Jolene sighed a protest when he released her, then blinked in surprise when he was suddenly in front of her, moving the tray back to the table. “Tis the morning,” she said as he pushed her down onto her back and stripped away the sheet.
"Aye, and I have a fierce craving to see all of ye in the morning light,” he said as he crouched over her.
The heat of embarrassment soon turned to the heat of desire beneath his gaze. She knew she was a small woman, lacking in the full curves men seemed to desire. Yet, the way Sigimor looked at her made her feel sensuous, desirable, even beautiful. She gasped with pleasure when he bent his head and kissed her stomach. As he kissed and licked his way up her body, she caressed his back and shoulders. Her breasts ached for his kisses and she heard herself cry out as he began to feast upon them. One night in his arms had turned her into a shameless wanton, she thought, in dazed amazement.
When he slid his hand between her legs to intimately caress her, Jolene flinched only briefly, then welcomed his touch. The feelings he stirred within her were both fierce and wondrous. It was also a little alarming for, although he was her husband, she had known him for just a matter of days. Then he slipped his finger inside her and she no longer cared how long she had known him. He made her feel wild and free with his touch, and she was soon arching into his hand, her body silently pleading for the joy it knew he could give her. Jolene realized she wanted their bodies joined again, wanted to feel him inside her, but she could not think of the words to say so.
"Such a responsive wife ye are,” Sigimor said as he teased her mouth with short, nibbling kisses. “So hot, and wet, and inviting."
"You seem rather slow to answer that invitation,” she said, her voice husky and unsteady. “You toy with me, I think."
"And myself, but anticipation makes the pleasure keener."
"I am not sure I could survivekeener."
"Neither am I."
She cried out in delight and a touch of surprise as he abruptly thrust himself inside her. He pressed his forehead against hers and closed his eyes as he held himself very still. Jolene wondered if he, too, was simply savoring how it felt to be one. She wrapped her body tightly around his and he opened his eyes to stare into hers. The passion darkening the brilliant color of his eyes made her desire for him soar.
"Ye were made for this, my Jolene,” he said as he began to move within her. “Ye were made for me. A perfect fit,” he whispered against her lips, then kissed her.
The way his tongue moved inside her mouth matched the way his body moved within hers and it made Jolene crazed with need. She slid her hands down his back and clutched at his taut backside. With the arching of her body and the grip of her hands, she silently urged him to go deeper, to move faster, to do something to ease the ache growing inside her.
Sigimor felt her body convulse around him. The sound of her passion-thickened voice crying out his name, the feel of her heels drumming against the back of his thighs, and the way her tight heat clutched around him sent him tumbling into passion's abyss but a heartbeat after she did. He collapsed against her, keeping a little to the side so as not to put all of his weight on her.
The passion she gifted him with was astonishing. Despite how much he had desired her and how she had responded to his kisses, he had never expected the pleasure to be so intense or the satisfaction so great. He had certainly never expected her to respond with a passion as fierce as his own. When he had awakened this morning, he had begun to question what they had shared in the night, attributing the intensity of it to her virginity, to his knowing that he was the first man to possess her, and even to the days of waiting for that moment. Now he knew otherwise and his feeling that they were a perfect match grew stronger. Sigimor was just not certain if Jolene recognized the importance of what flared between them. He was going to have to give some serious thought to how he could make her understand the rarity of what they shared and what it meant, he decided as he slipped out of bed to fetch a cloth to bathe them with.
Jolene's body was so weighted with the lingering warmth from their lovemaking that she barely blinked when he gently washed between her legs. When he climbed back into the bed and pulled her into his arms, she sprawled on top of him. She was not sure it was a good thing that he could recover so much more quickly than she did. Although that could be because he was so much bigger and stronger than she, and more accustomed to desire, she could not banish the fear that he did not feel the passion as deeply or as completely as she did. When he kissed her and touched her, every part of her responded—heart, mind, and body. She hated to think that only one part of him responded, no matter how much pleasure that particular part gave her.
"I cannot believe we did that in the light of day,” she murmured.
Sigimor grinned. “In the light of day, the dark of night, under a full moon, on the floor, on the table in my great hall, in a chair—oof.” He caught her small fist in his hand and kissed her knuckles. “Ye worry o'er naught. I thank God now that ye didnae ken a thing about what happens betwen a mon and his wife, that ye didnae have some sour woman fill your head with nonsense that would ensure your marriage bed would be as cold and empty as hers probably is."
"Do you think that is what some of them do? It seems most unkind."
"And I may be unfair, but when I think of what some lasses are told, I cannae help but think I am more right than wrong."
"How would you know what they are told?"
"From my sister Ilsa. She got an earful when one of her friends was to be married. The woman instructing her friend felt that Ilsa should hear it all as weel. Said she would ne'er hear such sound advice from her kinsmen. Woman told her that we were all lecherous swine who would tell her lies if we told her anything at all. Weel, Ilsa didnae appreciate the woman calling us that, and she didnae believe we would lie to her about it all."
Jolene considered that for a moment and nodded. It was difficult for her to imagine what it must have been like for a girl to be raised with, and by what she began to suspect, was a vast horde of men. Yet, having come to know some of these Camerons, she could understand the girl's sense of insult and her certainty that they would not lie to her.
"So, she came to me and asked about it all,” he concluded.
Lifting her head from his chest, she stared at him in shock. “She askedyouabout such things?"
"Who else would she ask, eh? I have had the raising of her since she was but a wee lass. Nine or ten. Aye, and ere that in many ways as her own mother died and my father's next wife wasnae much interested in the bairns other women had borne him. Truth tell, my father had poor luck with his wives. Buried four, and, although they were good at breeding, they werenae verra good at mothering."
"Oh. That is rather sad. Although I recall little of my mother, I cannot say that what memories I do have are particularly bad. She was more concerned with what my father was doing or not doing than with the care of me."
"Some women believe that is what nursemaids are for, aye?"
Thinking of women she knew and how their children were cared for, Jolene had to agree. “So, what was this advice that so troubled your sister?"
Idly stroking her back and enjoying the way his desire started to flicker to life again, Sigimor replied, “The woman got right what went where, and all, but nay much else. Since she was raised with so many brothers and male cousins, Ilsa wasnae as sheltered as ye were, ye ken. It was all else the woman spoke of that puzzled her."
Jolene placed her hands on his cheeks and stared at him. “I begin to think you are reluctant to finish this tale."
