The Unlovely Bride (Brides of Karadok Book 2)

by Alice Coldbreath

  “I don’t care,” she murmured. “I’m feeling too blissful.”

  “Well, I’m about to wake you up,” he said. “With my cock.” He rubbed it against her wet heat.

  Her eyes flickered open at that and a look of faint alarm washed over her face. “That’s not going to fit!” she gasped, glancing down at his angry looking manhood. “Why does it look so different now?”

  “Because of you,” he said, opening her nether lips with his fingers and easing his length against her slick folds. He flexed his hips and stroked it against her with agonizing slowness, deliberately grazing her sensitive bud and making her gasp. “You’ll make it fit, Lenora, you’re so nice and wet. You’re going to open right up and take me deep,” he promised huskily. “And next time you’ll want it there. You’ll ache for me as bad as I do for you.”

  Her eyes were big and round now, listening to his every word. “Very well then,” she said in a choked voice. “But first—” She broke off.

  His head jerked up. “What?”

  Her chest heaved. “Can you do that thing? That thing you did before?”

  “Anything,” he promised raspily. “Tell me.”

  “When you—” She released her stranglehold on the back of his shirt and covered her face with her forearm. “Touched me where I’m ugliest,” she said on a sob.

  His eyebrows snapped together. He stared down at her uncomprehendingly. “You’re not ugly anywhere,” he said tersely.

  “You know what I mean,” she said in a muffled voice.

  “No, I don’t.” He grabbed the arm blocking his view of her face and shoved it up above her head. Her eyes were squeezed shut. “Look at me.” She shook her head. “Look at me, Lenora.” A tear trickled down her cheek. It felt like a splash of cold water to his back. Shit. “What are you talking about?”

  “M-my jaw,” she stammered. “My eyelids.”

  What the fuck? Had he touched them? He gave his head a slight shake. “What did I do?” Another tear. He was fucking this up. Reaching down, he adjusted his cock, so it lay harmlessly against her belly and carefully lowered his chest to hers. “Sweetheart, why are you crying?”

  “I don’t know,” she confessed shakily. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t,” he said swiftly and ducked his head to press a swift kiss to her jaw. “Here?” She nodded. “You think you’re ugly here?” he asked softly and trailed small kisses down the pitted skin. “This little rough patch of skin?” he asked incredulously.

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  “You’re wrong. It’s not ugly. Not even a bit.” No response. He frowned and hovered over her. “These eyelids are the reason I started liking you in the first place.” Her eyes sprang open at that and she stared at him. “Close them,” he ordered. “I want to kiss them.”

  Her eyes shut obediently, and he pressed the most careful, lightest kisses of his life against her pink, crinkled lids. She was holding her breath, he realized and waited. Then he saw the moisture seeping out from under her lashes.

  “Why are you crying, Lenora?” he groaned. “Should I stop?”

  “You like me?” she asked in a small voice.

  What the hell? “Of course, I fucking like you.” He stared down at her thunderstruck. But really, how could she know? He was pretty taken aback by his declaration himself. “I like you,” he said firmly.

  “But.” She hesitated. “You don’t like anyone.”

  “Bullshit,” he said flatly. “I like you. A lot.”

  She swallowed. “I like you too.”

  Fuck. What was happening? And why did his chest feel so tight? Then he remembered he’d been sporting a raging hard-on for the gods alone knew how long. All his blood must have rushed to his dick. Of course, if he had even a spark of decency, her distress would have made him go limp by now. He cursed and went to roll off her. Her knees tightened around his hips and she wrapped her arms around his neck, preventing him.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Nowhere,” he said gruffly. “I just don’t think I should be forcing myself on you when you’re upset.”

  “Forcing? You’re not,” she said calmly. “Don’t go.” Then she unwound one arm and placed her warm palm against his chest where it had felt most constricted. Did she know how it ached then? His eyes shot to meet hers, as the warmth spread out over him. But her hand was already sliding down now, down over the jumping muscles in his stomach until she wrapped her fingers around his neglected shaft. He made a strangled noise in the back of his throat.

  “I don’t really know how to touch you back,” she admitted, puffing out a breath.

  “You’re doing fine.”

  “Really?”

  He nodded. “Though if you keep doing that…” He winced, his fingers closing over hers. “I’m already way too primed.” Still, he could not resist moving her hand in a slow stroke that made the sweat bead at his brow and his hips jerk.

  She settled back against the mattress and let her knees fall apart on either side of him.

  He inhaled sharply. “Lenora.”

  “Yes, Garman.”

  “I shouldn’t—” he said, even as his hand slid up one milk-white thigh. The blondeness of her hair there was only one shade darker than that on her head. He stroked his thumb through the damp curls and watched her sigh. “Are you sure?”

  She nodded and he settled over her, bracing his weight on his forearms, still gazing down at her face.

  “The first time for women is not supposed to be good,” he said regretfully. “But I’ll try to make this as easy as I can.”

  Her arms slid around his back as he reached down and adjusted himself to her before pressing forward. He saw the wariness creep into her open gaze, a wince, a smothered yell and then he pressed his mouth to hers as he breached her virginity and slid home. Finally, thank the gods.

  She wasn’t with him for this part, but he was acutely aware of her every shaky breath. Somehow, despite his pleasure, he found himself moderating his thrusts without too much effort. True, he had to squeeze his eyes shut to concentrate. The feel of her around him was like nothing else. It was strange how aware he felt of the clench of her fingers at his back as he luxuriated in the tight, silky clasp of her. How often he felt compelled to press his lips to hers. These were new impulses, entirely foreign to him. He would worry about that later.

  For now, he would have to concentrate on pulling out before he reached crisis point. She had not been insulted when he had spent on her smooth belly before, so she would allow the liberty this second time. Spending inside a woman was not an indulgence Garman Orde had ever allowed himself since he came of age to seek a woman’s company. Old Sir Bernhard had explained the consequences of such actions.

  When he felt his brow begin to bead with sweat, he groaned and told himself his exertions had gone on long enough. He needed to withdraw. You don’t need to, a voice whispered in his head that sounded very like his own. This is your wife. Any brat you got on her would not be left behind, for she would raise it.

  For a moment he struggled to remember why he wanted no legitimate issue either. My revenge, he thought desperately, but for once, the notion did not hold him in the icy grip it usually wielded. How could it, when the hot clasp of Lenora’s body had him in its thrall? A tingling in the base of his spine warned him too late that his control was quite gone. He had left it too late and overwhelming pleasure had snuck up on him. His eyes flew open, fastened on Lenora’s answering startled look and he lost himself in her with a series of deeply satisfied moans.

  *

  Afterward, he lay behind her, eyes closed as his chin rested on the top of her head. It was easy to drown out the alarming thoughts jostling to the front of his mind when he still held her in his arms. He would worry about what he’d done later. For now, his body felt too happy about it to pay any heed to the clamoring concerns.

  “We’ll have to go down to supper soon,” Lenora pointed out. Garman frowned. For some reason he had the notion she should be
content to lay like this with him for as long as he saw fit. “Only, I’ve had a busy day and I’m quite hungry,” she continued.

  “Go to sleep,” he murmured.

  “I’m not remotely tired.” She turned her head to look back at him and he gave a sound of disapproval. “You probably need to catch up on your sleep,” she pointed out. “After your late night, but I’m going to get up now.” He tightened his hold about her waist, and she smothered a laugh. “I’ll send Fendrel up to cuddle with you.” He opened an eye at that. Cuddle? “Your grandfather will be expecting me at table, and I don’t want to disappoint him.”

  She didn’t seem to mind so much about disappointing him, he thought with a twinge of annoyance. Still, he released her as against all odds, it turned out he was a considerate sort of husband.

  To his surprise, he did not drift off to sleep as she moved about the room despite the fact, he was both sated and tired. He watched as she emptied the dirty water out of the window and then poured the rest of the clean water out of the jug into the bowl. It would be cold now, he thought, watching her lift her shift to wash discreetly between her legs.

  Suddenly, he wished he had waited until nightfall and they had been fully undressed for bed when he took her virginity. Lifting her skirts like that in the middle of the afternoon had possibly not been the most thoughtful consummation of their marriage. And now she proposed to go downstairs and eat a meal without him. It was… strangely dissatisfying.

  “It’s good we waited until we had each other’s measure,” he said gruffly, raising himself up on one elbow.

  She lowered her skirts and regarded him with surprise. “I thought you were waiting until I had fattened up a little,” she said with a teasing smile. “And my hipbones didn’t stick out too much.”

  He was silent a moment. In truth, his initial reluctance had made little to no sense to him now. She had been both pale and wan, but it had been something else that had held him back and he was damned if he knew what it had been. “It wasn’t because you were too skinny,” he said shortly, dropping back onto the pillow. “It was something else, though I hardly even knew it at the time.”

  “You mean other than the fact you weren’t particularly attracted to me?” she asked lightly.

  “What?” He was almost startled by her words.

  “You were most frank and upfront about it, I thought. I respected you for it.”

  “I seem to remember I showed you my cock was hard enough to get the job done,” he pointed out.

  “You most certainly did not show it me!” Lenora spluttered, tidying her hair at the small glass. “You put my hand on it. Over the covers.”

  He shrugged. “Either way, I was capable, but the timing seemed wrong.”

  “I suppose you were being considerate of my maidenly feeling,” she said thoughtfully as she added a hairpin. “As we were two strangers staying in a procession of inns.”

  He snorted. “Doesn’t sound like me.”

  “Well, if not that, then what was it?”

  He shifted uneasily on the mattress, trying to find the right words. “If I’d had you then, it wouldn’t have been like this. It’s better this way.”

  “You mean, because we know each other now?” she asked, her expression softening.

  He gave a murmur of agreement, but it wasn’t that precisely. That had never stopped him before. No, it was more the idea that he could ruin something if he’d taken a misstep with her.

  Maybe it was the way she had been so fearless around him from the outset. He’d liked that, he realized. Liked it a lot. He’d recognized her bravery from the very first, though at the time he wasn’t sure if it was partly due to her being foolhardy. He had never really understood why he’d accepted her proposal.

  Then she’d been so damn impudent, the opposite of what he’d always thought her. Putting that guard to blush, telling that priest he’d already been enjoying his conjugal rights. The memory tugged his lips into a reluctant smile. He had told nothing but the truth after all. He liked Lenora Montmayne. He’d liked her from their first interaction when she’d lifted that damned veil, letting him see her damaged eyelids.

  She had guts and the idea of putting a shadow in those clear blue eyes when she beheld him, of giving her a reason to fear him had left him cold from the outset. And he suspected that rutting her in a damp inn, while other patrons could likely overhear, would have given her a very real disgust of him. That was why he had not done it. Not because of any lack of attraction or consideration of maidenly modesty.

  He had held back, because if not, he had known on some level that he could ruin some potential future between them. Like this moment right now, he thought with dawning realization. She pulled on her boots while he debated the wisdom of imparting any of this to her.

  “Does that mean you won’t be taking me on all fours?” she asked conversationally, startling him out of his reverie.

  He met her eyes squarely. “Oh, I’ll be doing that alright,” he said. “Just as soon as you’re ready for it.”

  Lenora laughed, jumped out of her chair and hurried out of the room.

  30

  “Thank you, Margery.” Lenora smiled at the girl after accepting her plate of beef stew and reached for the dish of fried beans which she helped herself to sparingly. She had lied when she told Garman that she was hungry, for she had eaten two pastries in town and a small bun as she walked through the market. It had just felt essential for her own defenses, that she immediately put some space between the two of them.

  The sight of him, all content and wanting to talk to her, instead of turning immediately cool, had frankly terrified her. If at that moment, he had said something, anything that might hurt her, she might never recover from it. Her drawbridge was down, and he had stormed her castle. The last time that happened… had not ended well. If her cousin Kit had not come along to distract her, she was not sure what she would have done.

  She was still a coward, she thought despondently, even now. Remembering her recent tears under him, her fist tightened around her spoon in mortification. Why had she turned so… so emotional? He didn’t want emotion from her. It wasn’t that sort of marriage, she told herself crossly. Acting in that foolish fashion had just forced words from him that he didn’t want to say and probably, she thought with a pang, did not actually mean.

  She was an idiot.

  “Is everything alright, my dear?” Gerard Sutton peered at her anxiously from the other end of the table.

  Quickly, Lenora schooled her features. “Oh yes, Grandfather,” she assured him. “Just a little tired.”

  “Garman does not join us for supper, it seems,” he said tutting. “No doubt last night’s proclivities…”

  His words were cut short as they heard a firm tread on the stair and then, the door swing open.

  “Good evening,” Garman said evenly and crossed the room to sit on the bench next to Lenora.

  To her annoyance, Lenora felt her face color hotly as she felt his eyes on her face. “I thought you would sleep,” she said aloud.

  “Did you?”

  She looked up sharply, for there was no intonation to his words, but he met her eyes calmly enough.

  She made to stand. “Let me call for Margery to fetch you some stew,” she muttered, but he caught her wrist to prevent her from rising.

  “Margery!” he roared. Then turned to her. “No need.” Hurried footsteps were heard in the passage. “More stew,” he said succinctly. Margery hurried away to oblige.

  To Lenora’s embarrassment, Gerard Sutton seemed to be watching their exchange with a certain keenness. “No doubt, Lenora has told you, my boy,” he said beaming. “That she is taking to her wifely duties with great keenness and aptitude.”

  Lenora closed her eyes briefly against Garman’s answering smirk.

  “Oh, I agree,” he rumbled gravely. “Though she could scarcely be enthusiastic enough for my tastes.”

  “That is good to hear,” his pure-minded grandfathe
r uttered, holding up his goblet for the returning Margery to replenish. The maid set down a large bowl of stew for Garman and moved around the table, pouring out three cups of wine.

  “This is a flavorsome stew,” Garman said, surprising everyone, for his table conversation was usually sparse. “Hawise is a good cook,” he added. “I had some conversation with her earlier in the kitchens whilst she was preparing it.”

  Lenora and Gerard’s startled eyes met across the table. “You did?” his grandfather faltered.

  “Aye,” Garman paused. “We had some speech about Kolby and the cats.”

  Lenora’s head turned sharply. “Is everything alright betwixt them?” she asked anxiously. She had heard of no altercations, but then she had been out for a good deal of the day.

  “Very harmonious,” he said. “He and Grizelda doze quite happily before the fire together.”

  Gerard gave a small dry cough. “That is good to hear in all events.”

  “Begging your pardon, sirs, but the little gray is curled up there now,” Margery put in, setting the stopper back in the jug of wine. “Curled up in between Kolby’s front paws, he is, as if he’d knowed him all his life!”

  “Fendrel,” Garman supplied, surprising the company at large once again. “Is the gray’s name,” he elaborated when his grandfather looked quite bewildered.

  “Ah yes,” Gerard said hurriedly. “I believe Lenora considers that Fendrel has chosen you for his master, is that not so?” he asked, bestowing a smile on his new granddaughter.

  Lenora’s answering smile was a little forced. She had not really expected Garman to embrace his role as Fendrel’s protector with such aplomb.

  “Cats apparently exercise their own will when it comes to such things,” Garman said without any obvious amusement. He turned to Lenora. “I can report that Tybalt and Purcel are flourishing at Cofton Grange.”

  Lenora colored hotly. How could she have forgotten to ask after Fendrel’s brothers? “Oh, I’m so glad!” she blurted, almost dropping her spoon. “For I have often worried that Tybalt might be quite crushed beneath a horse’s hoof in their stable.”