“I say yes.”
“What will the servants think?”
“The male servants will think I’m the luckiest man in England, and the female servants will think I’m a horrible lecher for forcing you to perform your marital duty while ill.”
“Are you choosing bedding me over playing chess with me?”
“Yes. I’ve played Valois now, you know. The greatest chess player of this generation, they say. But I’ve never bedded my wife.”
She gazed up at him. “Let’s change that.” She held out her hands and he took them and helped her to her feet.
It was the walk up the stairs with his arm around her soft waist that George had pictured when he had first thought of marrying her.
After locking the hall door and the door to his own bedchamber, George turned to her. She was standing in the middle of her room, clasping her hands in front of her.
Suddenly, he was nervous.
“Traditionally,” she said, swaying back and forth a little, “I think one starts with kissing.”
He strode to her, three large steps, and took her in his arms. God, she felt good against him, her beautiful breasts, her warm belly, her luscious legs. All of her. Her arms reached up and her hands went to his head. She had no nails to scratch him but her fingertips and her palms felt as wonderful as ever.
“Good,” he said. “I’d like to try that first.”
He kissed his wife. Her lips were everything he remembered. Warm and meltingly soft. Her own sweetness tinged with the sweetness of the biscuits she had just eaten.
He had intended to kiss her as he first had back in June, softly and lightly, to continue the game of acting out that first time they had coupled. But he lost himself in being close to her and he found himself devouring her, his tongue invading her mouth and playing over her tongue, lapping at the insides of her cheeks, trying to capture every bit of her.
Oh, Phoebe.
It was what she had been craving. The obliteration which came with being pressed against him, his hard body holding her and his scent surrounding her, wiping doubts and fears from her mind.
She was as weak as ever. But she didn’t care. In this moment, she only cared about what he did to her, how he thrilled her, how every little bit of her felt alive and ached to be closer to him.
He swept her up into his arms and took her to the bed, keeping his mouth on hers, not breaking his intoxicating kisses. She took one hand from his head and brushed his groin as he laid her down. He was so swollen already. He groaned into her mouth and she was reminded he was vulnerable, too. And in this moment, she had the proof that he wanted her. This was her power.
Despite the maddening pulsing ache between her legs and his hardness, the undressing took a long time, as if they couldn’t bear to break away long enough to do the job properly. A button here, a shrug there, lips locked together, hands everywhere.
Finally, every scrap of clothing was removed and only their bodies were tumbled together on the bed. His cock brushed her maidenhair, was against her cleft. She pulled at his neck, his shoulders, clutched at him.
And then he was inside her, stroking in and out of her with big powerful thrusts.
She was no longer solid but another substance entirely, some ether. Her pleasure rose inside her quickly, frighteningly quickly, like a blaze set to a flammable vapor. His lips on hers, his hands on her body, his cock in her deepest place. She contracted and wailed into his mouth as she surrendered and floated and flew and was nothing. An arrow directed toward the sky, soaring, soaring, soaring until it was lost to sight.
Then the tears came. The despicable tears, dragging her back down to earth. Back into herself. He halted his thrusts. He took his mouth from hers.
“Phee?”
“No!” she sobbed. “No. Finish, George. Finish!” She grabbed his buttocks, she pushed her hips up into him, she tried to take his mouth with hers.
At first, he responded to her kiss and her movement. But he quickly stopped again as her body was wracked by waves of an entirely different kind than had been there seconds before. Deep, rolling grief that consumed her as thoroughly as her pleasure had.
He pulled out of her and hesitated, hovering over her. She didn’t have the strength to drag him down, to force him to do what she wanted.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“No! No, no, no, I’m sorry,” she got out. “I ruined it. I ruined it.”
He got on his side next to her, careful not to be too close. He moved a piece of hair off her cheek.
