Page 15 of The Handfasting
She should have been appalled. Such a blatant display was improper, crude, disgusting. Yet disgust wasn’t at all what she felt as he pressed against her.
Instead, a heady thrill coursed through her, as if the Bordeaux filled her veins, warming her blood and making her drunk.
She’ddone that.She’dmade him harden like that.
But wrapped up in her exhilarating triumph was also her surrender. Her bones were melting. Her heart was softening. Her resolve was weakening.
She didn’t mean to retreat toward the bed. Somehow it just happened. Suddenly the back of her knees made contact with the wooden frame.
No?l, in his eagerness, continued to advance, covering her face with kisses, not realizing she had nowhere to go.
They toppled together onto the feather pallet.
In the small sliver of her mind that wasn’t drunk on wine and desire, Ysenda knew she should resist him.
But a bigger part of her mind knew there was no hope of return. They’d leaped into the raging sea and were being carried away. And every sense she possessed told her to seize the moment.
So she did.
When he was a lad, one of No?l’s brothers had tricked him into sitting astride an unbroken horse. The steed had bolted off across the countryside, taking him on a wild ride. And all he could do was hang on for his life.
Which was how he felt now.
He’d resigned himself to spending a tame and quiet evening with his new bride, convincing her with reasonable examples that he’d make a decent husband.
But when she began kissing him, his good intentions went right out of his head.
It wasn’t as if he’d never been kissed. He was a de Ware, for heaven’s sake. But he’d never been kissed with such passion, such enthusiasm, such genuine enjoyment.
It was his clumsiness that made them fall onto the bed. And once he was horizontal, it was hard to resist doing what came naturally any time he was horizontal with a woman in a bed.
Still, he tried to resist her.
But when the lovely lass began putting her hands on him—clutching at his tabard, tearing at his surcoat—she was difficult to ignore. When she rained feverish kisses all over his face, he was compelled to answer them. And when she rolled him onto his back, all his self-control vanished.
Afraid of the marriage bed?
Hardly.
His new bride was clearly no trembling novice. He wondered what game she played, trying to make him believe she was.
Perhaps she feared he wouldn’t wed her if he found out she wasn’t a virgin.
She needn’t have worried on that account. No?l had always preferred voracity to virtue.
He chuckled low in his throat as she moved her hungry mouth along his collar bone. Now that he knew the truth, he couldn’t help teasing her a bit.
“I thought ye said just one kiss.”
“Did I?” she said breathlessly.
He grinned. No longer concerned about keeping a rein on his lust, he tangled his hands in her glorious hair and opened her mouth with his. He let his tongue dance on her lips, then plunge within, relishing her wine-sweet flavor.
It had been months since he’d lain with a lover. Once he’d learned of his betrothal to Cathalin, he’d sworn off coupling with other women.
But he was paying for his abstinence now. He was as hard as stone. Indeed, he felt as if he might explode at any moment.
Which would be a mistake. Nothing would disappoint a bride more than discovering her new husband spilled his seed quicker than a twelve-year-old lad.
