Page 65 of The Lord's Compass
When her nails dug into his shoulders, he no longer held on so tightly but instead laid her back on the bed, his need for her unabated from their first round.
He lifted himself from her mouth, his breath hot and fast as he looked into her eyes.
“Are you ready again?” he asked, and she nodded, her hands coming to his cheeks and pulling him back in toward her.
“Are you sure?” he persisted, aware of how soon it was after her first time, even as the perspiration from holding himself back began to drip down his brow.
“Eric,” she said, her voice harsh. “I would tell you no if that is what I felt.”
He nodded once. That was all he needed to hear, for he knew it was the truth. Faith would never agree to anything she had no interest in.
This time when he took her, he didn’t go slow or make love to her. He sunk into her with a groan, pausing when he heard her gasp. He was about to pull out when she shook her head, her nails digging into his ass as she held him against her.
“Don’t stop,” she said, and he pulled out just enough to thrust in again, her cry of pleasure encouraging him. He continued, faster and faster until her head was thrown back, her mouth gaping open and her eyes glossy.
“That’s it,” she whimpered, and when she tightened around him gloriously, he spent into her with a roar.
He hadn’t lied to her. It had never been like this with anyone else, and there was no reason he would ever need anyone else again.
She was his. Just as he was hers.
Now he just had to make sure she believed it.
* * *
“I will miss you terribly,you do know that?”
Faith was sitting with Hope the next morning. She had left Eric lying languidly in his bed, his eyes still half-closed. He had watched her dress in her nightclothes and return to her room with hooded eyes that told her he likely would have been happy to make love again, but she was a bit too sore from their rounds last night – although she wasn’t complaining.
She had told him she was hungry and he had offered to call for breakfast, but somehow asking for servants in the home she had grown up in to serve her in her husband’s bedroom seemed scandalous, even though she knew it was not only perfectly acceptable but expected.
She supposed it was going to take some time to shift from her role of an innocent young lady to a married woman who could do as she pleased.
She hoped that Eric would understand her need to look after herself and not completely adhere to that “obey” part of the vows.
“I am going to miss you too,” Faith said now, reaching out and covering her sister’s hand in her own.
Hope’s brows lifted slightly, likely in surprise at Faith showing any affection, but such absence from her sister had been difficult.
“We are not so far away, you know,” Hope said. “You are welcome to my home any time you would like.”
“We were apart for some time already,” Faith said. “It’s not so different from you marrying.”
“I suppose not,” Hope said with a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. For a moment, Faith wondered if Hope was worried about the distance between them, but she realized there was more than that.
“Hope, what is it?” she asked.
“Nothing,” Hope said quickly – too quickly. Faith knew better than to fall for the act that everyone else would.
“Hope…”
“I had only envisioned that you might come live with me, is all,” Hope said with a shrug of her shoulders. “If you had never married, that is, for you were always so adamantly against it. But I am happy that you have found someone.”
She patted Faith’s hand before removing hers.
Faith narrowed her eyes. “You do not think I am going to be happy, do you?”
“Oh, Faith, I never said that,” Hope said, her eyes widening.
