Page 92 of The Truth About Myths
With her auburn hair fanned over the pillows, the light caressing her skin, and her long legs soft and spread open in invitation, she tempted him beyond endurance. She opened her eyes and extended her arm to him. Henrique lowered himself by her side. He kissed her bottom lip and pressed it between his teeth, then he lowered his mouth to her neck and whispered everything he meant to do with her before their night ended.
He licked her breasts and sucked her rigid peaks. Pausing every few breaths to pace himself, he embraced her for the sheer joy of bringing their chests together, savoring her naked skin against his, inhaling her scent.
He measured her, using his hands, the scale of his lips, the breadth of his shoulders. After this night, he would have her imprinted on his very cells. He caressed and revered and coaxed her excitement until he could no longer keep from her.
Gently, he mounted her. His torso caged her chest, and they locked in a tender embrace. Panting, he guided himself into her entrance. She stiffened underneath him, and he murmured endearments. He lifted his head and sucked her breasts, pulling until she sighed.
When his cock reached her maidenhead, he froze.
"Isabel, I—"
She kissed his neck. "It's only a membrane, right?"
It was, and it wasn't. He was her first lover, and the idea thrilled and frightened him. "I have no kingdom to offer—I'm no prince—"
"You are Henrique, my obstinate protector, my reluctant friend, my cherished rake," she said against his lips, her soft breaths mingling with his harsh ones. "My chosen lover."
He rested his forehead on hers. "I'll never hurt you again."
Flexing his legs, he thrust. The barrier gave way, and he entered her. He wanted to howl and rut like a mindless beast, so blissful her sheath felt on his cock. A gasped moan was all the noise she made, and then she stilled, her eyes shut down forcefully.
Buried deep, he kissed her forehead, her eyelids, the tip of her nose.
Her lashes were wet and spiky, and her gaze traveled the length of his chest until it finally rested on his eyes. He tried to read the green depths. If she wanted to stop, by Zeus, he would, even if his balls writhed and fell like rotten apples. "Isa, Isa, is it so bad then?"
She licked his lips. "Are you always so chatty?"
Henrique chuckled and started moving in and out of her sheath. The friction of flesh on flesh was delicious. Pressure built into his lower back until his release roared from him in hot white waves.
Afterward, Henrique sighed, a naked Isabel in his arms, her soft sleeping sounds mingling with the creaking fire. An odd sensation swept through him, physical and yet transcendent. As if he had expanded to encompass much more than pain, pleasure, and matter. He became infinite, and just the right size to fit into her.
Living without attachments had detached him from life. Before Isabel, he was a cardboard cutout placed in the scenery for effect. With Isabel snug in his arms, his precious views dissolved like fool's gold when in contact with acid. Henrique buried his nose in Isabel's hair and inhaled her floral scent. His princess promised a wealth of pleasure and the possibility of fathomless pain. And yet, he could not bring himself to leave her side. One night would never be enough.
Chapter 35
"I almost wish we were butterflies and liv’d but three summer days—three such days with you I could fill with more delight than fifty common years could ever contain."John Keats
Isabellayinbed,staring at the ceiling, her skin at once sensitive and numb. She had just given away her virginity, not as a wife, but as a prisoner. Too tired to think, she shut the censorship. During the long carriage ride to Salamanca, she would allow thoughts to beset her. Her heart fluttered against her ribcage like a trapped cicada. If only she could turn it off, too. Snuggling closer to Henrique, she closed her eyes, craving sleep's oblivion.
The rumble of waves outside combined with Henrique's breathing. Abruptly, he climbed out of bed and bent to the fire's dying embers. Isabel watched as light caressed the sinews of his back. He was a well-formed male. Bronzed and hard, as comfortable naked as in evening attire. It was brazen of her to stare, but she was no longer a maiden. Certainly, that entitled her to look her fill. So she opened her eyes wide, hoping his contours would burn into her memory. Muscles made golden by the fire's glow, Henrique was every inch a Greek god. She could well imagine Alcmene's breathless thrill at being visited by such a being. He padded back, his gaze eliciting a shiver in her cooling skin.
"You didn't need to bother with the fire. I'm not cold."
"I want to see you."
Isabel pulled the covers up to her chin. Surely, there was nothing new by now. He tugged the bedsheets, and Isabel was not fast enough to secure them. The linen brushed against her breasts, titillating as it exposed her. The mattress sunk under his weight as he stretched by her side. He had yet to touch her, but his gaze, serious and intense, singed her skin.
Squirming, Isabel covered her breasts. "Have you looked your fill?"
"Not in a thousand years."
Breathing the words into her lips, he pulled her arms apart and circled the flesh he uncovered with whispery caresses as if to gentle it to him. Whatever patch she protested could not be touched, he tickled, kissed, and licked. She was perspiring when he arrived at her inner thighs, her breathing shallow.
Would he leave her no place to hide? She must not allow him inside her heart. This one-night arrangement could not obliterate her duty. Trying to keep detached from the onslaught of his kisses, Isabel turned to her side, away from him. Undaunted, Henrique flung her onto her stomach and leaned over her, rubbing his furry legs over the back of her thighs.
Her duty. She could not forget her duty. Still, obligations were fluid and abstract, while Henrique, with his hairy, rough skin and sinewy limbs, was more real than king, country, court... everything.
Following the line of her spine, he trailed his finger between her buttocks and touched her entrance, a soft brush of his fingertips. "Are you sore?"
