“In the Steeplechase, the jockey — me — has absolute control over the stallion. That’s you,” she added, just in case he missed that point. “The jockey’s responsibility is to make sure her stallion doesn’t run himself out before the end of the race.”
His eyes opened even wider as she slid herself a little more forward.
“Timing is everything in the Steeplechase. Slow and steady wins the race.”
Harry stared at her, speechless, a pulse pounding furiously in his neck as she slid along the length of his arousal where it pressed stiffly against his leg.
“I’ve found that by delaying our gratification, by prolonging the sweet torment, the final moment of ecstasy can be heightened tenfold.”
She slid down his thigh, her body tightening in anticipation. “A hundredfold.”
Harry whimpered hopefully as she moved upward toward his groin.
“A…a…” Their combined moisture provided a delightful friction, a friction that coiled tighter and tighter inside her until Plum opened her eyes very wide, positioning him against the center of desire. She looked deep into his hazel eyes, eyes that spoke louder than any words, eyes that told her how much he wanted and desired her, and with a sob of happiness that at last she had found him, the ideal man to share her life, she took his lower lip into her mouth, nipping it as she suddenly plunged downward. “…a thousandfold!”
“St. Peter and all the saints,” Harry gasped as she sank onto him, holding his shoulders and panting slightly as her woman’s flesh quivered around him.
Plum closed her eyes for a moment to enjoy the sensation of having him buried so deep inside her, but opened them again when her husband uttered a garbled, strangled choke. His fingers flexed into her hips, holding her tightly down against him, prohibiting her from moving the way she wanted to move. She felt muscles she didn’t remember she had twitching around him, gripping him tightly, wringing harsh moans of pure masculine pleasure from Harry’s throat. His head had lolled back against the pillow, his eyes were fixed on her face but she could swear they were unseeing.
He had also stopped breathing.
“Harry? Husband?” She shifted forward to administer a rousing slap, but the sensation of sliding along his hard length made her pause. Harry’s chest heaved once, then again. Plum sat back, her eyes narrowed with pleasure as he slid back into her. She gripped his shoulders hard, her fingers digging into his muscles as he shuddered beneath her. She rose up, pressed her forehead against his, and eased back down, inch by slow inch.
“Stallions in the Steeplechase,” she said as she experimentally flexed a set of inner muscles, smiling a slow, knowing smile when Harry growled in response, “can be run for a very great length of time if the correct pace is set.”
Harry seemed to have other ideas. By the time she had found a rhythm that made him moan nonstop deep-throated moans, he suddenly flipped them both sideways until she was on her back again, her legs hooked around his hips, as he plunged into her so deep she thought he had pierced her heart.
“You’re mine!” Harry snarled possessively as he pounded into her heat. Plum didn’t care that he was acting like a primitive, possessive, dominant male. All she cared about was that he was hers! All hers!
“Mine!” he said again, and seemed to want some sort of response from her, but she wasn’t capable of words. That delicious tension, that coil wound up inside of her was tightening and twisting and spiraling her out of control again. She lifted her hips to him, pulling her knees high on his back, taking him in deeper than before, nipping his neck with joy. The coil was starting to unwind and she had no idea when it was going to stop.
“My wife,” Harry groaned, plunging into her again and again. Plum began to sob a litany of nonsense, words that had no meaning, only emotion as she felt her being come loose from its moorings and merge with Harry’s. Their two souls together lit up like a bonfire behind her eyes, and she cried out his name, sobbed it against him as he suddenly withdrew from her body, shouting his own declaration of fulfillment into her neck as he thrust himself against her belly.
“I…believe…you…won…that…race…” she gasped against his shoulder, holding him tight against herself.
“Bloody right, I did.” Harry responded into her neck, his voice as shaky as she felt. “You helped a little, though.”
Plum didn’t have the strength to smile. Truly, she had no strength for anything, not even to protest his withdrawal from her body. She knew his reasoning for such a ridiculous act had nothing to do with his own pleasure, but she also knew that she would have to redouble her efforts to prove her worthiness as the mother of his yet unborn children. She didn’t have much time left to her, biologically speaking. It was now or never. “And I choose now,” she said softly, mustering enough strength to turn her head and look at her husband.
Harry’s chest rose and fell quickly as he struggled to catch his breath, his skin slick with perspiration, his eyes closed. He raised a hand as if to protest her words, but it fell back to the bed, lifeless. “Now is completely out of the question, wife. You killed me. I am dead. I am deceased. I am a former Harry. Later, perhaps in a year or two, after I’ve recovered from this insidious method of murder you chose to destroy my poor man’s body, we’ll discuss my resurrection, but not now. Now is not possible. Now does not even exist for me. See? I am no more.”
Plum used the cloth at the side of the bed to wipe off her belly, then rolled over onto her side and propped her head up on one hand. “You can speak.” She sighed a mock forlorn sigh. “I must not have done it right if you can still speak. I shall simply have to try better the next time. I will make it my life’s goal to improve, Harry. No doubt with practice, I will.”
His eyes rolled back in his head. “If you do, you really will kill me.”
“Flatterer,” Plum said, and snuggled up against his damp chest.
“How did you know about the Steeplechase?” he asked a few minutes later.
Plum had been prepared for that. While she wasn’t willing to admit she was the author of the Guide, she had decided that Thom was right in judging Harry open to such instruction, and that hinting she had read it would not be a bad idea. The key was to tell him the truth without telling him too much truth. “The Steeplechase is one of the activities described in the Guide to Connubial Calisthenics.”
Harry cracked open one eye. “You’ve read it?”
“Yes. I’ve read it.” Frequently over the past few years, if for no other reason than to remind herself exactly what sort of things went on in a marriage bed. It had been so long since she had any experience in that matter…
“Ah. I was hoping to get you to read it a bit later, after we’ve had some…uh…experience with one another, but it’s just as well if you’re familiar with the book. I assume your first husband gave it to you?”
Plum picked her words carefully. “He was responsible for me reading the Guide, yes.”
Harry made a noncommittal hum and closed his eye again, his arm tightening around her as she relaxed against him. That was one hurdle past. Things were going to work out. They had to. It was simply a matter of her putting her mind to the task.
“My life is going to rack and ruin, you know that, don’t you?” Plum asked four weeks later.