Page 64 of My Warrior
She sniffled. “I miss him,” she murmured. “I miss him.” And then she dissolved into tears.
A deep sigh emptied Holden’s chest. With one hand, he reached out and caressed the back of her head, and with the other, he pulled her slowly up to him in a gentle embrace. He murmured assurances to her as he placed her head against his good shoulder, rocking her back and forth a long while.
At what point the change happened, he wasn’t sure. Gradually Cambria’s soft weeping at his throat turned to kisses she bestowed there. His stroking of her hair took on a sensuous design. He took her chin in his hand and kissed the salty tears from her face. She touched her mouth to his with the delicacy of mist kissing the surface of a loch.
And then, emboldened, Cambria took his face in both her hands and kissed him full on the mouth. It was a kiss of absolution, he sensed, a bittersweet attempt to eradicate the nightmare of Halidon and her father’s loss. A tortured groan slipped from his throat.
His will was too weak. If she continued, he’d do things she would regret on the morrow. He couldn’t let her go on. He couldn’t endure another night like the last one, fanning the flames of her lust while denying his own. He put an end to the kiss by covering her eager lips with his fingers.
His gesture did nothing to dim her smoldering desire. She ran her palms across his chest as if she sought a way to his heart. He caught her stray hands and pushed them away.
“Nay,” he said thickly. “I…want you too much.” A wave of desire coursed through his loins, lending proof to his words. “I won’t be able to stop myself this time. I’m sorry.”
Cambria swallowed hard. Curse her promise, curse her pride, curse her marriage of political convenience, she wanted Holden. And, she decided, calling upon her renowned Gavin stubbornness, she’d be damned if she’d take no for an answer. Before she could change her mind, she began to push down the coverlet between them.
Holden sucked in a quick breath when he realized what her overture meant. He hoped she realized what she was doing. He rolled back slowly while she moved the furs out of the way, as if moving too fast might give her second thoughts. He didn’t want to frighten her. He prayed he had the control not to hurt her. Suddenly, absurdly, he felt as awkward as an untried youth.
Cambria’s hands found him in the dark. His body was magnificent, proud, lean, contoured as flawlessly as a fine blade. She shivered as her forearm brushed the bold manifestation of his desire that seemed to her a brazen lance. The implication gave her pause, but she was committed now, and she wouldn’t retreat from the challenge she’d issued. With clumsy fingers, she began to pick at the back laces of her kirtle.
Holden retrieved his dagger form the swordbelt beside the pallet and sliced the laces neatly. The garment dropped from her shoulders like a dying rose, and she willingly, breathlessly removed her linen underclothing, baring her body.
Holden cradled her face in his hands. He kissed her deeply, hungrily, and she responded with a ferocity that nearly unleashed his own tempered passions. She was like soft, warm velvet against his body, and the sweet, smoky smell of her hair and the weak moans in the back of her throat were calling him to answer. He knew the answer, longed to give it, but couldn’t, not yet.
“I’ve given you my word,” he murmured against her cheek. “I won’t consummate this marriage until you wish it so.”
Cambria trembled in his arms. The silence between them grew as taut as the long, last moment before the release of an arrow from a bow.
“I wish it,” she finally whispered, “I wish it so.”
Holden wiped the sweat from his lip, and then lowered her to the pallet. It would cost him much to subdue his own desires as he worked to satisfy hers. Her responsiveness had the power to intoxicate them both. He had to bear in mind that this wanton vixen was still a virgin. She’d require patience.
He hovered over her, kissed her eyes, her hair, her fingertips, shuddered when her hands unabashedly reached up to explore his body. With a helpless groan, he bent and captured a succulent nipple in his mouth. She moaned beneath him, brazenly lifting her hips to contact his. He gasped, and then stifled the sound, suckling at her breast like a starving man. His fingers traced a leisurely path up to the juncture of her thighs, and he pulled gently at the hair there. Moving upward again, he kissed her open mouth, letting his tongue dance with hers and graze the edges of her teeth. At last he eased his large body down over hers, covering her completely.
Cambria strained instinctively upward against him, burying her head in the crook of his neck, overcome by the sensation of the powerful muscles enveloping her, the full, warm shaft brushing her skin. His hands found hers, locking her fingers in a gentle bondage.
“Easy, little sprite,” he said huskily against her ear as he bent his head to kiss between her breasts and lower, to her navel.
She stiffened with a faint protest and tried in vain to extract her fingers from his. Surely he didn’t mean to… Ah God, she could feel his breath upon her woman’s curls. His mouth nuzzled her, and she cried out, squeezing his fingers. He moved between her thighs, and when his tongue grazed her flesh, she turned her head onto her shoulder, squirming in sweet distress. Again and again his tongue lapped at her, savoring her like honey from the comb. She could feel her face turn to flame, but not for the world did she wish him to stop.
Holden had to stop. He was in danger of losing control. Breathing raggedly, he placed a single, final kiss upon the soft, dark flower of her blossoming womanhood, and then kissed his way to her mouth.
Cambria was astonished by her own pleasant, musky taste on his lips, and she let her tongue venture into his mouth, trailing across the rims of his teeth and lapping at his tongue. As she explored, he released her hands and placed his palm against the wet curls between her legs. She writhed against him, wanting more, aching with a hunger she didn’t understand. He stroked her with a moist finger, edging more and more deeply into her while his thumb stroked delicately above. She rocked her hips in a steady rhythm, counter to his movements. The pressure was exhilarating, and she couldn’t stop the cries that came to her lips.
The sounds she made almost drove Holden over the edge of desire. While one hand continued to pleasure her, he tenderly wiped the beads of perspiration from her brow with the other.
“Cambria,” he said hoarsely, “I must cause you…pain…this first time. I don’t wish to, but I will. It will be brief, I promise, and then you’ll never endure it again.”
Cambria paid little heed to his words. She was a Gavin. She feared no pain. Every nerve in her body was awake and crying out for succor.
“I’m ready, Englishman,” she said in a voice that was half plea, half demand.
Holden wasted no time. He coaxed her thighs apart and entered her fully, groaning as her warm sheath surrounded him like a blanket.
Cambria was stunned by the burning that knifed through her loins. But she was a warrior. She’d never cried out in pain. She wouldn’t do so now. Clenching her teeth as he waited for her to adjust to his invasion, she willed the sting to recede, and it did.
When her hands relaxed upon his shoulders, Holden began to move, very slowly at first, letting her grow accustomed to the feel of him.
Cambria learned quickly. Once the pain had diminished, she couldn’t get close enough to him. She pressed upward against the bones of his hip, and he squeezed her buttocks, urging her higher. She wrapped her long legs around him, and Holden gasped at her welcome boldness. He’d never experienced such ferocity in a woman before, and it excited him beyond control.
