It was so romantic, she began to kiss him wherever she could reach him. His granite neck, his salty jaw, the fragrant patch of hair at the neck of his tunic.
They mounted stairs, he expending so little effort carrying her, it felt as if she were flying through the air cocooned in a cloud. Before she knew it, he had her inside a quiet, candlelit chamber and was kicking the door shut behind them.
His chamber? Aye, it was his chamber. They must have climbed the outer stairs to the little balcony.
He lowered her along his body, staring hotly at her face.
His hair had grown some since he’d first arrived at Shyleburgh, and it rioted in raven swirls about his head. The woodsy green of his eyes had turned nearly black. Sweet St. Hilda, he was so handsome to look upon. And he was all hers.
At least for the moment.
He reached toward her, skimming the backs of his fingers over her upper chest, his warm knuckles grazing her flesh. His gaze was anchored lower, where the points of her breasts poked against her bodice. Her skin flared with heat as his fingers hooked into the top of her gown. She covered his hand with hers.
He seemed…different, somehow. More intense. Or was that her imagination? A quiver traced up her spine. Did she like the feral, barely controlled look in his eyes? Or was she frightened?
She closed her eyes. Nay. Grégoire wasn’t an animal, or a bully. This was a man who had always shown discipline and restraint.
Remember the bathhouse. What he’d done there had been only pleasurable, not painful.
“Brigitte?” he said, staring at his fingers hooked in her gown. “Do you want this?” His eyes met hers, glinting obsidian.
She nodded slowly. His fingers uncurled over her breast.
“This may be the last time I can say it, so… If at any moment you wish to stop whatever we’re doing, tell me. Don’t mince words. I want to show you what can be, but if you change your mind, ’tis your choice.”
“I understand. Thank you.”
Once more, he lifted her in his arms. She had the vague notion that her feet might never again have to carry her anywhere. Or wouldn’t, if only he rightly belonged to her.
“I am warning you now,” he ground out, walking with her in his arms. She felt that most masculine part of him pressing up, against her bottom. “I will go as slowly and carefully as I can, but I cannot promise gentleness.”
She gulped. “Very well.”
“I am a lusty man and won’t be content with strolling through your orchard talking.”
“Did I say that’s what I want? Nay, I want you, the way you are.”
He laid her upon the bed, atop the sheared lamb coverlet, following her down, kissing her jaw, her ear, her neck. She loved how he liked to nibble where her hair ended and her neck began. Hot little needles of pleasure pricked her all over.
He stopped and brought his head up. “Why do you giggle?”
She squirmed. “You are tickling me.”
“Alas. I don’t wish to tickle you. I wish to ravish you.”
She sobered. “Then do so, my lord.”
With a groan, he buried his face in her cleavage, and instantly her desire soared. He felt hot, his mouth eager and damp, and his cheeks scratchy with whiskers. With his face, he nudged her breast out of the bodice and before she had a chance to anticipate what was coming, he’d claimed her nipple with his lips.
How the arrows pierced her heart one after the other!
Again, he stopped and looked down at her. “Did I hurt you? You cried out.”
“Did I?” She gave him a sultry smile. “Nay, it didn’t hurt.”
“Pleased to hear it.”
He put his mouth to her nipple again and tortured her. He tried to burrow lower on her body, but the gown was in his way.
He reared back with a frustrated huff. “We must take this off.”
With his help, she stood beside the bed, he seated behind her. He attempted to untie the laces of her gown.
She heard him curse as something ripped.
“Forgive me,” he said. “’Tis a lovely gown, but I must.” With his hands, he rent the outer garment open.
His hands then slid over her linen chemise and around her waist to rest atop her hips. He tightened his grip there for a moment before his palms skimmed downward along her outer thighs, then back up over her buttocks.
His touch lit exquisite fires inside her…and one roaring conflagration low in her belly. His fingers dipped into her cleft, pushing her chemise inward.
A shiver wracked her. “Are you going to take me now?” she whispered.
“Now? From back here? It has possibility. But as much as I adore your magnificent bottom, I won’t take you the first time that way. It would be too hard for you.”
“H-How many times are you going to take me…exactly?” His voice this time sounded harsh as he said, “As many times as I wish,” giving her a little thrill of trepidation. To have him slake his hunger upon her body… The thought made her lightheaded.
He stood and began to remove her clothing. Piece by torn piece, he uncovered her. When only her thin linen shift remained to shield her, he guided her back onto the bed.
He made love to her with his hands and mouth. He did so over the shift at first, leaving the linen cloth damp…and no place unexplored. He seemed to enjoy pushing her clothing up slowly from her ankles. Inch by inch, her calves, her thighs, her belly were revealed to his greedy eyes and tongue.
Everywhere he kissed and licked her, like a wild creature. When he finally settled upon the region between her thighs, she couldn’t believe he wanted to visit there again. But he understood the darkness of the flesh and how to travel through it. He had the map.
His tongue stroked wickedly. Her hips rose off the bed.
“You liked when I did this in the bathhouse,” he murmured. She felt his hot breath on her.
“I did,” she breathed.
“Shall we see if you like it again?”
Shall we? She’d been dreaming about this ever since.
“You’d better!”
With a devilish chuckle, his mouth took her again. The pleasure stung deep; her thighs grew taut. She clutched the bedding, or his shoulders, or both, and her mind grew hazy, her eyelids languid.
She tried to hold off, to make it last, but he was too insistent. His lips and tongue sent her right over the edge. She broke, giving in, and her hoarse cry went on and on as she writhed upon the air.
It had happened again, that glorious cataclysm of the flesh, and she could scarcely believe it.
Afterward, he held her tight in his arms and soothed her.
“Remember, woman, ’twas I who made you smile like this.”
She forced her eyes open and tried to turn it to a frown for his arrogance. But it was no use. She felt too good.
He was stripping out of his clothing. He wasn’t through with her. Happily, she let her eyes drift closed.
His boots dropped to the floor. “Mignonne,” he said. “Look at me.”
She managed to raise herself to her elbows. Her gaze went to the man beside the bed. He wrenched his costly tunic over his head and then the loose shirt beneath it, revealing his powerful shoulders and vast, muscled chest, and his taut abdomen. Dark hair swirled over his torso, like brushstrokes of ink on hide. But what she waited upon was the uncovering of the intriguing, all-male bulge in his leggings. It frightened her and titillated her at the same time.
He peeled off the leggings.
His thick pommel jutted free, as rigid and demanding as the rest of his lean, rippling body. It strained toward her, a living thing, and she glanced nervously up to his face. Heat glittered in his eyes, which had gone black as night, but the trace of a smile on his lips reassured her.
“Tell me you want this. I can’t wait much longer.”
Her attention dropped to the hands he fisted at his sides, then to his groin once more. A drop of liquid glistened at the tip.
“I want this.”
&nbs
p; How could she not? He was everything she’d ever dreamed of and never expected to have. Handsome, strong, kind, and attentive. She wanted this, if only one time, before she committed herself to celibacy forever.
Moreover, now that she had gone twice over passion’s crest, she no longer feared it. She welcomed it. It was something she could control to a far greater extent than she’d ever believed possible.
He slowly lowered himself back to the mattress, stretching out beside her. He leaned in to lavish a slow, swirling kiss on her mouth and didn’t stop kissing her until she was breathless once more. When he withdrew, he gazed down into her eyes. Such warmth and tenderness lingered in his look, her heart turned over with an audible thump. She would do anything for this man. Anything!
His warm hand caressed her thigh and gently spread her legs apart. With a thumb, he began again to stroke her where her body was so different from his, slowly drawing forth moisture. He pushed a finger into her very center, up and into her, invading her, and then a second finger alongside it. The strange sensation drove her up the mattress.
“Be calm,” he said gruffly. “This will soothe your passage.” He kept his fingers still for a moment, and then withdrew them.
“Raise your knees.” He levered himself over her, between her thighs, his upper body supported by his arms at either side of her.
She felt the head of his maleness rub over her mons, just out of reach from that exquisite spot that loved to be stroked. A moan rasped out of him.
Instinctively, she bumped her hips upward to bring them together—his firm pommel and her quivering nib of desire. Instead, she was so slick, his tip plunged down into her cleft.
She gasped.
He cried out, clenched his jaw, his arms straining. She sensed something in him surrender, and he pushed down. Then he was separating her flesh, breaching the entrance his fingers had prepared but moments ago.
Her entire lower body stiffened of its own accord.
“Nay,” he breathed, gritting his teeth. “Open. Open wide and let me in.”
She wanted this. She needed this, as much as she needed food to nourish and water to quench. She relaxed her muscles a little, and his flesh moved farther in. And farther still.
A brief sensation of being cleaved in two struck as her passage stretched to receive him.
He thrust once, hard, piercing her, and settled his hips to hers.
“Fare you well?” he asked tensely against her ear before planting a tight kiss on her temple.
Quashed beneath him, she grappled to clasp her halves together. She’d had no idea it would be like this. So…splitting.
His arms trembled, and she realized it was from the strain of holding himself back. His voice came harsh, halting. “Let me know…when I can…move.”
He would remove himself, just like that?
“Now,” she rasped. “Is fine.”
He moved. His hips retreated, and she felt her drenched flesh cling to his rod even as she was ready for him to depart. However, he never left her completely. He slid right back in. The discomfort of feeling pierced remained, like a bruise deep inside her body.
“I thought you were leaving,” she whispered.
“There’s more.” He crushed his hips to hers, grinding deeply. Slowly.
Her gut tightened, then unfurled. The wounded feeling inside her dissolved into a mere swirl of sensation. “M-More?”
“Aye… ’Tis my turn to go over that cliff.”
“Oh. Of course.” Like nothing before, she wanted to see him lose control and experience the blissful pleasure, as she had. She desperately wanted to give him that with her body.
“But I want…” He paused to groan, a cavernous, mindless groan, as he backed out once more and reentered her. “I need—”
He failed to finish his demand, as if his swelling to even greater proportions inside her distracted him. Despite the rawness between her legs, a tingle of anticipation renewed itself in her heart.
He seemed determined to use his instrument for giving pleasure as well as gaining, the way his hands and mouth had done. With a deliberate twist of the hips, he ground himself against her, tugging a pulsing answer from her loins. He pulled all the way out and reentered slowly, delving past the faded bruised sensation, deep, and deeper still, until none of it remained.
After that, his motions accelerated.
To please him, she tried to mirror what he did, to clench and unclench her inner muscles and roll her hips upward.
But he wanted control. “Nay,” he said, groaning with the effort. “Let me.”
So, she let herself go, and accepted his tender battering. Like the molten iron receives the hammer and alters into something else, she burst inside and crumbled apart, letting cry upon sigh expose her inner self as never before.
At her surrender, the virile part of him transformed to a blade of steel. With a hard lunge, he arched back, his body a rigid stake, and bellowed to the heavens.
And she wept with joy as he found his pleasure within her.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Damnation!
He’d tried to withdraw. Grégoire had tried so blazing hard to expel his seed outside of her. What had happened? He’d never lost control like that before.
He lay awake in the dark, cursing his greedy, weak soul. What if he’d given her a child?
Good God. She couldn’t go to the convent pregnant.
She would have to stay here.
With him.
But alas, it would be months ere they knew if she would bear his child, and Michaelmas was but a few days hence.
As was his wedding.
He stared up into the darkness, heavenward, for a long time. Seeking counsel. But he already knew what he must do.
He must wed Bridget.
It was the only honorable option.
He’d have to talk to Aislinn first, make things right with her. And with her father, too. He would throw himself on their mercy. If that didn’t work, he would simply demand that Bridget wed him. He was the earl. They must obey his command.
The contract would need to be altered and the king informed. His highness’s indulgence begged. Mayhap, his royal favor lost.
For this woman, this sweet, trusting woman in his arms, Grégoire would risk anything.
He looked down. She slept soundly in his arms with her back to him, a warm, damp bundle against him. She’d been so different tonight in that gorgeous gown, her hair flowing free, rippling in the flame light. She’d listened intently to everything he’d said, laughed at all his jests. It was as if they had been dear friends for years.
Though, she wasn’t merely a friend, by any means. What he felt for her was nothing like he felt for his male companions.
So, just what was it he felt for her? Lust certainly. And, aye, friendship. What more? He didn’t know. He’d never felt this way before.
He inhaled deeply of her scent, their mingled scents, and began to ache for her again. He hadn’t ached for a woman like this since he’d wed Elisse as a green lad.
Strange. The recollection of that name, and of what his late wife had done to him, failed to bring on the familiar stab-like ache.
Was it over, then? All his wishing to undo what had happened? All the craving to make a woman love—and stay—with him?
Aye. He’d found the balm, and it lay nestled in his embrace.
His cock, quickly rousing, lodged along the furrow of her backside.
Once, twice, he stroked himself against that deep, damp cleavage, utterly unable to make himself cease.
She made a sleepy, murmuring sound, and curled farther into the bedclothes he had drawn over them. He imagined taking her from behind, sliding into her drowsy warmth, coaxing her to brilliant wakefulness.
And as a man who aimed for results, when he envisioned a thing, he always accomplished it. But they weren’t wed yet.
What the hell. The deed was done. He’d make it right in the morning.
He slid his palms over her
creamy flesh, wondering at the bliss of just touching her, but anxious for physical satisfaction. He found the cool globes of her breasts and their crowning peaks. His fingers played on their nipples, cajoling them into tight, hard pearls. Before long, he had provoked those soft, mewling cries from her that spurred his fervor to such urgency every time he heard them.
Her bottom surged against his groin. Gently, he urged her onto her stomach, and then he rose behind her. He drew her to her knees, spread her wide with his hands, and eased in slowly, holding back, savoring. Her slick, tight passage swallowed him.
Without a single word, only his cock inside her and his hands squeezing her cheeks, he elicited her participation in his pleasure. She writhed and undulated, soft and pliable beneath him.
He began to pump, his taut abdomen slapping against her shivering flesh. When her breathing became soft groans into the mattress, when her muscles swayed and rippled round his cock, he felt himself grow harder yet, like a granite wedge, and he stabbed into her. The pleasure was so intense, white lights blazed before his eyes.
She arched her spine, her face rising off the mattress and her body tightening into the sweetest vise he had ever known. He sprayed his life into her once more.
Throughout the long hours of the night, she responded to his every advance with a supple eagerness, a welcome that simply sucked him in until, even on the verge of climax, he was already looking forward to the next time he would take her.
One night in her arms had conquered him utterly, and he knew for certain, one night would never be enough.
Chapter Thirty-Five
It had been like a dream, a wonderful, shimmering dream.
Bridget lay awake in the first light of dawn, utterly relaxed and boneless, watching Grégoire sleep. In repose, his face looked youthful, despite the shadow of whiskers. His lips rested, as curved, full, and seductive as ever. His eyebrows lay like dashes of thick velvet, and his lashes, dear Lord, they were as dark and lush as bumblebee fur.
Come to Me Page 20
