"Do you want me as much as I want you?" she demanded.
"Aye," he drawled softly and slowly, a single finger reaching up to trail down the valley between her breasts, down her belly, to worm its way between her nether lips. For a moment his finger rested atop her little love jewel, which he had found with unerring aim. Then he began to rub it with gentle insistence. "I want you very, very much, my beautiful bride."
A shudder ran through Wynne as he brought her to her first pleasure, and weakness coursed through her veins like hot wine. She wanted so to control the situation, she thought, but she had not yet learned how. All she desired right now was to have him take her, and she sighed gustily.
He smiled up at her and then, with deliberately languid movements, he began to smooth the palms of his hands up her body from her belly to her breasts. His hands moved in gentle little circles, caressing her lightly, stroking the fires of her desire. "You are so fair," he told her, and he fondled her breasts, squeezing them delicately, as with half-closed eyes she began to make whimpering noises in the back of her throat; her hips moving against him in jerking little motions.
"I want-" she began, and he placed warning fingers over her lips.
"Not yet, dearling," he said low.
"I want you!" she insisted and, leaning forward, kissed him passionately.
"I want you," he responded, and rolled her over onto her back, "but it is too soon, Wynne. Let us enjoy loving one another before the final culmination."
Wynne turned onto her side and, reaching out, she stroked him, reveling in the sensation of his body beneath her hand. He was a tall man, but unlike Rhys, Madoc was not as large-boned. Neither could he be called delicate, she thought. There was strength in him that belied his medium-boned frame. And his skin. It was so soft for a man. Especially a man whose appearance was that of an ancient Celtic warrior. She could feel the muscles in his shoulder and his arm, and, unable to help herself, she leaned over and began to lick his skin, pushing him onto his back. He groaned with pleasure as her little pointed tongue moved up his torso from his belly and encircled the nipples on his chest. There was a faintly salty taste to his skin that was not unpleasing.
Her long dark hair spread out over her shoulders and back and buttocks like a black silk mantle. He stroked her head, his whole body aquiver with her lovemaking. She nipped playfully at his shoulder and his throat; her little love bites followed almost immediately by a quick kiss and then the warm sweep of her tongue. Wynne's head began to move lower again on his torso, her tongue swirling over his sensitive skin, and he groaned again.
His manhood loomed ahead of her, stiff and straight. Wynne's fingers closed about it, feeling the life pulsing and coursing through the throbbing flesh. He had loved her with his tongue. Dare she do the same to him? Boldly she leaned forward and touched the tip of his manhood with the point of her tongue. Madoc gasped sharply. Her tongue encircled the ruby head of it with a warm and enticing motion. Losing her grip on him, she barely supported his lance within her hand as, moving closer to him, she licked the length of him with slow even strokes. He shuddered and then his body jerked violently with surprise as Wynne took him in her mouth and began to draw upon him until he feared his juices would burst forth.
Reaching down with his hand, he locked his fingers in her hair and gently pulled her away. "Dearling," he managed to gasp, "you will unman me and waste my seed."
Pulling away from him, she drew herself level with him and said softly, "When you taste of me, it pleasures me greatly. Do you not feel the same pleasure when I taste of you?" Her face was above his, and her hair fell like a waterfall to one side of her.
He reached up and caressed her cheek. "Wynne, my sweet wife, when your mouth and your tongue love in so intimate a manner, I die a sweet death; but my love, I also long to possess you more fully than you could ever imagine." He kissed her mouth swiftly and began to play with one of her pretty breasts which hung temptingly near.
"Do you think that only men feel such passion, my lord?" she demanded. "Women feel it too." A tiny dart of raw longing raced through her as he pinched her nipple, and then, raising his head just a bit, tongued the pain away.
In answer, he gently rolled her onto her back once more and swung over her. His fingers trailed teasingly over the tender inner flesh of her thighs. His deep blue eyes never left her mysterious green ones as he slowly pushed himself into her and then stopped. "I have never before desired a woman as I desire you," he said.
"Do not tell me of your other women," she teased him. "Tell me how much you love me, Madoc, my husband," and she wrapped her arms about his neck. He was so big inside her, she thought. He filled her full, and she almost rejoiced aloud as she felt him throbbing with life and love. Her head began to swim as pleasure engulfed her.
"Through all time and space have I loved you," he declared. "From a time that neither of us can remember until this moment in time, have I loved you, Wynne. I will never cease to love you, though we live, and die, and are born again in other times and places. You are my other half, dearling. There can be no real life for me without you."
"Oh, Madoc," she whispered, and her eyes were wet with her tears, "am I worthy of such a love?"
"Always, dearling!" he told her passionately, and then he began to move upon her.
"I will always love you," she promised him softly as she gave herself up to the sweetness of the moment, letting it wash over her like water washing over a rock. Letting the moment take her until she soared like a lark, and the pleasure captured her in its grasp and kept coming, and coming, and coming until she died a sweet death, only to be reborn again new and eager.
And afterward they lay together in a loving embrace, stroking each other comfortingly and sharing tender kisses until they fell into a period of blissful slumber; awakening several hours later refreshed and renewed and ready to share their passion once more. Yet when the dawn broke, Madoc and Wynne arose happily to dress themselves and, like any good host and hostess, to see their guests off. If they shared secret looks and smiles in the completion of their duties, the departing wedding guests only found it charming. All but Brys, the bishop of Cai, who hid his hatred behind his charming facade and gaily departed for his own home as if he had been the most welcome of all the wedding guests.
"We will not have to see him again," Madoc said grimly as he watched his half brother and his small cortege make their way down the steep path from Raven's Rock Castle.
"It is not good that brothers are such enemies," Wynne answered. "His father molded him, but could we not change him, my love? I realize his attempted crime against Nesta was vicious, but he was but a boy. You saved Nesta. There was no serious harm done. Could we not at least try to mend this breach between you?"
"You are so innocent and so good," Madoc said. "You do not understand, Wynne. There can be no friendship between myself and Brys in this life."
"He is beyond redemption, Wynne," Nesta, who with her husband would be remaining at Raven's Rock for several days, said. "We have tried, both Madoc and I, to make our peace with Brys, to bring him back into the family fold. He wallows in his wickedness and cannot be weaned from it now, I fear."
"Perhaps you are both too close to the matter," Wynne said. "There is such bad blood between you, I think, that only someone like me, someone uninvolved in the past, can help to bring you all together once more. It is not good for families to grow apart. Even though I find my sisters, Caitlin and Dilys, aggravating beyond all, I do not cut them off from the family."
"I can deny you nothing, dearling," Madoc told her, "but we have just been wed and I am of a mind for feasting, and revelry, and frolic, not for discussing my brother. In time, however, I promise you that we will resolve the situation."