Page 47 of Love, Remember Me

"How dare you, sir!" she raged at him. "Tillie is my servant, and as such must answer to me first and foremost."

"Tillie is the servant of the Countess of March," he replied. "She is liable to me now, madame, as her master. Would you like me to help you from your bath? You must be finished surely."

"Get out!" Nyssa glared furiously at him. "I shall scream."

"And what, pray tell, madame, will that accomplish?" he asked maddeningly, taking the towel from its rack by the fire, opening it and holding it out for her. "I am your husband. Who will interfere with me even if I should beat you? Under the law, both God's and man's, you are mine."

"You are despicable, my lord," she told him tightly.

"If you will not get out," he replied calmly, laying the towel aside, "then I shall get in." Pulling his boots and hose off, beneath her startled eyes he stripped down to his shirt and breeches.

"You do not dare, my lord!" Nyssa said nervously.

He threw her an amused look and unfastened his shirt, drawing it off and laying it aside upon the settle with the rest of his garments. "No?" he drawled, his hand moving to his breeches.

Nyssa scrambled to her feet. "The tub is not large enough for us both. It is too full for two people," she cried. "The house is rented and must not be damaged!" Why was he staring at her? And then she realized that in her panic she had quite forgotten that she was naked. "Ohhh . . ." Her soft cry echoed in the room. Desperately she reached for the towel he had tossed aside, rosy with blushes, her eyes wide.

For a moment he couldn't breathe. His chest felt tight. His eyes hungrily ravaged her form. Wet, it glistened with the oily bathwater. He watched fascinated as a drop of moisture rolled between her pretty little breasts and slid down her long torso. She was all pink-gold in the firelight. Reaching out, he yanked her from the tub and pressed her wet body against him, kissing her deeply. He had never in his life wanted a woman quite so much as he wanted this one.

Nyssa's head swam dizzily with the sensation of his mouth against hers, with the heat emanating from his hard body. She knew so little of him. She certainly did not know him well enough to love him, but the feeling his actions engendered inside of her certainly was not fear. Raising her arms, she let her palms slide up his smooth chest. His very skin seemed to leap beneath her touch. It was then with wonder she realized that whatever it was he felt for her, she felt it also for him.

He slid his hand up to her head, pulling out the pins that had held her hair up from the water. Her dark mane tumbled free, caressing her shoulders. He kneaded her scalp, with his fingers turning her head this way and that, his mouth never leaving hers. His heart almost stopped as he felt her fingers unfastening his breeches, pushing them down along with his linen drawers. He stepped out of them, kicking them away, his arms still wrapped tightly about the girl.

Nyssa pulled her head away from his, gasping for air. Her eyes met his and she said tightly, "What is this I feel, Varian? What is it that makes me play the wanton with you? I do not understand. It cannot be love."

"It is lust you feel, sweeting," he said low. His big hand slid smoothly down the arch of her back to fondle her buttocks.

"The Church says lust is a sin," she whispered, unable to restrain her own body, which seemed to want to press itself into his palm. "Coupling between a man and his spouse is for the purpose of procreating children," she recited primly. "I have not heard it said that coupling should be an enjoyable thing, and yet I liked it last night when the pain was finally gone. Is it wrong for me to like coupling?"

"Nay, sweeting," he murmured against her lips, his finger rubbing sensuously against the very tip of her backbone. "And lust between a man and his wife is permitted, I swear it! The Church may not publicly say it, but they know it is so, and it is a good thing." With his palm in the small of her back, he pressed her closer to him.

Daringly she ran the tip of her tongue across his lips. She did not know why she had done it, but she had suddenly wanted to.

His nostrils flared, and then he was pressing his lips against hers again, his tongue wild in her mouth. To his surprise, she did not flinch, but met him kiss for kiss until his head was spinning. Slowly he turned her about so that her back was to him and they could see their reflections, dusky gold and nebulous, in the narrow pier glass she used to inspect her costume. He heard her sharp intake of breath as his hands slipped up to cup her young breasts. He felt her struggle to control the motion of her body.

Nyssa stared, fascinated by what she saw. She had never really gazed at herself naked in a mirror. Was it the firelight that made her body seem ripely lush? His hands were so big. Yet her small breasts seemed to fit nicely within the cups of his palms. She watched as he gently rubbed her nipples with the balls of his thumbs. Then bending, he kissed her shoulder softly, nuzzling the spot where it flowed into her neck.

"You are beautiful, Nyssa," he said low, "and you don't even know how beautiful, do you, sweeting?" While one hand remained clasped about her left breast, his other hand began to caress her belly.

She viewed him through half-closed eyes, tense yet relaxed. A single finger slid between her nether lips and burrowed itself deeply until it found her most vulnerable spot. She ground her bottom into his groin, and he groaned.

"You make me feel so naughty," Nyssa whispered to him.

She saw him smile in the glass. "I like you naughty," he told her, nibbling on her earlobe with sharp teeth. "I am going to teach you to be very, very naughty, sweeting, and you will like it, I promise you." His tongue swept up the side of her neck wetly while his finger began to tease at her insistently.

She wanted to close her eyes for this was too personal, but he would not allow it, and forbade her. She saw the subtle changes in her expression as he aroused her. Her face seemed to grow more wanton with each passing moment. Her body was afire with new and very powerful longings. She ached, but pleasantly so. She could see from his look that he did too.

"Let us couple now," she begged him.

"Not yet," he told her. He picked her up in his arms and walked to the bed. Instead of laying her lengthwise upon it, however, he placed her so that she lay sideways across the bed, her legs hanging over its edge. Shocked, but unable to move, she watched as he knelt between her outspread legs, his head pushing between her milky white thighs. She felt his fingers opening her, and then to her great surprise, his tongue began to play with her sensitive flesh.

"Ohhh, no!No! No! You must not," she protested feebly, but for the life of her she could not stop him. It was so delicious, but dear heaven,thishad to be wrong! For a moment she struggled against him, but then the sweetness began to possess her and she couldn't fight him.She just could not. It was too wonderful. And then when she thought her honeyed flesh could bear no more of his torture, he rose before her, his great manhood rampant with his desire for her.

He stood, his legs pressing against the bed, and then leaning forward just slightly, he drew her forward, his fingers digging into the soft flesh of her thighs and buttocks until she was fully impaled upon him. His hands reached out to fondle her breasts; then, steadying himself, he began to slowly pump her with great majestic strokes of his manhood. He suddenly felt incredibly strong.

Her breasts ached and felt hard, yet his fingers dug easily into them, almost hurting her. She felt him filling her, and it seemed that now he was bigger and stronger than he had been last night. Without knowing why, she wrapped her arms and legs tightly about him, gasping as she felt him plunge even deeper within her body. A sound something like a moan came from somewhere in the back of her throat. It did not even sound human. Surely she had never made such a noise before? There was no pain this time, only an incredible tension very deep within her that seemed to be building and rising within her until she was certain that she could not bear it another moment, yet she did.

"Nyssa! Nyssa!" he half sobbed her name into her perfumed hair. "Dear God, sweeting, I have never desired any woman as I do you!" His thrusts became more and more frantic within her.

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