand while the other trailed down my body. His knees moved between mine, holding my legs open. He began to pet me, and then his fingers parted me, and he discovered for himself how much I was aroused.
“Do you want me?” he asked as he thrust one finger inside me.
“Yes,” I managed.
“Yes, what?” he demanded, cocking his head slightly as if to better hear my answer.
“Yes, master.” I could barely comprehend his words, but I would say anything at that point if he would just do something. Anything. I needed him. He needed to do something to ease the terrible ache and longing and pleasure and pressure.
I thought he would hold me again until I calmed down, and I groaned in frustration when he shifted his weight. My breath caught in my throat when he thrust into me with one powerful stroke. My entire body rose off the bed to meet him. This time I was the one who made incoherent animal noises, growly sounds I hadn’t even realized were possible. He held himself perfectly still, buried deep within me, and I could feel every pulsing sensation of our bodies as we adjusted to each other. Incredibly, I could feel him swell inside of me.
He released a harsh noise, and then he thrust once and held himself still above me.
“Do you still want me?” he said.
I lifted my hips.
“Answer me,” he said in a harsh voice as his hips pinned me to the bed.
I tried to thrust my hips upward again. “Aye, I want you, master.”
“Open your eyes. Watch what you do to me.”
I met his gaze and he began to thrust with slow strokes that inflamed my already sensitized sheath. Something was building inside me, anticipation and pleasure, something that felt right and yet something so unfamiliar that it frightened me.
He watched the emotions play across my face and somehow knew just when I started to panic. “Let go, my love. I’ll keep you safe.”
His words set off a wave of explosions that made me see stars. I thought I was dying. I thought I was fully alive for the first time ever. My body began to milk his in waves. I was just aware enough that I could see the effect on him. It looked painful, and yet I didn’t care. My body didn’t care, it just kept rhythmically clamping down on him as reason gradually returned.
His gaze had never left mine throughout that adventure, and his lips twisted into a grin of smug satisfaction, erased when an especially strong ripple went through my body and pulled on his, in the aftermath of whatever had just happened. He propped himself up on one elbow and his hand gripped the back of my neck, while his other hand pinned my hip to the mattress as he thrust into my body. And then he pulled himself all of the way out, and then thrust into me again so hard that I would have been pushed into the headboard if he hadn’t been holding me in place. The friction on all of my sensitized nerves almost sent me over the edge again. It was…amazing.
His gaze locked with mine, a glimpse of male satisfaction in his eyes when he watched my reaction to his thrusts, or when I made a sound that particularly pleased him.
Soon I began to crave it, being pinned and helpless to do anything but receive him, to submit to his complete domination.
The last time he buried himself completely he did not withdraw, but instead pushed against me harder, as if he could somehow get deeper within my body. With one last stroke, he threw his head back and actually roared, a lion announcing to every other male in the forest that he had claimed his mate.
The feel of Faulke coming inside me defied description. The sensation of his hot seed spurting against my womb set off another explosion inside of me, and I could feel my body suckle his to draw out every last drop from his loins. I couldn’t catch my breath, or control what my body was doing to his in any way. His forehead dropped to mine, and then he collapsed on top of me. My arms were tucked beneath his, wrapped around as much of his chest as I could hold. My legs encircled his waist, and I locked my ankles together, some instinctive drive that told me to hold him to me, inside me where he belonged. We were magnets again.
I reveled in the feel of his dead weight on top of me, the waves that continued to roll through my body and his in the aftermath of pleasure, and then began to gradually diminish. I had never experienced anything like it, and I wanted to commit each feeling to memory so I could recall every moment of this experience in the future. And then it became difficult to breathe.
I began to take short little breaths, panting almost, to get just enough air into my lungs to keep from fainting. He finally stirred and shifted just enough to nuzzle my neck, his beard leaving a satisfying burn in its wake. It stung enough that I knew it would leave a mark, and I was glad. I wanted everyone to know he had marked me, that he had claimed me. He had awakened a lioness inside of me, and I wanted my mate in every primitive way possible. Shockingly erotic images drifted through my head; shocking because they were all things we had just talked about or done, things I had never considered, and, in some cases, had never known were possible.
It had been six years since I last had sex, almost one fourth of my lifetime. But I had never had the kind of sex we just experienced. Every muscle in my body felt either soothed or sore or overly sensitive, and all in a good way. I never wanted to leave our bed. I never wanted him to leave my body. He rolled onto his back to take his weight off me, but he pulled me with him to stay sheathed within me. I lay sprawled across him like well-fed puppy. A sudden wave of exhaustion washed over me and I tried to stifle a yawn.
“Go to sleep now,” he murmured in my ear.
Being a properly submissive wife, I obeyed.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Uncharted Waters
Two days later, we still hadn’t left the sanctuary of my apartments. Faulke had managed to keep everyone at bay, except the servants who brought food, water, and an occasional bath. We had already broken our fast this morning, and his hunger had been satiated in every possible way. He continued to pick through some of the leftover food while watching me bathe before the fireplace in the solar. Seated in my armchair with his leg crossed at the knee, he looked every inch the lord of the manor. He even had a lecherous look in his eyes as he watched me.
It was these quiet times together that I liked best, when we talked about things that were inconsequential and important at the same time, stories from our pasts about the people, places, and things that had been important to us, funny or poignant stories about people we had known, and I quizzed him endlessly about his daughters. I could not wait to make them a bigger part of my life. It was a glorious time. I treasured each moment, because I knew these idyllic moments out of time could not last.
I knew that in my mind, but my heart and body pretended that we would stay in this cocoon of carnal delights for the rest of our lives. My life had changed completely, and I was in no great hurry to return to ugly realities.
“I want you to bathe me tomorrow,” he announced. His gaze followed the cloth as I drew it down my arm and then back up again. The movement was brisk and efficient, but his eyes said he was getting aroused just by watching me bathe. I slowed my movements to let him savor the moment.
“Perhaps this evening,” he said. I lifted one foot in the air, above the waterline, and washed my leg with long, slow strokes. “Nay, when you are done with you
r bath.”
The thought of bathing him, of touching every inch of him, was more erotic than it should be at this point. My body was sore from the unaccustomed workouts, and there were bite marks and bruises in the most intimate places. I looked down at one of the marks on my breast, and, once again, my lips curved into a satisfied smile. I don’t know why his marks made me smile, but every time I looked at them I felt an equal measure of satisfaction and arousal. He had marked me. I was his.
Still, I was grateful that they were not yet put on full display to others. My ladies would be scandalized. Well, Gretchen would be shocked. Hilda would probably offer her congratulations. They would see the marks eventually, but for now, I liked keeping every part of our time together private.
“Wash your leg again.”
I raised my brows at the tone of his voice, but he just raised his brows in answer. The agreement we had come to our first night had undergone a few slight modifications the past two days. I still required some extra care between the kissing parts and the actual beddings, but we both realized early on that it worked best if he was in charge. His promise remained, that he would defer to me when we were in front of others, but when we were alone, I was his to command.
I lifted my leg out of the water again and repeated the slow strokes. He licked his lips. He actually licked his lips. I felt like the most powerful woman on the planet. I might have giggled.
“You will not laugh at your master.” He frowned at me, and then his frown deepened. “Unless I am making a jest. Then you can…”
His voice drifted away as I put my leg straight up, and slowly drew the cloth down. “You were saying?”
“I didn’t realize I had marked your thigh.” He nodded toward the limb I still had in the air, and then made a gesture that encompassed all of me. “Did I hurt you, kitten?”
Faulke had started to call me that ridiculous nickname when he decided the sounds I made during lovemaking were more kittenish than lionlike. I felt another one of those secretive smiles curve my lips. “Did I complain?”
A rap at the door made us both frown. Faulke tightened the tie to his robe as he went to the door to investigate. No one would disturb us unless it was an emergency. Faulke had a short conversation with the guards, then closed the door and returned to the table. He carried a scroll that bore my father’s seal, which he broke before spreading the parchment across the table. I glanced toward the door that led to the hallway to make certain it was barred again, and then I got out of the bath to dry off and put on my own robe while he began to read the message.
I crossed the room to resume my seat at the table across from him rather than read the message over his shoulder. He glanced up briefly, and kept reading. He didn’t look happy.
I folded my hands in my lap and waited.
“Your father wants my word, in writing, before witnesses, that the marriage is true,” he said at last.
“That is not unexpected news,” I said, wondering why that would make him scowl.
“There is more,” he said, and the tone of his voice said that this would be the bad news. “Your former father-in-law, King Rudolph, is dead.”
“God rest his soul,” I said automatically as I crossed myself. “I had heard he was ill before I left Rheinbaden, but I didn’t realize it was so serious. Do they suspect foul play?”
“Nay,” Faulke said, “but there is no specific mention of how he died.”
I nodded, and then realized that his frown was still just as fierce. In fact, he almost looked apprehensive. “What is it?”
“An ambassador from Rheinbaden will dock in London within the next few days. They sent a messenger ahead of their party with a petition and to request an audience with your father. King Edward wants you at court when the ambassador arrives.”
“And?” I prompted when he pressed his lips together and looked angry.
“There is no easy way to tell you.” He smoothed out the end of the parchment and began to read again. “Albert, the new king, intends to recall all of your people to Rheinbaden. Soldiers and servants alike are required to return on the ambassador’s ship. You, of course, are exempt from that edict, and any females who may have already wed Englishmen. If any of your male soldiers or servants have taken English brides, they are to accompany them to Rheinbaden, or be left behind.”
I sat in stunned silence. Gretchen, Hilda, Gerhardt…My people, everyone I knew and who knew me, taken away with the stroke of a pen half a world away. “W-why?”
“The message doesn’t say.” He shook his head.
“Albert,” I whispered. “He doesn’t like me. I was told he objected to me taking so many of his father’s subjects to England, but I never thought he would recall them all.”
“King Edward wants us both to deliver the witnessed testimony of our marriage to the Tower by the watch change this afternoon,” he went on, almost apologetically. “Your father wants to meet with you before he grants an audience to Count Otto.”
The name sent an icy finger of dread down my spine. I looked at my husband as realization washed over me. I would not have Faulke for much longer, either.
“Isabel?” He gave me a sharp look. “What did I say?”
I shook my head. “Albert sent Otto of Tyrol. Otto despises me, and he is…unpleasant.”
I didn’t add that Otto was also Maria’s uncle, which made him a granduncle of Hartman’s children by her, and their legal ward after Hartman’s death. And now Otto was in England. I could almost feel the trap closing over me.
“Otto of Tyrol.” Faulke narrowed his eyes. “Didn’t you say the man who tried to attack you was from Tyrol?”
“He is Leopold’s father,” I admitted, and then shook my head. “Count Otto has never physically hurt me, but even before Leopold came to Grunental, he wanted my marriage to Hartman annulled and me sent back to England.”
As Faulke stared at me, I could see the anger build as thoughts went through his mind. His voice was tight. “Why would King Albert send him here, knowing there is bad blood between you?”
“I…I am not well liked in Rheinbaden.”
“Hm.” His gaze never left my face as he rubbed his chin. “What are you not telling me?”
Ach. He knew me too well already.
Soon there would be no secrets between us. Otto would find some way to ruin everything. Perhaps that was his reason for coming to England.
I could tell Faulke about Maria, here, while we were alone, or in public, before the king. Waiting until we were with the king was the wrong choice. I knew that, but I didn’t want to destroy the illusion.
Not now. Not so soon.
I looked at him and got lost in his eyes. It was the last time he would look at me this way. When I admitted this last secret, Faulke would despise me. I would truly be a stranger in a strange land. Realization began to dawn that I would soon be abandoned. Again.
Whatever he saw in my face alarmed him. “What is it, my love?”
Everything inside of me stilled.
It was simply a lover’s endearment, I told myself, one that he had used with increasing frequency in the past few days. Likely he called all of his women “my love.” Still, it made a thousand butterflies take flight in my stomach.
What I felt for Faulke was unlike anything I had ever felt for anyone or anything. Ever. It was as if all of my love and passion had lain dormant inside me, just waiting for this moment and this man to set it free.
The intimacies we had shared were amazing. Embarrassing, at first, but Faulke had a way of making everything we did feel normal and natural. Well, normal and natural for things that felt amazing. He made me feel as if we had been created for each other’s pleasure. I had never felt so treasured in my life.
Those feelings made it ridiculously easy to convince myself of dangerous notions, and to pretend that this marriage was somet
hing it was not. Every time he opened his arms to me, I pretended that Faulke Segrave was the love of my life. The way he looked at me, the things he said, his patience and kindness, all contributed to the illusion that this was real, that he cared for me, that at last someone loved me.
But I was no longer a naive child, foolish enough to think he felt anything close to what I deceived myself into thinking we both felt.
He got up and moved around the table, then pulled me up to wrap his arms around me. It reminded me of all the hours he had already spent just holding me, waiting for my bouts of panic to subside.
“Tell me what is wrong with you,” he demanded.
“N-nothing.” The denial would have been more convincing without the little sob in the middle.
He took my chin in his hand and waited until I met his gaze. The longer we stared at each other, the more my eyes filled with tears. He began to look alarmed. “Tell me what is wrong and I will fix it.”
Ach. He was breaking my heart. I threw my arms around his neck and clung to him as I began to cry in earnest, great wracking, uncontrollable sobs that came from somewhere deep inside me that I didn’t know existed. But I knew what was wrong. I clung to him as if I could keep us both safe from my secrets, simply by holding on to him.
When the sobs slowed down, he tried to comfort me.
“Hush, my love. Stop crying.”
His words only made me cry harder. “S-stop calling me that.”
“Calling you what?” he asked, his expression baffled.
“Your love,” I whispered. “There is no need to humor me.”
“Isabel—” Whatever he saw on my face made him press his lips together, likely the tears. I could almost see his mind working as he stared down at me. “I have never been good at coming up with words of my own,” he said, “spoken in just the right way at just the right time.”
“I…see.”
“I want you to keep that in mind when I tell you that I use endearments only when I mean them.” He watched me carefully as what he said sank in. I might have looked suspicious. “We both have admitted that the other was not what we expected when we met. You are so much more than what I imagined. You are my love as well as my wife. I want to slay dragons for you.”
The Princess Page 20
