“It certainly seems functional,” he said, stroking in and out. “But I should look closer.”
And then he slid his tongue into her channel right alongside his finger. It didn’t reach far, but the stretching, licking sensation at her sensitive entrance made Amy’s hips jerk. The only thing anchoring her to the bed, it seemed, was his hand clasping hers.
She looked down between her legs and saw his head moving, his eyes studying her, and his mouth working to give her pleasure. Never did she imagine such things could be so heavenly, not until this man she didn’t know from Adam rescued her in her moment of greatest need.
She had a thought — whether it was before or as her first paroxysm of the night rushed through her body as he sucked her sensitive inner lips — that this man would father her future children. He would labor between her legs and take exquisite care of her and always be the best of men.
She was in love. Had been for some time, if she was honest with herself. A tear, a happy one, escaped her eye as she looked down at him just as he looked up at her.
Erasmus made a show of wiping his wet mouth on her thighs, then came up when she pulled on his hand.
“Merry Christmas, my beautiful wife,” he said before nibbling at her ear.
She could sense his restless, clothed cock so close to where she wanted it. The mere thought of him entering her for the first time made her want to weep with desire. It was time for the Mangevileyns to consummate their marriage. More than time.
“Daddy,” she whispered, shy about using the word yet loving how small and protected it made her feel, noticing it seemed to set loose her husband’s animalistic core, usually hidden under his scholarly exterior.
“God, Amy, you say that and I’m liable to spend in my trousers,” he groaned.
“Then take them off. Take it all off. I want you. I want you inside me.”
He didn’t have to be told twice. Erasmus wiggled to the side of the bed and efficiently yanked off the rest of his clothing before settling on top of her again, just where he’d been.
“We don’t have to—”
“I want to,” she said. “Wanted it since…well, in October, just as you were preparing to depart, then got delayed, but I never could find the words. I think that’s why my letters were so heated.”
“I left my wife with a hot little puss and didn’t even know it?” he asked, letting his cock drift over her cunny.
“You had to have known how I feel about you,” she said, suddenly abashed. This conversation didn’t seem to be merely about bedroom activities. They were totaling the accounts to see where they stood.
“Sometimes I wonder,” he said. “I have the most reserved wife — save for when she’s writing to me from across Europe.”
“Oh, you don’t need to wonder,” she said simply. “I love you, Erasmus Mangevileyn. Have for ages. Didn’t want to burden you with—”
He was on her in an instant, his lips open and demanding as he kissed Amy and let her taste herself. If his response was any indication, he liked what he heard.
“Amy, I’ve hoped, or rather, not dared hope,” he said, kissing her again, then kissing down her neck until he could take a nipple into his mouth, desperate to consume her.
“Are you, well, dismayed?”
“Dismayed?” he asked, a laugh escaping when he pulled off her milky breast with a pop.
“It’s just, you never asked for feelings. They might be burdensome, given that you had a wife of your own choosing. And I simply stumbled into your barn. Without your permission! And then you had to marry me! You were compelled to do so.”
It was the most vulnerable she’d been since struggling to give birth alone in that pile of hay. She laid bare her heart, and Erasmus would not be unreasonable to think all of those things she finally put into words.
“Amy,” he said, fluttering kisses over her cheeks, blanketing his wife in affection. “I loved Eleanor and will always love her. When I met her, I was full of hope and ideas, and she was right beside me, with a zest for life and a desire to see the world.”
She nodded, understanding that there was no way she could compare. It sat heavy in her chest, but she had been prepared for this.
“By the time you stumbled into my barn, I was broken. Disillusioned. Humbled by an intractable grief, and living only so my Thea would have a parent to see her into adulthood.”
She’d not known the depth of his despair. She’d barely been able to hold her head up in the wake of Phin’s delivery, and Erasmus had seemed so immediately delighted with him she assumed he’d always been so happy.
“You made me love again,” he said. “Something about a baby in my arms restarted my heart. And then there was his mama, transforming into the most delightful creature.”
He tucked a curl behind her ear. “You grew more alluring with every day of my care. How could I not love a rose I’d worried over?”
