Page 61 of Suddenly a Bride
Taking a deep breath, he turned and looked at the bed—and then wished he’d slept on a bench in the taproom. Gwyneth lay curled on her side facing the door, her arms clutching a pillow beneath her head. As he neared, he saw the faintest glistening of tearstains on her cheeks, and pain clenched tight about his heart. He hadn’t meant to hurt her, had hoped she would be relieved to go home to her family. He had never imagined she could have feelings for him, feelings that seemed so real.
Torturing himself, he removed his boots and slid into bed beside her. He lay on his side so he could look into her slumbering face. With a shaking hand, he slid her hair back from her cheek, then gently caressed her soft skin. She murmured something, then rubbed her cheek against his hand.
Edmund pulled away and lay still, watching her, and felt that it was hours before he slept.
~oOo~
A rooster crowing in the courtyard beneath the window awakened Edmund. Still half asleep, he was warm and comfortable and at peace.
And then he felt the soft body burrowed into his side. Stiffening, he opened his eyes and glanced down at Gwyneth, whose head was tucked beneath his chin, her arm thrown across his chest, her breasts pressed into him. Her bent knee rode against his erection, and if he hadn’t been fully clothed, he probably would have been inside her in an instant.
He pressed his free hand over his eyes and tried to think about anything else—calculations for the wall braces he was working on, the acreage of fields to plow in the coming weeks. But in her sleep, Gwyneth moaned and squirmed against him, and he held his breath to keep from groaning along with her.
Slowly he began to inch toward the edge of the bed. Her head slid from his shoulder to his arm, and suddenly she was awake. With a gasp, she lifted her head and looked the length of his body up into his face. Her hair was gloriously tousled about her face, and her wide eyes, framed with thick brown lashes, were almost golden in the low light. Her lips were parted, and he didn’t even move his head when she leaned down to kiss him.
Stop!his mind cried, even as he caught her face with both hands to turn her head and deepen the kiss. With a swift movement he rolled her onto her back. His rational mind had succumbed to the onslaught, and all he could do was feel.
Caught in the passion of his kisses, Gwyneth lay still and marveled at her husband as he rose above her. His lips and tongue stroked and explored her mouth, then he was kissing her neck and biting her earlobe and suckling a path down her shoulder. His hand worked at the buttons between her breasts, and she thrilled to the knowledge that he desired her as much as she did him.
She felt a draft of air across her chest at the same moment that Edmund stopped kissing her. He looked down at where he’d pulled open her smock. Though her garment still covered everything else, she felt naked to his gaze, strangely shy, though he’d already seen much of her.
“Sweet Gwyneth,” he whispered, and with the back of his hand, he stroked across the peak of one breast.
She quivered helplessly as her nipples tightened and ached.
“You are too beautiful,” he whispered.
Then he lowered his head and took the tip into his mouth. She cried out and arched her back, pressing herself up to a wondrous sensation she’d never imagined feeling, hugging his dark head against her. While her hands stroked through his hair and down his shoulders, he rasped his tongue along her breasts, teasing each nipple until she shuddered and squirmed against the bed. This was magic and ecstasy and passion, and she pulled his shoulders down so that he might rest his body on hers. But he resisted.
As he licked slow circles across her breasts, she felt his hand sliding the smock up her legs. Though she quivered in longing for his touch, still she wanted to press her legs together in embarrassment, especially when he lifted his head to look at what he’d revealed.
He whispered her name again as he came down on his side and gave her a deep kiss before returning to her breasts. With his mouth tormenting her with slow strokes, she felt his hand sliding up her inner thigh, then brushing lightly across her curls. Any thought in her head was drowned out by sweeping passion and need. When his fingers slipped deeper, parting the folds of her flesh, she could only cry out and push her hips hard against his hand. He stroked and teased and caressed, even sliding a bit inside her, though that was slightly uncomfortable. And then his fingers found a spot that seemed to start a fire racing out to make every part of her body even more sensitive. He continued rubbing it, and licking her nipples at the same time, until she was aching and wondering how she could find what her body was seeking.
Suddenly she froze as her feelings reached a violent crescendo that shuddered through her and made her rock under him. She said his name over and over again as the passion inside her lulled with contentment. Breathing hard, she opened her eyes and found him watching her with a soft gaze, his palm resting on her bare stomach, his upper body braced on his elbow.
“Edmund,” she whispered.
He gave her a crooked grin that was so endearing, even as he slid her smock back over her knees, then closed her bodice.
“I have never felt anything like that.” Tears pricked her eyes as she was overwhelmed by how much pleasure he’d given her. She started to sit up so that she could take him into her arms when a sudden twinge low in her back caught her by surprise.
His smile faded as he watched her face. “Gwyneth?”
She tried to bend her knees, and sharp pain made her muscles clench. “Edmund, forgive me, I’m suddenly…very sore. I was stiff yesterday, but I never thought—” She bit her lip.
He helped her to sit up, and it was all she could do not to moan when she lowered her legs over the side of the bed. She watched his gaze dip to the open front of her smock, and only then did she remember what they had not finished.
“Edmund, you—you didn’t—we didn’t—”
She reached for the buttons on his shirt, but he clasped her hands between his.
“No, Gwyneth, I wasn’t sure either of us was ready for the next step anyway.”
“But—”
“Do you not see? You rode a horse for the first time in a long while yesterday. I should have realized you’d be sore. I’m surprised you felt nothing earlier.”
She blushed. “My mind was on…you.”
