“Why?”
“That you have had so little to laugh about in your life.”
He caught her fingers and brought them to his lips. “Careful, lady, or you will find out firsthand what I do to women who wish to cosset me with sympathy.”
“I know exactly what you do,” she snorted. “You take complete advantage of their sympathy to lure them to your bed. A shameful male tactic.”
“No more shameful than those female tactics you worked on me yesternoon, when you assumed I was suffering a guilty conscience.”
“Never did I—” she started to deny, but his knowing grin brought an answering one to her lips. “It always worked on my father.”
“I am not your father.”
Her brow arched. “You do not care whether you have peace in your household or not?”
Reina tensed as he bent his head to grasp the edge of her bedrobe with his teeth and pull it open, then melted when his tongue slid out to swirl about the exposed nipple. When he glanced back at her, his eyes gleamed with male satisfaction.
“I believe,” he said in answer to her question, “I have discovered a more delightful way to make peace.”
“Mayhap you have,” she agreed in a husky whisper, but then sat up and was able to add matter-of-factly, “But as we are already at peace…”
“Not so fast,” he chuckled.
A finger in the neck of her bedrobe brought her back down. It also brought the opened robe off her shoulders. Both breasts were now visible, and the look on his face as he gazed at them told Reina this conversation would not continue much longer.
“Are you still angry that I sought out Red Alma?”
Reina squirmed uncomfortably. “You could have brought your question to me.”
“Would you have told me how to pleasure you as I did?”
“How could I when I did not know such was even possible?”
“Neither did I.”
His lips grazed her cheek on a path toward her mouth, but he did not kiss her. He ran his tongue tantalizingly over her lower lip until she was teased enough to press her lips to his. Then he leaned back, grinning.
“Now tell me you enjoyed it.”
“You have doubt?” she asked incredulously.
“Nay, but I want to hear you say it. Say it, Reina.” He punctuated the demand with another kiss, leaving his lips hovering just over hers. “Say it.”
“I did—enjoy it.”
“Do I do it again, you will not protest?”
“I did not saythat. Ranulf, wait! ’Tis morn…daylight…sweetJesú,” she ended with a blissful sigh.
Chapter Thirty-two
Reina snipped off the last thread and stood up, shaking out the finished garment for inspection. She had to smile. Trimming the blue velvet with strips of brocaded ivory silk had produced a bedrobe worthy of a king. Whether her husband would consent to wear it was the question, however, and not just because he was not used to wearing a bedrobe. All of his clothing was nondescript, plain woolens and linens without embellishments, most in need of repair. You could not accuse the man of being showy or ostentatious, even though he had long been able to afford grander clothing. That he preferred simple attire said a lot for his character.
She had indulged her own fancy with the bedrobe, since only she and the few servants allowed in the bedchamber would see him wearing it. The rest of the new wardrobe she intended making for him would be of fine quality, but much more modest—at least until she could accustom him to the idea that wealthy lords of the realm were expected to be grandiose, at least more splendidly arrayed than their own vassals.
The comments she had gotten from her older ladies as she was working on the bedrobe were typical ribbing for a new bride, and she had taken them in that vein.
“Are you sure you want to cover those magnificent shoulders in that?”
