Page 27 of Papa's Little Bride
Chapter Eleven
Faith
We’re backin the sunroom, although dusk set hours ago and there’s an endless field of stars above us. The snowstorm moved quickly past town, and the skies cleared just long enough to allow a glimpse of sun before darkness blanketed the land.
I’m snuggled next to Papa on the loveseat, my heart beating faster as anticipation rises. My thoughts rest on our impending wedding night. Though he hasn’t indicated for certain whether or not we’re to share a bed tonight, I’m still hopeful, and I can’t stop imagining what it will be like to surrender to my new husband in the most intimate of ways.
“Our wedding was perfect,” I say,breaking the silence.
At three o’clock, we’d exchanged vows in the sitting room, in front of the Christmas tree. The butler and Mrs. Summers served as our witnesses, and afterward we enjoyed a romantic candlelit dinner—an early dinner since we’d talked straight through lunch earlier while getting to know one another better.
“Yes, little one, it was perfect.” He turns to me and strokesmy hair, and when his fingertips graze my ears, a spasm of heat erupts in my womanly core. His hands move down, and he caresses the side of my neck.
Sensation dances across my skin and my breath hitches, the thump of my increasing pulse echoing in my head.
The full moon’s reflection on the snow-covered hills draws my eye, and I gaze into the beautiful night as the fire in the woodstove crackles in the stillness of the house. After dinner, the servants made themselves scarce, and it’s so quiet I think I can actually hear the beating of Papa’s heart.
I lean against his chest, seeking out the steady thumping of his life force.
“Faith?”
“Yes, Papa?” As I await his response, I marvel that calling him Papa feels completely natural, and not forced in theslightest.
“It’s time for bed.”
His declaration holds a weight of meaning that prompts the air in my lungs to freeze. I can’t exhale, and I can’t speak. I can only stare at him and hope that he means what Ithinkhe means.
That we’re going to bedtogether. That Papa will make me his in every possible way, and then at the end of our thirty-day trial he’ll declare that he cannotlive or breathe without me.Oh, please God please.
“Faith, it is up to you where you rest your head tonight. Your bedroom, or mine. Please know that no matter which you choose, I will not be upset with you in the least. Even if you never wish to officially consummate our marriage, I will not get rid of you.”
Surely, he must not mean that last part. If we reached the end of our trialand I hadn’t yet shared the intimacies with him that married couples share, then he would not wish to keep me around. But even if that were the case, I would still ache to belong to him in truth, as a wife does when her husband claims her for the very first time.
I might be innocent in many ways, but I know the ways of the marriage bed, for one of the workers at the orphanage once toldthe older girls what to expect when we get married, or when we go off to work at Madame Angelic’s. I’d been shocked at the time, surprised by the idea of a man’s huge hard appendage pounding into my cunny, but with Papa I don’t feel quite so nervous about the prospect of spreading my legs and allowing him to take his pleasure of me. Besides, I suspect I’ll find much enjoyment in the act, as well.
I’m aching for it. Pulsing hot and urgent between my thighs.
“Papa, I want to sleep with you tonight.”
“Are you certain, my little one?”
I nod so hard my hair flips about my shoulders. “Yes, absolutely certain. I-I’m craving it. Craving you. I want to be close to you, and I want to belong to you.” I hope I don’t sound silly, but I speak the words that pop into my mindin this moment. All of me wants him, and if he sends me to sleep alone in my own bedroom, my heart will break a little. We’ve spent the loveliest day together, and I can’t possibly bear the loneliness of sleeping alone. Nor could I stand falling asleep without satiating the lustful needs unfurling with me, burning me up from the inside.
“Very well, Faith.” He rises and turns, helping meto my feet. He stares at me, his eyes wide and filled with awe, as if he’s seeing me for the first time. “God, you are so beautiful.”
He’s the beautiful one, I think, but I don’t dare say it aloud, for fear that I’ll sound ridiculous. I don’t have any practice in complimenting men, and I’m not sure what counts as a proper compliment. I suppose I could tell him he’s the most handsome manI’ve ever laid eyes on, but as I peer up at him, admiring all his masculine features, from his strong square jaw and his dark determined gaze, to the stubble covering the lower half of his face and his large regal nose, all rational thought ceases to exist.
One intense look from him, and my defenses break down. Whatever he asks of me tonight, I will submit and try my best to please him.
In one fast move, he sweeps me up in his arms, not once breaking eye contact.
I gasp and continue staring at him, the flutters in my stomach and all the heat gathering in my core intensifying under the feral gleam in his gaze.
There’s nothing gentle about his expression.
But I’m not afraid. If anything, I want the roughness his firm countenance promises, because it willbe real, and I want all that passes between us to be as genuine as the sweetest oath spoken.
He carries me upstairs and directly into his large master bedroom. He lays me out on his bed and sits beside me, his hand inching up my thigh, to the top of my stocking. He peels it down and removes the first one. I’m not wearing any shoes, and he easily removes the other stocking, tossing it tothe floor with its twin.
