The Heiress Bride (36 page)

“Yes, but I'm glad you're here.”

She drew a deep breath. “I came for a reason.”

“You want to know about Aunt Arleth.”

“Perhaps, but not really. That is, there's something else, but I don't think it was Aunt Arleth or you would have hunted me out immediately. No, it's about something else entirely, but it can wait. I see you're holding a book.”

He cocked one of those black eyebrows of his, then handed the book to her. “Thank you for trying to mend this book. It was my grandfather's. He used to read to me from it. It's Chesterfield's
Letters to His Son.
I was thinking it was time for me to read the letters on mythology and history to Philip, and I was right.”

“Chesterfield's son was named Philip also. Isn't that curious? Douglas didn't introduce me to Chesterfield, but I found him very quickly. He was miserable with his wife and thus has a very low opinion of women, but Douglas said he'd never met me so he'd been deprived, thus I wasn't to pay him any attention. Ah, this is one of my favorites: ‘Wear your learning, like your watch, in a private pocket . . . . Above all things, avoid speaking of yourself, if it be possible.' ”

He could but stare at her. He wondered if she would continue to surprise him for the rest of their lives.

“My books from home are still in crates. There's been no time to unpack them.” She looked at him then, and her expression was tentative. “Also I don't know where you would like me to put them.”

Colin felt like a self-centered ass. If she hadn't been the kind of person she was, he would have completely terrorized her, ground her under. Even now she wasn't at all certain of his reception. About her damned books, for God's sake.

“You know,” he said slowly, smiling at her, “there are dozens of rooms in the castle. You can use any of them you wish to. However, if you would like, I should be delighted to share this chamber with you.”

She gave him a dazzling smile and jumped to her feet. “Oh, Colin, I love you so much.” She leaped into his arms.

He held her, laughing and kissing her ear and her nose and smoothing her eyebrows with his fingertips. He whirled her about. “All this just for the offer of this benighted room and a few bookshelves?”

It was part of himself he was offering, something he'd held dear and very close so it wouldn't be taken from him, but she didn't point that out. He was offering it to her because he trusted her; he knew she would never take from him. “I came to see you for a specific reason,” she said, her eyes brilliant. She kissed his chin.

“Yes, but you didn't tell me what it was.”

“I came to make love to you, Colin.”

“You mean you want me to make you scream with more pleasure?”

“No, I want to do it to you.”

He was nonplussed. He was the man, dammit, he was the husband. It had been his plan to seduce her slowly, so when he finally came into her she wouldn't realize what had happened. Now here she was . . . No, he couldn't be certain what she meant.

“I think it's foolish to continue as we have. I have forced you to it and you have been very kind, very giving, too giving. I have been selfish. But now, I want to do everything with you.”

“As in everything?”

“Oh yes.”

“B
UT THIS ISN
'
T
the way it's supposed to be done,” Colin said slowly, staring down at his wife, all visions of his future very gentle and tender seductions taking flight toward the window.

She just stroked his face with her fingertips, hugged him close, kissed his mouth a dozen times, his chin, his nose, tugged on his earlobe with her teeth. She said between kisses and bites, “I've been selfish and quite childish. I've been a coward. You're a man. You expected a woman when you married me. That's what you will have, right now. I don't care about any pain. It's not important. I want to give you what it is you must have. I will give myself to you as often as you wish, with no moaning or plaints.”

“Ah, Joan, but the pain. I know you remember the pain. I have no wish to torture you. I don't wish to make you weep.”

“I won't weep. I'll be strong. I was raised to be stoic by Douglas and Ryder. Ryder used to box my ears when he thought I was acting like a girl. I won't disappoint you, Colin, ever again.” She drew a deep breath. “I swear it.”

He gripped her forearms in his hands, slowly pulling her arms from about his neck. “I can't allow this sacrifice. It's too much to ask of you. Perhaps once a year you will allow me to come inside you—
to create a child, nothing more.” He sighed deeply and assumed the expression of a martyr. “I don't mind, truly. To give you pleasure night after night will suffice me. It must. I'm no monster to make you scream with pain.”

“Oh, Colin, you're so noble, so very kind, but I have made up my mind. I've decided that I will do it right now. That way I should be fully recovered by dinner. Also, if I happen to cry out from the pain, there's no one near here to hear me. Now, I wish to undress you.”

He could only stare at her, utterly amused, trying to keep the laughter well under hatches. “To believe you love me so much to offer yourself to me like this,” he said, his voice thick with emotion. “Despite what you know will happen, you are still willing to open yourself to me. It moves me, Joan. It makes me realize how very strong and giving you are. It humbles me.”

She was fumbling with the string on his shirt, tugging at the buttons on his britches. He laughed, slapping her hands away. “We'll do it together, all right?”

She nodded, not looking at him now, and proceeded to strip off her clothes.

She wanted to seduce him on the carpet? She wanted to ravish him right here? Upon brief reflection, he thought it was a grand idea.

Colin was tugging off his left boot when she was naked, standing in front of him, her hands at her sides. She was trying to give him a siren's smile, but failing woefully at it. She looked scared but determined. She looked like her namesake Joan of Arc on her way to martyrdom, elated that she was guarding her dignity even whilst she contemplated the flames. The foolish little twit.

When he was naked, he knew her eyes were on
his belly and nowhere else. He wasn't fully aroused, so she shouldn't yet scream with fright.

He started to resume his role of the tender seducer, to end this damnable charade, when she jumped at him. His quick reflexes saved both of them. She was holding him in a strangle lock about his throat and kissing him until he was laughing.

Let her do it, he thought. He stroked his hands over her buttocks and hefted her legs around his waist.

“Oh,” she said and kissed him until she had to stop for a breath.

“What do you want me to do now, Joan?”

“I want you flat on your back so I can kiss you. I don't want you to move, Colin.”

He obliged her, easing both of them onto the Aubusson carpet. Late afternoon sunlight sent silver beams through the narrow windows into the chamber. The air was soft and warm. She was lying on top of him, her legs between his, his sex hard against her belly.

He saw the fear in her eyes when he moved inadvertently against her, but then she smiled at him and leaned back. “You're very beautiful, Colin. I'm the luckiest of wives.”

“Er, thank you,” he said, aware that his sex was responding to her more quickly than he'd thought possible. He was big and hard as a stone against her now. Still, she didn't hesitate. He heard her draw a deep breath.

“I don't want you to move, Colin. I want you to lie very still. I'm going to kiss you just like you kissed me. Is that all right?”

He choked, nearly swallowing his tongue. This was madness. He managed to nod.

She kissed his throat, his shoulders, his chest, her fingers soft and busy in the mouth's wake. She
covered him with kisses. He thought he'd burst. He twitched. He raised his arms to pull her down.

“No, don't move, you promised.”

He hadn't promised anything, he thought wildly. But he forced himself to stillness. He fisted his hands at his sides. This was what she wanted. She would learn, oh yes, she would soon learn.

When her warm mouth touched his belly, he heaved and shuddered.

“Joan,” he said. This was pain, he thought, this was truly very real pain.

She looked up at him and grinned. “Do you feel like you made me feel? Urgent? As if there's a fire building up inside you, but you'd kill to make it even hotter?”

“Close enough.”

She touched his sex with her hand. She stroked him. She was looking intently at him, then at her hand holding him. He was oddly embarrassed. He felt strange. Then she frowned slightly. “No,” she said more to herself than to him. “I want more and I want to see how you taste.” She took him in her mouth and he jerked and moaned and his chest heaved. He thought, quite simply, that he was going to die.

“Ah,” she said, feeling his wonderful response to her, and set out to make him scream with pleasure.

He nearly did, so close did he come to his release. “Joan, no, sweetheart, you've got to stop. I'm different from you. I'll spill my seed if you continue. Then your sacrifice will have been in vain.”

“Oh,” she said, and drew back. “You must spill your seed inside me. That's the way of things. You're a man and that's what you want, I know. This you enjoy as well, but the other . . . that's what it must be. Very well.”

Before he knew what she intended, she came up over him and straddled his hips.

“Oh no,” he said as she tried to bring him into her. If he weren't hurting so much for her, he would have laughed. She wasn't near to ready to take him into her and yet, here she was, trying to impale herself.

She looked at him as he spoke, and he saw she was paler than a moment before; she was afraid of the coming pain.

He smiled, stroking his hands up and down her arms. “Not yet, Joan. Don't try to force me inside of you just yet. I'm not ready for you. Not even close. No, no, it's true. I must have more so that I will enjoy myself. I can't reach my full potential unless—” He stopped at her gasp.

She looked at his sex and then back at his face. She looked at him as if he were mad. “You mean to say there'll be even more of you? But you were moaning, Colin, and twitching. You're sweating. Surely there can't be that much more.”

“But there is,” he said, desperate now. “I'm a man and I've got to have more. Believe me. You must trust me in this. I'm the one with the experience. I must have more, else my pleasure won't be anything beyond the ordinary. It won't be worth the passage of moments it will take to bring me to it. You do want me to have more pleasure rather than less, don't you?”

“Of course. I promised you that I wouldn't be selfish about it. If you wish to increase in your size even more, if that's what makes you scream with pleasure, then so be it.” She drew a deep breath. “What do you wish me to do now?”

He smiled painfully. “Roll over onto your back. No, no, I'm not taking charge, nothing like that. I just must show you what's necessary for you to do
to make me scream with pleasure like I made you do last night.”

She nodded, looking dubious, but did what he'd asked. She lay on her back, and she was looking at him coming over her and he saw that damned fear in her eyes again, but he couldn't blame her, his sex was hard as a stone, fully aroused. And she thought he'd get bigger?

He calmed himself. He wasn't about to let this wonderful surprise turn into another fiasco.

He lay between her legs as she had between his. He settled himself over her, balancing his weight on his elbows. “Now,” he said. “Look at me, Joan. Yes, that's right. Now, I must have you kiss me some more. It's important, else I'll just have to pretend I'm enjoying myself. Surely you don't want me to feign enjoyment with you.”

“Oh no,” Sinjun said, finding no fault with his program. When she was kissing him, she could momentarily forget about that part of him pressing against her belly, huge and hot and it would hurt, impossible for it not to, but she was resolute, she wouldn't let him down this time. She wouldn't ever again let him down. He wanted her and she would have him in any way he wished.

Colin took his time. He kissed her, parting her lips, and slipped his tongue into her mouth. He kissed her until finally, blessed be to the kind heavens above, she moaned and squirmed beneath him. He smiled a bit painfully, then eased down her body to caress her breasts. She tasted wonderful and the feel of her sent him shuddering with need.

“You want me enough now, Colin?”

He ducked his head down at the sound of that strained little voice. “No, no, not just yet. I need more, Joan. It takes me time to grow into my need.”

“Very well.”

“Are you enjoying what I'm doing to you? That is, sweetheart, it's not necessary, but you might as well as long as I am.”

“Oh yes, it feels quite nice.”

Just you wait, sweetheart, he thought, as he moved down until his tongue was lightly caressing her white belly. He felt the deep clenching of her muscles, felt her quiver then, and he knew that she didn't know what he would do, but she was very interested, she was excited, she was nearly ready to have him topple her over the edge.

He gave her his mouth in the very next instant, and she yelled, her hands fisting in his hair.

He kissed her and caressed her with his mouth. His fingers eased into her and he thought he'd burst with the joy of it. She was ready for him. Very ready. He brought her to the edge, then quickly reared up over her, lifting her hips in his hands.

“Look at me, Joan.”

She opened her eyes as he eased inside her. He saw her Sherbrooke blue eyes widen and he knew she was tensing, waiting for pain, but she would wait in vain. Yes, indeed. There would be no pain.

He kept easing into her, lifting her hips to take more of him. He felt her flesh stretching to accommodate him, but there was no pain, of that he was certain. Her warmth made him grit his teeth to keep his control.

“Colin?”

“What's the matter, doesn't that feel nice?”

“Oh blessed hell, yes. I don't understand. Why aren't I feeling that awful hurt again? I'm stretching to take you, I feel filled with you, but it doesn't hurt. It feels quite nice, actually.”

He drove forward, seating himself to his hilt inside her. Then he came back down over her and began to kiss her. “Move against me, Joan, it will enhance my
pleasure. It's what you want for me, isn't it?”

“Oh yes,” she said, and moved in rhythm to him, jerkily at first, but then her body responded without her mind's interference. He kissed her and fondled her and moved in a fierce rhythm in and out of her. Finally, when he knew he couldn't keep his brain in charge any longer, he eased his hand between their bodies and found her.

He watched her face as his fingers caressed her.

She looked, quite simply, absolutely astounded.

“Colin,” she said on a high thin wail.

“Yes, sweetheart. Let's meet this together, shall we?”

“I don't understand what's happening here—” she began, then threw her head back, her back arching, and cried out, her body convulsing around him, and he let himself go.

She was utterly still beneath him.

Colin finally slowed his breathing. He pressed his palm to her breast. Her heart was still galloping. He grinned. He wanted to dance.

“Easy now,” he said, and feathered her lips with his.

Her breathing slowed. Her hand fluttered up, then dropped to her side. He rather wished she would hug him but decided he'd exhausted her. It was rather nice to do that to one's wife, particularly when she had fully expected to be impaled and ravaged.

“You were very brave, Joan,” he said, serious as a man in the confessional. “I think you're wonderful to hide your pain from me, to make me believe you were enjoying yourself. I'm the luckiest of men to have such a giving and noble wife.”

The next instant he was groaning and rubbing his arm. “Giving and noble and mean,” he said. “Why did you hit me?”

“You lied to me, you damned man. No, damn you, don't raise one of your supercilious eyebrows at me. You lied to me. You agreed with me that the pain was horrible. You were laughing at me, knowing, and I hate you!”