Moonspun Magic (21 page)

He paused with the slice of delicious local cheese halfway to his mouth. “It's only six o'clock. It won't matter if the lights are on or off. It won't be dark, as I told you, until after seven-thirty.”

She looked ready to burst into tears. Rafael sat back in his chair and studied her. “What's wrong? Please, Victoria, there is no reason for you to be afraid of me or what we are going to do. It's enjoyable, you know, truly. I venture to say that practically all husbands and wives indulge in lovemaking quite regularly.” He didn't add that once he touched her he hoped she would forget all about her nervousness in any case. Unless, his thinking continued, they were back again to her lack of virginity. He shook his head.

“What's wrong?” he asked again, this time his impatience showing through.

She flinched. “Nothing.”

“All right, have it your way. Why don't you go upstairs now and bathe. I will put our kitchen battlefield to rights.”

She nodded, not looking at him. As she walked from the kitchen, he thought he heard her curse. A man's curse that sounded very odd coming from her. He very nearly laughed.

After she'd gone, he found himself reverting once again to old thoughts, and his jaw knotted. Perhaps he should toss her a vial of chicken blood when he went to her.

It was close to an hour later when Rafael, garbed only in a blue brocade dressing gown, his thick hair still damp from his own bath, knocked lightly on the adjoining bedchamber door, then opened it quietly.

He stopped short. The room was dark. He blinked to adjust his eyes and saw that Victoria had closed all the draperies, tying them together so there were no gaps.

“My God,” he said aloud, torn between annoyance and amusement, “will you put a sack over my head as well?”

I am ready to give you satisfaction . . .

—J
OHN
G
AY

“V
ictoria?”

“I'm here.”

He followed the sound of her low voice and saw her finally huddled behind a wing chair in the far corner of the bedchamber. “I wondered if you wished me to cover my head. If not with a sack, perhaps a pillow cover?”

“No, please, Rafael, I want the lights out.”

“Why?”

He wished he could see her expression but her head was lowered. She was wearing a filmy sort of negligee and it fired his imagination and his body. He'd wanted her forever, it seemed to him now as he stood in the near-dark with his wife behind a chair, unwilling to talk to him.

“Why, Victoria?” he said again.

“Modesty. Yes, that's it.”

He said in his most reasonable voice, “There should be no embarrassment or shame between a husband and wife. There's no reason for you to fear me. I won't hurt you. Do you believe me?”

“It's not that, truly.”

He felt baffled and was becoming a bit impatient with her. He strode toward her, nearly knocking over
a small chair. “This is bloody ridiculous.” He drew up on the other side of the chair. “Victoria,” he said, “talk to me. Tell me what is wrong. I am your husband, you know.”

“There is nothing wrong, Rafael. Please, can't we just get it done?”

Some way to talk about lovemaking, he thought. “Why, Victoria?”

She was fretting with some loose threads on the back of the chair. He wasn't going to give up, and she wondered what she should do now. He looked perfectly lovely; at least she thought he did. It wasn't so dark that she couldn't make out his blue brocade dressing gown. She imagined that he had nothing at all under that blue dressing gown and it excited her unbearably.

She blurted out “Oh, all right, I'm ugly.”

“Ugly?” he repeated blankly. He remembered quite clearly his reaction the first time he had seen her breasts in the cream silk ball gown, her shoulders, slender and creamy as the creation she was wearing, a temptation to any man except perhaps a blind one. And her ankles, he thought, that time he had assisted her into Lucia's carriage, gave great promise to the shapeliness of her legs.

“Where?”

“I don't want to talk about it, Rafael. Just leave the lights off, all right?”

“It will eventually be morning, Victoria. Your draperies will undoubtedly keep out some of the light, but not all. I will see you, you know, all of you.” He saw she was truly upset and was completely bewildered. He gave it up without a further thought. “It's all right, love. Come here, now. It will be as you wish.”

“We can really have done with it?”

“Yes, we will have this lovemaking business behind us in no time at all.”

She walked around the chair and came to a halt in front of him. She didn't look up at his face, but at the gold frogged fastenings on his dressing gown.

“They're fascinating, aren't they?”

“Yes, but it's difficult to see them clearly, for it is so very dark in here.”

“That's certainly true enough. You're a puzzle, Victoria. Did I ever tell you that I'm quite adept at puzzle solving?”

He resolutely kept his hands at his sides. Not yet, he thought, not quite yet. He had to calm her, make her relax, otherwise he could envision an awful debacle.

“The only thing you're not good at is riding in a carriage.”

He laughed, reached out, and gently clasped her shoulders in his large hands. “Come here.”

She stepped against him without hesitation. Mutely Victoria raised her face, her lips slightly pursed. He grinned down at her and gently ran his fingertip along the outline of her mouth. He leaned down and kissed her nose, her brows, her chin. “If there is anything at all ugly about you, I will eat the stirrups off my Spanish saddle.” He sifted his long fingers through her hair that fell in deep waves down her back. He lifted a thick tress and brought it over her shoulders to his mouth. He inhaled deeply. “So sweet,” he said, “so very sweet.”

Victoria lifted her hand and touched her fingertips to his face. “Perhaps I'm sweet, but you're beautiful.”

He gave her a crooked smile to cover his embarrassment. “I'm just a man, nothing more, nothing less, and a man isn't a beautiful thing, not like you. But I am your husband and if you wish to remain blind to the stubble on my chin and the way my hair
sticks up at odd angles in the mornings, who am I to disagree?”

“Please kiss me, Rafael.”

His eyes turned darker as he lowered his head. He kissed her lightly, very gently. He could feel the moment she responded to him. It was a quiver that ran from her breasts down her legs. He tightened his arms around her back. He raised his head a moment and looked down at her. Her eyes were closed, her lips slightly parted, her breathing coming in small gasps. “You can hold me too, Victoria,” he said. “I would like it very much.”

She slid her arms around his back and pressed herself against him. She felt him against her belly. She raised her face, arching her back a bit. He kissed her again, this time gliding his tongue over her lower lip, gently probing until she opened her mouth to him. He didn't ravish her mouth with his tongue, but made gentle forays, his tongue barely touching hers. Victoria was quickly awash with the most overpowering feelings. She'd never imagined anything like this, a sort of urgency in her belly. A wanting so intense, a wanting just beyond, beckoning her. She moaned softly, unable to keep silent.

Rafael was immensely pleased at her response to him. He unfastened the ribbons of her negligee and slipped it off her shoulders. The soft silk pooled about her feet.

She stared at him, her eyes wide and questioning. He said nothing, merely slipped the straps of her nightgown off her shoulders. She was standing nearly in profile to him. He sucked in his breath as the soft silk fell below her breasts to her waist. In another moment the nightgown had joined the negligee at her feet. He looked down at her breasts, full and white, made whiter still in the dim shadows of
the room. Very lightly he touched his fingertip to her nipple and watched her shudder.

“So soft,” he said. “Are your breasts as sweet as your hair?”

He leaned down and took her nipple in his mouth. Victoria gasped with shock, and arched her back. He felt her utter yielding to him. He held her with one arm and with the other hand caressed her breast, gently lifting it, weighing it in his palm. Only after he had loved both her breasts thoroughly did he allow his hand to glide below her waist. “Victoria,” he said softly, wanting to see her eyes when his fingers found her. He wanted to see her reaction.

It was more than he could have imagined. Her belly felt as smooth as satin, and when his fingers probed through the tangle of curls and found her, he nearly lost his control. He touched her very lightly. She wanted him.

“Rafael.”

He stopped, his fingers cupping her. She was trembling, nearly beyond herself, and he knew it. So responsive she was, and she was all his. He released her a moment, watching her gain control slowly. Her eyes cleared just a bit. She moistened her lips with her tongue. “I want to see you, Rafael.”

“I'm not nearly so ugly as you are.”

Her eyes went blank and wild. He quickly laughed. “I'm teasing you, little goose. All right, then. You want your husband?”

“Yes.”

He took a step back and shed his dressing gown. He stood quietly watching her face as she looked at him. She was very thorough, more so than she'd been on their accursed wedding night. When she reached his groin, he felt his member swelling and thrusting outward. She was consuming him, he thought, with that look. No woman had ever before studied him
like this, with admiration, almost adoration. It was unnerving. “Victoria,” he said, and pulled her against him.

Her breasts pressed against his chest, his sex hard against her belly, exciting her to the point of incoherence. “Please,” she whispered, and felt his mouth close over hers. His hands were everywhere, lifting her, fitting her against him, and she moaned and pressed herself against him wildly, wanting more but not knowing what it was she wanted. His back, beneath her hands, was smooth and curved with hard muscle.

Rafael, nearly to the end of his tether, lifted her in his arms and strode to the bed, nearly stumbling over the damned table yet again. Where, he wondered vaguely, did she think herself ugly? It was ridiculous. He laid her on her back and came down beside her, balancing himself on his elbow.

“Hello, wife,” he said, and laid his hand on the flat of her belly. He watched her closely in the dim light. She quivered and he let his fingers glide a bit lower.

“Rafael, I don't . . .”

“Don't what, Victoria?”

“I think I hurt, but I want to, and it's almost too much and I want and want—”

He found her at that moment, and she gasped, arching upward, nearly beside herself. “Do you want me to pleasure you now, Victoria?”

She looked up at his shadowed face, turning to give him her mouth. “I don't know what you mean. Do you mean you will kiss me again?”

“Certainly, but I want to see your face—as best I can in this darkness—when you melt for me.”

“I don't understand.”

“You will, soon, I promise.” He kissed her, deeply this time, his tongue probing into her mouth just as
his finger slipped inside her. She was small, but she would hold him, for her desire was nearly peaked. He kept up a slow in-and-out motion with his finger, then withdrew and began to caress her. He felt her tremble, felt the involuntary jerking of her hips as she sought his fingers. He lifted his head just as she reached her climax. He watched the look of utter astonishment in her eyes as her pleasure overtook her. “Rafael.” She screamed. He nearly cried out with her, his pleasure at her release was so great.

“Yes, love. Yes.”

He felt her then, slowly easing the pressure of his fingers, soothing her, feeling the small convulsions seize her in the aftershocks of her pleasure. “I want to come inside of you now, Victoria. All right?”

“Yes,” she whispered. “Yes, I think I would like that.” She was surprised she could even speak, her mind felt so scattered. She felt without will, without enough power to move her fingers. She felt delicious.

He came over her and gently pulled her thighs apart. “Bend your legs. That's it.”

She watched him guide himself into her, his face intent, his expression nearly pained. She felt him come into her, felt the tightness, the stretching, the pain.

“Rafael,” she said in a thin voice, pressing her hands against his shoulders.

“Just a bit more, Victoria. Relax. Don't move.”

She held perfectly still, feeling him come deeper. It was odd, this feeling—another person becoming part of her. The pain became more insistent, and she gritted her teeth, not wanting him to know.

Suddenly he reached her maidenhead and he felt such a surge of relief that he nearly lost all control. His mind was whirling out of control and he blurted out, “Thank God! If Damien had had you, I don't know what I would have done.”

He groaned then and with one powerful thrust drove through her maidenhead and slammed to the hilt inside her.

She screamed at the tearing pain, and bucked beneath him. He got hold of himself, barely, and lowered himself over her. “I won't move. I'm sorry, Victoria. It won't hurt anymore. I promise.”

She was so small, her muscles were flexing about him, driving him mad, and she was a virgin. She was truly his and only his, before and forever.

Victoria lay perfectly still. He hadn't believed her. He had believed Damien. He hadn't trusted her. He had lied to her just so he could bed her. Her hands dropped to her sides. She turned her face away from him on the pillow.

“Is that better, Victoria? Has the pain lessened?”

She didn't look at him. She felt impaled, helpless, and angry.