‘I am your husband, before God and your people. I have the right to…’
Her finger laid across his lips shocked him. ‘You have been patient with my hesitation, Giles, when another man…’
‘Another Norman?’ he offered.
‘Another conqueror,’ she corrected, ‘would not be so.’
She was so close to allowing him and he did not wish to jeopardise her taking the step on her own, but his body burned for her. ‘There is another way,’ he suggested, not daring to think it could work.
Before she could say another word, he turned her onto her back and covered her with his body. Taking her hands in his and stretching them over her head, he kissed her, pressing his lips against hers until she opened for him. He traced the outline of her lips with his tongue before taking her mouth with his. He swept his tongue into her mouth, seeking her, and then suckled on it when she touched it to his.
Then he stopped.
Lifting his face from hers, he whispered, ‘Some men would force it on you, force you to accept their touch.’
He now caught both hands in one and used the other to trace along her arm to her side and then up onto her breast. Her nipple pebbled against his palm. Her body reacted to his touch and he felt as though he had lost his mind. Leaning down, he possessed her mouth with his until they both lost their breaths.
‘Some like the use of force,’ he said to test her reaction. ‘They like to be held against their will and made to accept all manner of pleasures forced on them.’ He reached down and tugged her shift up until it reached her waist.
‘Nay! Truly?’ she asked then in a breathy voice.
Giles leaned over and kissed the nipple of her breast even through the linen that covered it, licking at it and using his teeth against it before sucking it into his mouth and possessing that, too.
Instead of raging, she seemed to melt against him and writhed under his body. Trying to remember the point he was making, he eased off to one side and slid his leg up between hers until it pressed at the junction of her thighs. She gasped but did not protest and when he felt the wetness between her legs on his, he slid it further between, enjoying the slickness her body wept on him.
‘Truly,’ he whispered. ‘A woman who is overpowered has no choice—she cannot be blamed for what happens.’
Still holding her hands above her head, he moved to the other breast and teased it as he had the first. While sucking on the hardened tip of that one, he opened his hand wide on her bare skin under her shift and slid it down over her ribs, then over her stomach towards the place where his leg lay holding her in place.
‘Nay,’ she cried out, stopping his every movement.
‘Hush,’ he said, leaning against her cheek, ‘it is all in jest, lady.’ He released her hands and whispered, ‘I would never take you in force, lady, nor anger.’
Though his body screamed in rage at him for stopping. His cock wanted nothing so much as to bury itself hilt deep in her heat and wetness. His blood pounded through his veins, demanding that he take her and take her hard and deep. Giles rolled off her knowing he must catch hold of his lust before he did what he’d promised her he would not.
‘Have I frightened you beyond words now, lady?’
‘I did not want you to believe you had to force me to this, Giles,’ she said softly. ‘I took a vow and am your wife. If you seek pleasure in our marriage bed, I will not refuse you.’
‘Not refuse me? Will you lie there like something dead and allow my touch, lady? I think that would be worse than not touching you at all.’
Would he for ever be the bastard child begging for something from his betters? He knew that a woman of Fayth’s rank and breeding did not consort with bastard and landless knights, unless she was seeking some amusement or attention when her lord husband was being pleasured by his leman or whore.
‘I do not think I could lie motionless if you touch me the way you just did.’
He turned on his side towards her now. ‘I had thought to ease your way into relations with me, instead of waiting until you have your courses and then taking you. I had thought we could become accustomed in this manner.’ He tried to explain and would have but she stopped him once more with her finger across his lips.
‘Then accustom me to your touch, husband,’ she whispered.
He kissed her fingers and took her hand in his. ‘Will you cry after I do?’
Silence answered him instead of words. Then she moved closer to him on the bed. ‘I cannot promise that I will not cry, Giles, but I will try not to let it happen.’
He considered letting go of this mad plan until he felt her hand slide down onto his chest and into the hair there. He rolled onto his back and let her explore him as she pleased. Until, that was, she reached his cock and tried to touch him there. Giles stayed her hand. ‘Nay, not that.’
‘Does it hurt, then? To touch it?’ she asked.
‘In a way I cannot explain, lady, but I can show you.’
