“I dinna think there should be any shame in a man and his wife enjoying themselves as they go about God’s work, lassie,” he said with a rich chuckle.
“My lord! You come close to blasphemy!” she scolded him.
The earl had suddenly had enough of talking. Rolling swiftly onto his back, he drew Arabella atop him, kissing her most soundly.
“Ohhhh,” she gasped, coloring with embarrassment at this new position in which she found herself. It was sointimate.
His hands clasped themselves about her slim waist. She could actually feel his fingers marking her tender skin. Slowly he lifted her up and drew her forward until her breasts hung like two small ripe fruits just above his handsome face. Lifting his head up slightly, he began to tease her nipples with his lips, and teeth, and tongue once more.
Instinctively her hands flew out to brace themselves against his shoulders. “Ohhh! You must not do that, my lord! Ohhh! Ohhh!” She was beginning to tingle all over.
His answer was a noise that sounded like a cross between a growl and a groan. His face pushed itself into the valley between her lovely breasts, and then with an agility that stunned her, he turned them once again so that she lay beneath him now. He was careful not to crush her beneath his weight, pinning her with only half of his great body. His mouth fused against hers, and Arabella’s head spun wildly. Even so, she was cognizant of his fingers once again straying to that forbidden zone.
“Don’t,”she pleaded with him.
“I must,”he whispered against her lips, and she felt the invading digits slipping between her nether lips, touching for the first time a part of her that sent a wave of pleasure into the core of her very being. “Easy, lass,” he soothed her trembling body as he gently aroused her, caressing the little bud of her sex until she was squirming beneath his hand, until she was unable to suppress a confused whimper, for she had suddenly and quite distinctly felt the pleasure, yet she was still not certain she should admit to it. He leaned forward to feather soft kisses across her brow, her cheeks, her quivering lips. Then his fingers began a far deeper and more intimate exploration of his bride.
Arabella stiffened. She could not help it. Her awareness of the serious intent this dalliance intimated could not be denied. She was unable to prevent the words that tumbled forth from her mouth.
“My lord!” The words were half sobbed, though she had struggled to keep her voice calm. “I am afraid!”
“Aye, lassie, I know,” he answered her, rubbing his cheek against her face, “but dinna be afraid of me, lovey. I would only gie ye sweet pleasure.”
“Are you…aroused by me now?” she asked him, and trembled at his reply.
“Aye,” he told her honestly. “Yer nae just bonnie, Arabella Stewart. Yer damnably desirable, and I desire ye more than I can tell ye, lovey.”
His fingers invaded her more deeply, and she cried out softly, more with fear, however, than with any pain he was causing, for indeed he strove desperately not to hurt her. He was discovering that the knowledge that he was the first man to ever touch her was a far more potent aphrodisiac than he could have anticipated. He was burning to possess her completely. He could never remember wanting a woman so badly as he wanted his young bride. Acutely aware of every nuance of her virgin body, he knew that he could no longer deny himself the pleasure of possessing her.
His teasing fingers had more than confirmed her virgin state. Now he moved them gently back and forth within the innocent silken casing of her warm, perfumed flesh, coaxing forth the sweet evidence of her own artless desire. Unable to hide that desire, not even totally aware of it, her ingenuous young body moved in a way that encouraged his fingers. He knew that she was now ready to receive the full measure of his bridegroom’s love and homage.
Swinging over Arabella, he fit her slender form between his two powerful thighs, pinioning her firmly so that she could not escape him and do herself harm. Leaning forward, he kissed her mouth, her fluttering eyelids, her forehead. He could see the simple truth of her fright in her madly beating heart, which fluttered quite plainly in the shadowed valley between her breasts.
Arabella hated the helplessness she was feeling at this moment. He was so strong, and even though she knew the act of love between a man and his wife could be good and was certainly acceptable in both the church and polite society, she felt a small flame of resentment. A small whisper of fear still nagged at her, and despite her good intentions to allow him his way, her arms flew suddenly up to fend him off.She would not yield herself to him!
Tavis Stewart caught her wrists between one of his hands and firmly held them captive above her head. With his other hand he guided his engorged manhood between her resisting thighs and directly to the mark. For a brief moment he debated the course he would take, finally deciding the pain would be no less for her whether he went gently or ended the agony for her by taking her without further ado. The look of terror on her beautiful face settled him on the latter course.
Arabella was pale and trembling. Her obviously overactive virgin’s imagination was frightening her beyond all reason. Better to make the unknown the known, he thought, and so deciding, the earl thrust hard into his bride’s unyielding body, leaning forward as he did so to absorb her startled cry into his own mouth as he kissed her a most passionate kiss.
Her body ached with his entry. She felt as if someone had driven a red-hot poker into her vitals. Although his kisses successfully silenced her sobs, Arabella could hear her own cries within her very brain. She was being stretched and stuffed beyond bearing! The burning pain of his possession almost suffocated her with its intensity, but then as fiercely as it had begun, the agony began to drain away, until suddenly it was simply no more, or at least not enough to complain about. The very walls of her tight sheath seemed to have stretched to accommodate his manhood. Though a light sheen of perspiration dotted her face and her body, at least her initial fear had vanished. As he lifted his lips from her own, Arabella gasped in a mouthful of air.
“Yer a brave lass,” Tavis Stewart said approvingly. “The worst is over now, my sweet, weewife.Now will come the pleasure.” He began to move on her, slowly, drawing himself almost completely out of her, plunging himself back within her. Each time appearing to drive deeper and yet deeper into the seemingly endless depths of her. He had freed her hands now, but they remained where he had confined them.
The tears she had tried not to shed were now slipping down her face unchecked, and she understood them not. He had not been unkind to her. Indeed, he had done his best to make her passage into womanhood as easy for her as possible. This was the way her life was supposed to be. A woman wed. Rarely was the man of her own choosing. This man appeared to be a good man, and she could consider herself fortunate. Love was a rarity, like a unicorn, a fairy tale. Perhaps it would come later. Perhaps not. Could she love this big, fierce Scot now delving into her with such passion and vigor? She suspected that through some odd quirk of fate she had wed a better man than she perhaps deserved. Her poor mother, who had known only kindness and caring from her father, was undoubtedly finding her life much harder as the wife of Sir Jasper Keane.
“Lass! Lass!”groaned the earl desperately, and then he rolled away from her.
It was the tone of his voice that brought Arabella back to herself, and as the fullness of him drained away she felt, much to her surprise, regret. An almost sad and poignant regret.
“Damn!” her husband swore angrily. “I gave ye nae pleasure, lovey, and for that I do most humbly apologize. Ye made me feel so like a green boy again, I seemed to hae nae control of myself.” Raising himself up upon an elbow, he kissed her forehead. “Will ye forgie me, Arabella?”
“I do not understand you, sir,” she said softly, feeling shy of their new closeness. “Ye were kind to me, and more than honest. You said there would be pain first, and there was. You said it would fade away, and it did. What more is there? What else do I not know?”
Looking down into her flushed features, he said softly, “Why, much more, lassie. A sweetness that melts the bones and makes the heart ache flows between two lovers.” His finger stopped one of her tears, and he brushed it away. “Dinna fret, lovey. I’ll make it better for ye the next time. I would hear ye cry wi’ passion, nae pain.”
She blushed again. “You are a bold man, my lord. The boldest I have ever known.”
“I’m the only man ye’ve ever known, Arabella Stewart,” he replied huskily. “There is proof of my words upon the very sheets. Yer maidenhead, lost for all to see.” He pointed to the linens beneath them and to her bloodied thighs. Then reaching out he cupped her head in his big hand and drew her up to him. Their lips were almost touching as he murmured, “I want more of ye, lovey! More than ye even realize ye hae to gie me,” and his mouth crushed down on hers.
