Page 124 of Traitor Son

When they first met, he thought she would have died of embarrassment before he saw her chemise. He had never expected his shy wife to be so honest in bed. She never lied to him, he thought, dizzy with pleasure. Not even here. Her legs wrapped around him and her voice rose in breathless whispers to urge him to go faster, harder, her nails scoring his back until he thought he was losing his mind.

“You get too loud when I do that,” he panted, almost ready to say to hell with the entire listening world.

“But there, there—ahh, Remin, there’s something…” she gasped, her eyes squeezed shut, her face screwed up with pleasure.

“What, what?”

“When you—oh,nnnngh!Oh there, there, what you just did!”

He did it again. He had no idea what he was doing, all of this was as new to him as it was to her. But he found something inside her, maybe that rough spot Miche had told him to find with his fingers, and angled his body to rub the hard length of himself over and over and over it, rolling his hips upward to strike it as precisely as he would jab a spear. The effect was extraordinary. Her body bucked underneath him and she gave a gasp and her body gripped him and yanked him inside her, so hard that he barely had time to get a hand over her mouth before she came.

“Oh, there, there, there,” she sobbed breathlessly as he pounded her, pushing her through a climax that probably made Yvain and Dol think he was murdering her. And it hardly felt any less good to him; Remin managed only a scant few seconds before he was coming so hard, it felt as if he were turning inside out, every muscle in his body straining with the force of his climax. And as he filled her again, this time it was Ophele that had to clap her small hands over his mouth.

“You’re…poking your fingers…in a bear’s mouth?” he asked as he fell panting beside her on the bed, and she jerked them back as he bit her fingertips.

“They’re going to hear you roaring otherwise,” she said, her eyes widening with surprise and delight that he was playing with her.

“It’ll be better when the house is done,” he promised, maneuvering her into the comfortable shelter of his body. He hadn’t slept in a bed in six months. It felt almost decadent to lie on a mattress with her soft, silky self against him. “And a better bed. This one sounds like it’s going to come apart.”

“Do you think anyone heard us?” she whispered, a little anxiously.

“It’s so late, everyone should long be asleep,” he evaded, though he was already planning to make sure Yvain and Dol had cleared out before she left the cottage that morning. There was no point in trying to keep secrets from guards and servants; they saw and heard everything, and the good ones took pride in their silence. But he thought it was probably better to introduce this idea gradually.

“I want to go see the house tomorrow with you,” she said, turning her chin up to look at him.

“Today,” he corrected. Already he could see her face better than he had a few minutes before, large eyes and red lips, swollen with his kisses. “It’s almost dawn. And only if you’re not too tired. You have to tell me if you are.”

“I will,” she whispered, and soon she was asleep beside him, her lashes curving dark over her cheeks.

To Remin, sleep seemed both very far away and entirely unnecessary. And maybe some part of him feared that if he fell asleep, the spell would end, and he would wake to find that all of this had been a dream. Beside him, Ophele turned on her side and reached for a pillow, hugging it to her breasts. The familiar sight made the corner of his mouth curve upward.

Carefully, he rolled onto his side to shape himself around her. He had never shared a bed with anyone before. It had always been too dangerous. It was strange, but pleasant. He just meant to enjoy the warm and lovely weight of her beside him, but the sound of her soft breathing lulled him, and he closed his eyes. Just for a few minutes.

But he could learn this. He could learn to endure happiness.

* * *

The stern discipline of a lifetime allowed Remin to wake on his own a few hours later, a slow and blissful rousing that was like coming into a dreamrather than out of one. It was a bit disorienting, with the sun too high in the sky and the cottage already a little too warm, but Ophele was in his arms and there was plenty of evidence that the previous night’s passion had been very real. Closing his eyes, he buried his face in her hair and breathed.

For all that he’d hardly slept, he felt better rested than he had in weeks.

Normally he would have risen straightaway, but for once, he indulged himself. Part of him wanted to claim illness and wave away the day altogether, to stay in bed with her. An increasingly large—and hard—part of him wondered if he would hurt her if they went just one more time. She was already naked. He was right there.

Reluctantly, he rejected the idea. There was a certain rawness to more delicate parts of his own anatomy, making him worry that he might have already been too rough with her, and besides, he was the Duke of Andelin. He had to set an example. Bending, he kissed the top of her head and tried to slip out of bed without waking her. He was big and the bed was small. It was tricky, trying not to jostle her.

Perversely, her eyes opened anyway.

“Mmm?” she asked sleepily, squinting. “Time izzit?”

“Midmorning.” Remin crouched beside the bed to put his face level with hers, brushing her hair back. She was barely conscious, but he found he needed to see if the magic was still there. “Wife.”

“Hmm.”

“Do you still love me in the morning?” he asked, and her lips curved.

“Yes,” she said, her eyes slitting open. “Do you still love me?”

“Yes.” He rumbled with contentment as he kissed her. “More than anything.”

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