The Marriage Bed (The Medieval Knights Series) (28 page)

She jerked upright, pulling her mouth from his. Naturally, it had been nothing like; he had learned such tender arts from Bertrada, the instructor of all.

"I do not want to kiss you," she said, opening her eyes to impale him with her rejection.

Richard jerked upright at the words and stared into her crystal eyes. He understood. Sharp were his own words thrown back at him in such a moment. Sharp must have been her pain, an untutored virgin, upon hearing them on her marriage bed.

Yet he would not stop. He would not take her unready again. But he would take her.

His hands stroked her breasts, their eyes locked in silent battle while his fingers played upon her rosy nipples.

"I do not want," she breathed almost on a gasp, "to feel your hands on me."

God above, he knew what she was about, and yet the words were like knives into his soul. Not feel his hands on her? He would touch her until Christ called him home.

He pushed her back onto the bed, and she fell wordlessly and without protest, except that her eyes, her amber-green eyes, held his. She hated him. She wanted him.

How well he knew the strength of such opposing desires. He knew she was trying to hold back the harness of reigning desire. He knew. He had tried to keep himself from wanting her with the same words and the same intent. Only he knew how completely he had failed. And knowing all that, her words drew blood still.

He lay upon her, casting caution and gentleness aside, wanting her beyond consideration and chivalry. Wanting her... and demanding that she want him.

She was soft and small and curved, her hair a black wing flung out beneath her white body. He kissed her, pressing his hips against hers, making her feel his arousal and what she had done to him by simply being Isabel.

She surged back against him, hip to hip, groin to groin, yet she covered his hands in her hair with her own... and pulled his hands from her. Even as her hips sought union with his. He ended the kiss as violently as he had begun it, her mouth a red wound upon her ivory skin.

Gasping, her breasts heaving, she said, "I do not want to feel your weight."

"Nay?" he asked, his eyes glittering in desire and anger commingled. "Have you forgotten that in order to conceive you must be brought to your pleasure?"

He was braced above her, his arms long cords of strength as he awaited her answer. His hips still pressed against hers, and she ignored the urge to grind into his weight. He was Richard as he had been in the stable, wild and hot and demanding. And again, she was not afraid, not of him. Only of herself and her weakness with him.

Once she conceived, he would return to the
abbey
and the Benedictine brotherhood. Leaving her. But leaving her with child. She wanted a child.

"I know my duty to both our houses," she said, looking at his throat, the dark shadow of his beard on a column of both strength and vulnerability. The intensity of his gaze would burn her through, leaving her exposed; she could not look into his eyes. She was exposed, as vulnerable as his unprotected throat, but she did not want him to see. Desire and dreams she had set aside in favor of dignity and duty; he must leave her that. "Do what you will," she said.

The sun was disappearing behind the trees, a rosy mass of heat quickly covered by the black silhouette of forest. In the last warm light of the day, she could see his look of solemn determination before he began his most earnest seduction.

She had given him permission to seduce her. He took it.

His assault, for it was nothing less, was as violent as it was thorough. She had dreamed, hour upon hour, of his kiss in that sun-flecked stable; he met her dream a thousandfold.

His kiss was hard against her mouth, yet he did not bruise her. His tongue toyed with her lips before demanding entrance; she could scarce take breath to hold him off. Hot and full, swift and hard, his tongue ravaged her mouth, his lips insistent that she hold nothing back, that she withdraw not a hairsbreadth from him. She could do naught to stop him.

It was God's good mercy that she was not called upon to try.

His hands rested upon her breasts, where he palmed her nipples to tingling sensation. She arched into his hands, helpless to stop her response to him, shamed that he could so effortlessly wring a reaction from her. Where was the dignity she sought to hold in defiant defense of his freedom with her body?

Gone, flown away with his first touch, his first kiss, his first look.

She must not succumb to him so easily; he would leave her with nothing, nothing save a child and her duty rendered.

His mouth left hers and suckled his way down her throat to her breast. With his hand and his mouth he fondled her, sending rivers of sparks shooting along her limbs and to the seat of her womb. She bucked against him, wanting more, ashamed at her wanting, fed by her desire, and torn by the conflict.

She had felt none of this in their stable kiss. But he had. She knew then why he had pushed her off, why he had avoided her, why he had not dared to look into her eyes. If this was desire, it inspired fear as well as yearning. Such passion was controlled only by its own hunger, heeding no other sanction, obeying no voice but its own.

Yet Richard had forced his passion to obey God's will and his own.

In a flash of divine understanding she saw Richard as he was: a man of rare strength and discipline. A man who had bedded his lord's wife and taken the cowl to redeem himself. 'Twas a contradiction. She did not understand how he could be both.

But she was not allowed to think, not now, not when Richard was sliding his hand down her torso, feeling his way from breast to waist to hip to thigh. Still nipping at her breast, his mouth hot and wet upon her aching nipple, he caressed the back of her knee, urging her to relax her leg, to bend, to open. And she did.

Passion was calling to her. She did not have her husband's strength of will to turn from its voice.

She shook. Her legs and arms trembled, plucking at the sheets beneath her hips, arching into his touch, where e'er he touched her, be it mouth or hand. Wanting his touch, wanting whatever he could give her, even for so short a time as the minutes between dusk and dark upon their marriage bed.

Yet, in all her submission to his touch, she trembled to keep her heart intact. For him, it was passion commingled in a snarl with duty. And so it would be for her. She would not let her heart fly into such a tangled hedge as the one which protected him. She would not, for he would leave.

His hand cupped her, tangling in her curls, feeling for the opening to her womb while his mouth kissed her hard upon the neck, bruising her. She craved his bruising, reveling in the pleasure-pain of his passion, turning into his every touch, welcoming his desire as she guarded her heart.

She was wet for him, her mound pulsing with pressure aching to be released. Her nipples ached, arching for his hand. She was open, ready, more than ready... and he withdrew. First his hand from her heat and then his mouth from her throat, and then he lifted his glorious weight from her and looked deep into her eyes.

She panted up at him, her eyes unfocused, her lips red and chapped.

Why had he stopped? Was this not the moment when duty was to be performed? How was she to plump with child if he did not continue?

He stroked her body, calming her, a slow massage that kept the fire smoldering within her but did not allow it to spark into fulfillment. He kissed her brow gently, his breath soft and sweet, and kneaded her shoulders. He lifted her and pulled her hair from beneath her, straightening out the tangles with his fingers, all gentleness, all chivalry. He touched her throat at her pulse point while she stared up at him, her eyes slowly focusing.

"I have marked you," he said, tracing the bruise with his fingertip. "I have not the will to repent."

Always he spoke of repentance. Always he would search for absolution, an absolution she could not grant.

Taking a deep breath, feeling the slowing of her heart, she watched him. He was dark and lean, lethal to her senses, his hard beauty a draught tinged with poison, for he would destroy her if she allowed it. He stroked her hair, skimming his fingers over her hairline, caressing her brow. With a fingertip he traced her brow line and the delicate and sensitive line of her nose. With his thumb he outlined her lips, and she breathed in sharply, leaning into his hand with a will untethered.

It was the only signal he required to begin again.

His hand behind her neck, he lifted her to meet his mouth, his kiss a summons, urgent and fast. She met him willingly, her mouth opening, inviting him to enter, to find her, to take her. To know her. And he came, plunging in, his tongue a sword, quick and light, determined and deadly. His assault was bold and sure, his manner the same. His hands upon her were confident, touching her at will, holding her as it pieced him.

He held her pressed against him, his arms hard around her back, her hair hanging down to the sheets below. She cautiously wrapped her arms around his neck, allowing herself to touch him willingly. Nay, not allowing... not strong enough to fight back the desire to feel his skin beneath her hands, to feel his heat and his strength, to touch him freely, if only for this night.

Three years.
Would three years of nights such as this be enough to last a lifetime?

She returned his kiss fully, rubbing the softness of her breasts against the hard shield of his chest. He was so broad, so hard, so tall. He enveloped her, and she sighed happily at the loss of self she felt in his arms.

He tugged on her hair, and her throat was exposed to his mouth. He trailed kisses, hard and hungry kisses, down her neck, soft and pulsing with need, to her breast and bit an aching nipple. She gasped, her voice sounding raw and heavy to her own ears, and held his head to her breast, silently demanding more. She could not see him, her hair held tight in his fist, her face to the ceiling far above her, but she could feel his hands on her body and his mouth on her skin and it was enough. More than enough.

He nipped his way across her breast, his evening beard scraping along her sensitive skin, and feasted on her other nipple, sucking hard and biting without warning. She wound her fingers through his hair, holding on, holding him, holding back so very little. He kissed hard, sucking the plump skin of her breast near her arm, bruising her. She wanted it; she wanted his mark. She wanted anything he could give her.

She squirmed against him, and he released his hold on her hair. She attacked him with her mouth, her kiss a hard bite on his throat, and he groaned his response. He tasted good, like salt and man; the feel of his blood pulsing beneath her lips was intoxicating. She wanted more. She wanted to be a part of him.

He rose to his knees and pulled her with him. She was shaking, her hands clumsy and her vision blurred. But she had the strength and will to hold him to her, to run her hands across the incredible width of his shoulders and down his back. He did the same, his hands skimming, possessive, titillating. He followed the curve of her spine to the swell of her bottom and held her fast, his hands warm and rough, his every breath proclaiming her as his to do with what he would.

She had yearned to be possessed by Richard for all her life, and she could not but welcome his touch now. No matter where it led. As long as it left her heart intact.

He was hard and he pressed her against him, showing her the strength and length of his passion. She was soft and hot and she welcomed him, straining against him, opening her legs to allow him entry while he caressed her from behind. Urging him to lie down with her. Urging him to take her.

What he did was take his hands from her and push her down to sit upon the bed. She was wet with wanting, aching and tight, her body pulsing like a wound.

He tormented her.

It was willful—no man could be so successful by chance. No man was so ignorant. Nay, it was done apurpose.

He pressed her back by her shoulders to lie upon her back. She did, her eyes a beacon of confusion she struggled to hide, her breathing labored and loud. Richard got off the bed and stood next to it, staring down at her, his eyes a smoldering fire of blackest blue.

She would not speak, she would not ask why he waited, why he tormented her. She would not reveal her pain and her weakness to him. She would not be a fool for him.

Richard kissed her softly on the mouth, and she was disgusted by the moaning sound she made at that light contact. She schooled her features to sterner dignity and closed her eyes against him. She was so highly aroused that the smallest touch was like pain, yet she yearned for more.

She was a fool.

Richard touched her knee, a gentle touch, yet the fire skittered there and she commanded herself not to open her legs to him, though that was her desire. She wanted to wrap herself around him, skin to skin, heat to heat, until they were indistinguishable. Indivisible.

But it was not to be.

With firmer touch, he stroked her thighs, a hand to each, rubbing, caressing, massaging, but there was nothing in his touch that relaxed her. With each stroke he rose higher to the source of her heat and her ache. He played upon her. She would not reach for him, though her hands longed to pull him down to her, to make him kiss her, to make him fondle her, to make him take her. She would not. She wound her hands into the bedding, her fists holding on to her resolve and her dignity. Her part was to do her duty, nothing more.

His part was to bring her pleasure; he did not. He brought only pain.

He spread her legs, slowly, casually, his hands warm and sure, his breathing loud.

She would not look. If she saw the fire in his eyes she would melt away. She clutched the bedding, submitted to her duty.

He spread her wide. She could feel how wet she was, how swollen; it was a relief to spread herself. Yet he had done the spreading, not she. She would not enter into this bedding eagerly, only in dutiful submission. 'Twas the only way to save herself.

"I could bathe in the scent of you," Richard said on a rasp. "'Tis richer than perfume."