by Ranae Rose
He massaged her nipple slowly, dragging the pad of his thumb over the hardened peak. She barely felt the delicate sleeves of the wedding gown slip over her shoulders, falling below her breasts to where the wide ribbon cinched the dress. “The gown flatters you, Elsie. You were beautiful at the church today.”
“Thank you,” she answered breathlessly as he pinched her nipple lightly, sending a thrill through her core. She arched her back against him, pressing her breast into the hollow of his cupped hand. The way he responded, kneading the soft mound, sent dual waves of confidence and eagerness rolling through her.
“I was in such a hurry that I forgot to tell you at the time. I’m sorry.”
She shook her head, sighing as he pulled the ribbon free and the loosened gown pooled around her hips on the bed. “You were worried.”
He cupped both of her breasts and pulled her back against his chest, pressing his cheek against the top of her head as he held her firmly, his palms snug against her breasts. “Yes, and with good cause. But I wish I could have done things properly. No bride wants to be given away by a footman.”
She arched her back against him again, tipping her head back to rest on his shoulder. Her lips brushed his ear as she spoke. “I don’t care. Honestly. You forget that I was but a housemaid only days ago. Our wedding was more than I ever dared to dream of.”
“Modest expectations, for such a beautiful woman.” He relinquished his hold on one of her breasts, trailing his fingertips over her belly, reaching for the apex between her hips.
She wanted to laugh at his ridiculously flattering comment almost as badly as she wanted to open her thighs and thrust her sex into his hand, but she could do neither. A sour feeling churned the tea in her stomach as she remembered the man who had crushed her girlish romantic hopes and educated her on her options in life – Lord Wilkes. She slumped against Damon, letting her body mold to his as her sureness ebbed.
Damon was so kind and noble that he’d probably never suspected that she hadn’t been a virgin when he’d taken her in the rose garden. Knowing that he thought himself her first lover weighed on her heart almost as heavily as the fact that he was not. What would he think if he knew she’d taken a couple of careless tumbles with a rakish lord who cared nothing for her? The idea of disappointing Damon with the truth made her feel guilty in a way that Jenny’s berating lectures never had. But what choice did she have? She wouldn’t deceive the man who’d bared his own dark secrets to her, who’d given her his name and his promise to cherish her for the rest of his immortal life.
Her husband’s hand rested in her lap, his fingertips entwined in her soft curls. Heat pulsed in her core, begging for release. It would be so easy to open her legs to him, so simple to lose herself in a few moments of the ecstasy that his touch would bring. Stifling a moan, she held her legs firmly shut. Thoughtful lover that he was, he simply waited, pressing a kiss against the side of her neck. Her voice trembled as she spoke, and her tingling body threatened to follow suit. “Damon, I must confess something.”
“What is it, love?”
She really did tremble at the sound of the endearment. Hopefully he would be furious. Anger she could take some sinner’s solace in, but if he was only disappointed… She wouldn’t be able to bear his calm suffering. Nipping the soft inside of her lip, she forced herself to speak before she could lose courage. “When you made love to me in the rose garden three days ago, I was not a virgin.” She swallowed the last of her inhibitions and continued. “You were not my first lover.” Steeling herself for his reaction, she stiffened, waiting for him to snatch his hands away from her hips and breasts.
“I know,” he said simply.
“You knew?” Of course she hadn’t bled when he’d taken her, but between the darkness, the grass and the blood-frenzy, it hadn’t occurred to her that he might notice. And perhaps he hadn’t – perhaps her eagerness had given her away. No virgin would have been so forward, so anxious to feel him sink his cock into her body. Surely only someone who’d had a taste of carnal pleasure before would have been so uninhibited. By God, he probably thought she’d made a habit of throwing herself at strange men!
He kept his hands on her body, his gentle touch at odds with the anger he surely had to be feeling. “Yes.”
Perhaps he wouldn’t have said anymore about it, had Elsie summoned the grace to drop the matter, but she couldn’t stand the thought of him slipping into the quiet displeasure she feared. Besides that, her own curiosity refused to be thwarted. She had to know how she’d shamed herself. “How did you know?”
Finally, his hands tightened on her body, his caresses turning into possessive grasps that caused her womb to tighten, even as she dreaded his answer. “I overheard Lord Wilkes boasting about stealing your virginity a year ago.”
Because she’d seen her reflection in a dressing mirror that morning, she knew she now possessed the same perfect pallor Damon and his family members were known for. Had she not already been so pale, her face surely would have gone white. A part of her wanted to sink down into the mattress and out of sight. If Damon’s touch hadn’t been anchoring her to him, claiming her, she might have tried. The explanations she’d imagined for Damon’s knowledge were nothing compared to the truth. She blinked back the nervous tears that were stinging the backs of her eyes, unable to admit that she’d never felt so ashamed.
“Do you have any idea how hard it was not to kill him?” Damon asked, his voice rough. “How disgusted I was with myself?”
“What?” Elsie blinked as a rebellious tear slid down her cheek. She let it fall, too embarrassed to wipe it away. Surely he meant to say that he’d been disgusted with her.
“Don’t think I’ve forgiven myself,” he continued. “Don’t think I’m not sorry.”
Elsie trembled, trying to make sense of what he was saying as she fought a losing battle against her tears.
Without warning, Damon gripped her below the shoulders and turned her to face him. She tried to look away, down at her naked thighs, but his intense gaze held hers captive. Her bottom fit snugly into his lap, its roundness pressed tight against his erection as her nipples grazed his chest, puckering rebelliously. “My God,” he said as his mouth twisted in an uncharacteristic grimace, “did you really think I’d be angry with you?”
Dumbfounded, she nodded. “Aren’t you?”
“No!” He tightened his grip on her arms, perhaps unintentionally. “How could I possibly blame you?”
“It wasn’t as if it was rape,” she replied, worrying that Damon had managed to glean a false impression of her relations with Lord Wilkes and that she’d have to confess her guilt all over again.
“If it had been, I would not have suffered him to live,” Damon replied, his voice suddenly hard. “But that’s irrelevant. By keeping my distance from you, I allowed him to take advantage of you – an innocent girl. If I’d admitted my love for you and approached you before, none of it would have ever happened.”
“Is there anything you don’t blame yourself for?” Elsie asked. Guilt over her own actions was bad enough – the added responsibility for Damon’s sense of self-blame was unbearable.
He tensed against her. “I am to blame for many things, including what Lord Wilkes did to you.”
She tried to protest, but he cut her off. “He might have hurt you, might have gotten you with child. It would have been my fault if he’d ruined your life.”
At last Elsie’s guilt gave way to irritation. Twisting, she pulled herself from his grasp. “No! You’re being ridiculous, Damon. I’m not proud of it now, but I went to bed with him willingly. If it bothers you, I wish you’d be angry with me.”
Elsie bore the silence that stretched between them until she could stand it no longer. “You seem to think yourself the demon people say you are, but you’re not. You’ve done more good than most, and certainly more for me than I deserve. I won’t begrudge you this irritation. If you regret that I did not come to you a virgin, say it.”
He
sighed. “I do regret it. But only because I can’t bear the thought of anyone treating you like an amusement to be enjoyed and tossed aside. You’re so much more than that to me.” He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her against his chest again. “Of course I’m not angry with you. You were seeking the affection I should have shown you long ago, and I can’t blame you for that.”
Relief washed through her, and she relaxed against him as the tension drained from her muscles. “I think we’ve just had our first argument.”
He rubbed a hand down the length of her back, caressing her from shoulder to hip. “I suppose we have. What is it that married couples do after a fight, then?”
“I imagine they say that they love each other.”
He settled a hand on her hip, where it fit against the curve as if it had been made to rest there. “I do love you, Elsie. And not just because we’re married now. I’ve loved you for seven years.”
“I love you too,” she said breathlessly, “though for seven years I tried to convince myself that I did not.” Had she ever truly believed that her feelings for Damon were only mere infatuation? She knew now that had been a lie she’d told herself in hopes of sparing her own feelings. Unrequited love was torture; a sort of slow death of the heart she hadn’t wished to subject herself to. But as a girl, she’d loved Damon for saving her from an orphan’s dismal life, and deep down, she’d never stopped. Now, she loved him as her husband.
“No more of that, I hope,” Damon remarked, a hint of humor in his voice.
“Never. I think we should kiss now. I mean, I think that’s the married thing to do.” She smiled at him.
He leaned over her, pressing a hand behind her head as he lowered her gently onto the mattress. “I think we should do much more than that.” He pressed his lips against hers.
Beneath the herbal tang the tea had left in his mouth, he tasted surprisingly sweet – both delicate and sharp at once, but not cloying. Traces of blood gave the taste an edge that sent a shiver of desire down Elsie’s spine. How had she never tasted it before? It seemed her sense of taste had improved along with her vision. She entwined her tongue with his, reveling in the enhanced sensation. Did she taste the same way to him?
Perhaps so. He shifted his hips against hers, showing her the hardness she’d incited.
She arched her hips in response, gasping as his erection dipped into the hollow between them and ground against her sensitive mound. “Are you ever going to take these off?” she thought aloud, splaying a hand over the front of his pantaloons and running a thumb up the length of the stiff rod beneath.
“With pleasure,” he groaned, reaching down to negotiate the strained fabric.
The front fall fell away, revealing the pale, gracefully muscled lines of his hipbones. Between them, his cock reached for her, long and hard. It was perfectly angled, ready to slide into her eager body. Seized by an irresistible impulse, she arched her hips, raising her slick folds to meet his erection. The blunt tip pressed perfectly against her swollen nub, and she moaned as a jolt of heat struck her core. She was damp enough that his cock slipped against her flesh, sending a second wave of core-tightening pleasure through her before the first had even ended. She was more than ready for him, but an even stronger desire stopped her from thrusting her hips against him again in demand. With a sigh, she dropped her bottom to the mattress.
“Is something wrong?” Damon breathed, a note of concern sounding in his voice, which had gone distinctly husky.
She swallowed her inhibitions and confessed. “I was thinking of that night when I watched you from behind the dressing screen.”
A low moan rose from somewhere deep in his chest, sounding vaguely like ‘yes’. Taking a deep breath, he spoke in a decidedly more understandable tone. “Does the memory bother you?”
“Always, but not in the way you mean.”
Another moan, and he lowered his groin to hers, letting his cock rest on the bed of curls between her hips. Resisting the urge to shift against him, she continued. “I watched every second of it. I couldn’t look away. I… I was certainly not in the habit of voyeurism, but the more I saw, the more I longed for you, until I feared my heart might break from the wanting.”
“What is your intention in telling me this?” he asked lowly. “If it is to encourage me to take you now, you are succeeding.”
“I do want that,” she gasped as he shifted his hips against hers, sinking her bottom into the mattress, “but there is something else I want first.”
“Anything.”
“I want to see your body. All of it. That’s what I was trying to tell you. I’ve been thinking of it ever since that night, remembering what I saw and dreaming about the rest.” Memories of his leanly muscled torso and broad shoulders teased her. The sight of him stripped bare to the waist with the front fall of his pantaloons open to expose his stiff cock had been the most enticing thing she’d ever seen. What would it be like to see him stretched on the bed, naked and hard for her? She’d wondered many a time. Why did asking make her feel like dropping her gaze? He was her husband, after all.
“Of course I’ll take these things off,” he breathed. “I intended to in the beginning, but you proved quite the distraction.” He rose to his knees and pulled his shirt over his head, tossing it aside.
A shiver of appreciation raced through Elsie as she took in the firm lines of his lean muscles, defined beneath his creamy skin. His torso narrowed from broad shoulders to a flat, tight stomach that begged to be touched. Rising to her own knees and reaching out, she touched a hand to his collarbone, tracing its length before letting her fingers drift to the small bud of a nipple below. She used her palms to explore his slick abdominal planes, reveling in the feel of his muscles shifting subtly beneath her touch as he breathed. After a few moments, she lowered her hands to his hips, tracing the sloping lines of muscle that narrowed to the thick base of his cock. Closing one hand around it, she shut her eyes and remembered the way he’d looked with his own fist wrapped around his shaft.
He groaned, calling her back to the present. Opening her eyes, she took in the sight of his body again, appreciating every line and angle just as much as she had a moment ago, as well as when she’d admired his half-naked form from behind the dressing screen. Relinquishing her hold on his erection, she slipped her fingers into his snug pantaloons, reaching for what she hadn’t seen yet. In her mind’s eye, she could imagine the lean lengths of his legs and the tight curve of his backside. Indeed, she’d admired it many a time as she’d watched him stroll down a hallway, oblivious to her stare. But this was different. She could touch him. He was hers. Her heart skipped a beat as he began to peel off the form-fitting garment.
His legs were as long and lean as they’d looked beneath his clothing, and his bottom just as perfect. She pressed herself against him and wrapped her arms around his waist, smoothing her hands over his backside. His erection dug into her belly, caught between their bodies. He cradled her face in his hands and tilted it upward, pressing a kiss hard against her lips. She opened her mouth for him, tasting his sweetness again as his tongue slid over hers.
His cock was so firm against her belly that she quivered, aware of the dampness that crept from her body as she imagined it plunging into her. His tongue tangled and twisted with hers, bringing to mind images of their joined, writhing bodies. She could still feel the rose garden’s cool grass tickling the small of her back, could still smell the perfume of crushed petals. Her core clenched at the memories, and when he leaned his weight against her she fell back eagerly against the mattress, opening her thighs to allow him to settle between them.
He slid inside her with a low moan, causing her to sigh and shudder as he stretched her to her limit. Their mouths were still pressed together, their tongues still entwined. He rocked his hips, plunging into her again. Her core tightened around his pressing cock, sending flames of heat up to lick at her belly. She grasped the firm planes of his backside and pulled him deeper in, satisfied onl
y when he made a sound that was half-moan and half-growl and drove himself into her again with a hard thrust. Her gasp broke the seal of their kiss.
“Am I pleasing you?” he asked, as if the answer wasn’t obvious.
She panted and nodded as he strained his hips against hers, relishing a wave of heat that rolled through her womb as he pressed the tip of his cock against it.
“I’ve done this a thousand times in my dreams,” he said, pulling back for another thrust. She sighed at the sudden emptiness and gasped when he filled her again, holding her gaze with his even as her suddenly heavy lids threatened to fall shut, plunging her into a blind world of pure sensation. “I’d try to imagine the silky, heated feel of your body.” He thrust again, slowly this time. “And the sounds you’d make when I’d drive my cock into you, as deep as it would go.” He flexed his hips, pressing hard into her in demonstration. “But it’s all so much better than I imagined.” He pressed a hand to one of her breasts and cupped it, teasing the nipple with his thumb until it shrank to a tiny bud. “The best part is that you love me. I never dared to imagine that.”
“Why?” she panted, digging her nails into his backside and bracing herself for the next mind-melting stroke. God knew he could have any woman he wanted, and if he’d wanted her, then why hadn’t he dared to imagine that she’d return his affection?
He shrugged. “I suppose I thought my true nature would repulse you.” He stretched her with a slow, deliberate stroke. “Will you say it again?”
“Say what?”
“That you love me.”
“I love you, Damon.” She gasped as his muscles shifted beneath her palms, pressing her hips into the mattress and pushing her to the verge of climax. Saying it had felt good to her too – it was like confessing a secret she’d thought she’d never be able to admit to anyone, including herself. She’d watched him for years, yearning to speak to him, to know him. As a girl she’d hopelessly, secretly worshiped the handsome boy who’d saved her from a dead-end life, seemingly off-handedly. His image had always been in the back of her mind and the forefront of her heart as she’d grown into a woman – one who would always look to him as the perfect model of a man. “I…” she breathed, losing the rest of what she’d intended to say as her core tightened around his cock, sending waves of ecstasy through her body.