Page 15 of A Husband for Esyllt
“Then look at me.”
Calling on all her inner resolve, she did as he bade her—and all but gaped. “You are...”
Hard was what she wanted to say, only she couldn’t speak with the proof of his virility staring at her in the face. He had invaded her body once before, of course, and she had felt the strength of his arousal, but she had neverseenhim in such a state. On their wedding night he’d undressed in front of her, but his member had not been erect.
Now, it most definitely was, and the difference was staggering.
“Yes, I am hard,” he said matter-of-factly. “I am a man, and it is morning, so there is nothing odd in that.”
“Isn’t there?” What on earth did he mean?
A corner of his mouth lifted up. The wretched man was amused by her ignorance, just like he’d been when he’d suggested she took his member in her mouth. He’d seemed to say it was something she should have known about, or even have done before. But now that she was seeing him in his full glory she had serious doubts about her ability to do such a thing. Not that she would ever want to, of course.
“Men tend to wake up hard,” Connor explained.
Did they? “But... why?”
He raised both his hands, as if to indicate that was no reason for it, it was simply the way of things and then he cocked hishead as if considering. “You know, I’m really starting to wonder why it is that someone like you doesn’t know more about men’s bodies and preferences.”
Intense heat invaded Esyllt’s cheeks, for there was no mistaking his meaning. He considered her a wanton who welcomed men to her bed as soon as they took her fancy, so he was surprised about her ignorance of men’s anatomy and tastes where bedsport was concerned. But there was a simple explanation for it. She was nothing like the woman he took her for. She’d been married at a young age, before she could take an interest in men, and her marriage had not been one based on carnal urges. Gwyn had never spent a night in her bed, nor had he been in the habit of wandering around with no clothes on, and of course she’d had no reason to see any other man naked, much less welcome them into her bed. So it was little wonder she didn’t know men woke up hard or that they liked being licked.
“Forgive me, but I am not used to seeing men naked, whether in the morning or at night.”
She’d hoped he would say that he would refrain from exposing himself in the future, so as to spare her blushes, but of course he did no such thing. Instead, he smiled and leaned in toward her, so he could purr in her ear.
“Well, I guess I will have to walk around your chamber naked more often, then, wife, so that youdoget used to seeing me in all my glory.”
With those words, he drew back and looked her straight in the eye. They were so close it would be easy for him to lean in for a kiss if he wanted. Was that what he intended to do? Though he’d arrived almost a week ago and he’d already entered her body, they had never kissed. But instead of placing his lips over hers, he took her hand and guided it to his straining member.
“Here. You’ve seen it. You’ve felt it inside you. You’ve been told that you can take it in your mouth. Now you can touch it.”
Her fingers wrapped around a silky soft length forged of pure steel. Esyllt’s eyes widened. It was unlike anything she had ever touched before, warm, iron-hard. Fascinating. It felt almost alive, about to burst. She forgot that she should be outraged, or at the very least, embarrassed.
“Does it hurt?” The question came out in a breath.
Something in Connor’s eyes flashed. “Not in the way you mean. It doesn’t hurt to be hard, but it hurts not to be able to release the tension in it. That is what intercourse, or ‘coupling’ as you call it, is made for.”
Did that mean he was about to tumble her into bed? Had all this teasing been a way of telling her he was ready to bed her? Was he about to take her, not because he wanted her, but because he needed to, in his words, ‘release the tension’?
The notion made her feel both dirty and unimportant.
“Can’t release be achieved by other means?” she asked, letting go of his shaft as quickly if it had scalded her fingers.
He arched a brow in surprise. “You know about that?”
“I...” Not precisely. But she had heard talk of men bringing themselves pleasure, even if she wasn’t quite sure how. She had wondered at the time if the same could be done for women but had never dared try to find out more. “Well, can it?”
“It can. Only, it is much less satisfactory. Rather like snatching a moment’s rest on the hard floor of the great hall when what you crave is a good night’s sleep in a comfortable bed.” His lips stretched into a slow, sensual smile. “It serves a purpose, but doesn’t give you half as much pleasure as a woman’s soft body can.”
Was it the voice? Was it the look in his eyes? Was it the evocative words? Esyllt didn’t know what it was that made her insides melt like honey and her heart pound hard in her chest. In any case, it mattered not.
She shot to her feet before Connor tried to persuade her that she could give him relief he needed, or worse, that she offered it herself.
“Shall we? You were famished, remember?”
Chapter Four
It took Esyllt a while to recover from the intensity of the moment she and Connor had shared in her room, when she had felt his breath at her neck and his pulsing shaft in her hand. Fortunately, she could not get dressed as fast as her husband did, and she lingered purposefully over her toilette to give herself some time to compose herself.
