As she took one small step more, at once his hands took her, gripping her arms so tightly she winced. He pulled her nearer and tighter. His strength surprised and dismayed her but she stood still and pride stopped her from struggling or crying out. She thought his fingers would bruise her but she looked up into the fierce intensity of his blue gaze and did not blink. He watched her a moment. Then he bent his head down towards her.
Again he paused, his eyes so close she stared into the milky fleck across the iris where once she had thought him blinded by whatever had scarred his cheek. She flinched. Then, unable to outstare his unblinking concentration, she closed her own eyes, and sighed. His breath was hot on her face.
There was the sudden touch of his mouth on hers. And then he kissed her.
Chapter Ten
Nicholas felt the sudden melting of her body against his own, and he felt the creep of her fingers to his back, the growing intensity of her grip and then the tightening of her embrace. His own hands clasped her gently, pressing firm as his tongue explored the inner warmth of her lips. Finally pulling away, he smiled down at her. “You kissed me back,” he murmured. “I had not expected it. How inexplicable women truly are.”
Dropping her arms to her sides, she mumbled, “You – took me – by surprise.”
“There seemed no other way. Is the punishment sufficient then, to fit the lesson?”
“No,” whispered Emeline, and shook her head.
So he kissed her again.
One hand to the small of her back, his other around her shoulders, Nicholas leaned her against the bedpost, and there he held her, bending over her. She felt his weight hard against her, and peeped up into his smile. Then his voice tickled her ear. “Nervous, little one? Do you hate me still?” and very, very softly kissed from the lobe of her ear down the side of her neck to the dip into her shoulder, and there took the edge of her gown and pulled it aside, just a little, so the curve to her arm was uncovered, and the first swell of her breast rested beneath his palm.
She inhaled sharply and held her breath. His fingers stroked, slipping inside to cup her warmth, his thumb slowly circling her nipple. At once the nipple hardened, and stood erect. At first she pulled away, nervous of such unexpected intimacy. But then she hesitated, looking up into the hooded azure eyes above her. This was, after all, her husband. “Have you no answer, then, my love?” he murmured. “Or are you planning your revenge?”
She hiccupped faintly against his cheek and mumbled, “I–I can’t think. I can’t breathe.”
His chuckle was part smothered as he pushed his fingers inside her cleavage and down between the growing heat of her breasts. He quickly unhooked the little scrap of gossamer linen which closed the neckline of her gown. Then, clasping both her bodice and her shift beneath it, he pulled abruptly. She felt the sudden chill of air against her breasts before both his wandering hands warmed her again, and whispering, his voice tickling against her ear, “So will you come to me naked now, my love, and be my wife at last?” But he did not wait for her reply, nor seemed to expect one. He swept her up, one arm beneath her knees, out of her shoes as he swung her back onto the bed and against the heaped pillows. He was immediately beside her, unclipping the banded stomacher and pulling it free so she was left unclothed almost to the waist, with her arms trapped at her sides by the sleeves of her gown.
“You’re blushing,” he smiled, as though delighted. “As prettily flushed as a new lit flame,” and reached up, first unclipping the starched folds of her headdress, pulling out and tossing aside the pins until her hair fell long over her shoulders. Then his hands were on her breasts again, caressing and teasing while he kissed her more forcefully, his tongue pushing in over her tongue as his fingers pinched her nipples. “But now, my love,” he said, “I want all of you.” And he moved back, reaching suddenly beneath her arm to unlace her gown, pulling the cord from its loops. Finally clasping the hems of her skirts, he lifted them in one swift fluttering arc up her legs, eased the material from under her, scooped the bundled velvet higher, then over her head and off her arms. He sat back then, the gown and shift tumbled in heaped creases on his lap as he looked at her.
As her gown slid to the rug at his feet, Nicholas leant forwards and firmly uncrossed her arms as she tried to cover herself. “Oh, no, my love,” he murmured. “No hiding.” And he rested both his hands on her thighs above the tops of her stockings, stopping her as she squeezed her legs tightly together. “Look at me, little one,” he commanded. “I won’t hurt you. It’s pleasure I offer, not pain. But tell me first, do you know anything of how this is done?” He waited, searching her eyes as she gulped, and shook her head, and looked quickly away. “Very well,” he murmured. “And you have no brothers, and a father strict enough to keep you innocent as a fledgling. So have you ever seen a man unclothed?”
She blinked hard, tried not to blush, and whispered, “Yes. You.”
Nicholas sat back surprised, eyebrows raised. The occasion was something he struggled to remember. “I was surely not that pissed on our wedding night,” he decided, “and I’m quite sure I neither touched you nor danced naked around the chamber.”
“The next day,” Emeline mumbled, “on this bed when the surgeon was trying to dress your burns, and you’d fainted.”
“Ah,” Nicholas grinned, which Emeline thought was definitely in poor taste. “I was trying to rescue the old man and a parcel of servants and save what I could of the castle, and had to do it all in my braies,” he said. “Damned stupid, when you come to think of it. So you came to visit while I was out cold, did you? I hope it wasn’t too hideous an education.”
“Of course not,” she lied. “But I’m really not used to being – so can I – may I pull up the bedcovers?”
“Certainly not,” said Nicholas. “If you’re cold, don’t worry, I have every intention of keeping you warm. And you, my love, should not be shy, since you’re quite deliciously beautiful.”
She mumbled, “Don’t be silly.”
He moved closer once more, and slid his hands up her body, slowly from her thighs up the spread of her hips, over the small curve of her belly, the valley of her waist, and again to her breasts. Then he bent, kissing her nipples, first brushing his tongue gently across, then taking them hard, one by one, into his mouth, nipping between his teeth. She gulped, and he whispered, “Deliciously, sublimely beautiful, believe me my love. Who has ever been fool enough to tell you otherwise? Your stubborn pea brained father? Certainly no one who ever had the pleasure of seeing you naked.”
“No one has ever seen me – like this,” she whispered back.
“Then I am honoured,” he told her, “and flattered, and ultimately delighted, now knowing my entirely unmerited fortune.” His hands were exploring, smoothing again across her body, then his fingers pushing up beneath her arm. “I like the curls you keep hidden here,” he murmured, “and here,” and his other hand rested just below her belly. “But you are still not quite as naked as I should like you,” He tucked both hands between her thighs, gently probing them apart. Then, fingers first to one leg and then to the other, he untied her garters and rolled down her stockings, slowly as he watched his own movements, firm and unhurried down her legs. He flipped each warm woollen stocking from her toes, tossed it to the floor, and smiled. “And now that you’re exactly how I want you,” he decided, “I am distinctly over dressed myself.” Still watching her, he shrugged his sweeping brocade from his shoulders to the rug, untied the loose cord of his shirt, and pulled it quickly over his head. She watched him as he watched her.