Under The Kissing Bough: 15 Romantic Holiday Novellas

by Kathryn Le Veque

  One hand made a sweeping gesture. “Why the devil else did you imagine I proposed?”

  She shook her head. “I thought you needed a wife.”

  A faint snort. “So anyone would do, even you?”

  “I come from a good family, and I brought a fat dowry.”

  He frowned. “You do know you’re speaking arrant nonsense, don’t you? You’re the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen. I took one look at you across that ballroom, and I knew I’d met my destiny.”

  “Oh,” she said breathlessly, desperate to keep her heart from taking wing and flying up into the heavens. None of this was exactly a declaration of love, but she now saw she’d badly miscalculated his emotional stake in this marriage. A trembling hand reached down for the sheet.

  “Don’t.”

  She met eyes ablaze with yearning. No matter how awkward she felt, sitting here without a stitch to cover her, she couldn’t deny him. She left the sheet where it was.

  “So why did you marry me?” he asked.

  Because I loved you so much, I felt likely to perish of it.

  But although they’d done so much to bridge the distance between them, admitting her love remained a step too far. Traces of her old shyness lingered, for all that she sat naked before him.

  “I liked you.” That much she’d dare. “I still do.”

  He arched questioning auburn eyebrows. “That’s a damned lukewarm reason for accepting a fellow.”

  Stupid to blush, when she’d made no secret that she wanted congress with her husband. “You were a catch.”

  He shook his head. “Not good enough. That season, you had a duke’s heir and a marquess after you, not to mention a couple of baronets who could buy and sell me ten times over.”

  She ventured a little more honesty. “You were the only one who made my heart beat faster. And you were always so kind and gentle.”

  He looked horrified. “You make me sound like a dashed milksop.”

  She smiled. “No. There’s strength in your sweetness. You’re the bravest, best man I know. I was a naïve country girl when I accepted you, but I’ve never been sorry about my choice.”

  He shifted as though her praise brought equal pleasure and embarrassment. “While you were smart and lovely, and I couldn’t believe my luck when you accepted me. I’ve never regretted my choice either, but you were so pure and untouched, I feared my passion would terrify you.”

  “I’ve always been stronger than you knew.”

  “I see that now. But you trembled in my arms and cried the first time I came to you. And you seemed no more reconciled to my attentions by the time I left.”

  “It was all so…overwhelming.” She was old enough now to see how her reticence had hurt him, broken the trust between them. Blast her shyness and her ignorance. “And I wasn’t sure what you wanted of me.”

  “You didn’t like it?” he asked gently.

  “At first, what you did was so outlandish, I was frightened. By the time you left, I’d started to enjoy our encounters.” She looked down into her lap to avoid his eyes. “I liked that you made me feel I was the center of your world.”

  “You were.” His jaw squared with determination. “You are. You must know that by now. I wonder that you were uncertain of it then.”

  Warmth flowed along her veins, feeding a frail optimism. He wouldn’t say these breathtaking things if he didn’t mean them. “You were always in such a hurry to leave afterward, I was sure I’d done something wrong.”

  Guilt darkened his expression. “Never. But what I wanted was so primitive, so all-encompassing, I held back for fear of giving you a disgust for the act. And for me. I couldn’t trust myself not to turn to you again and again. Yet you felt so fragile in my arms, you deserved my care, not my fierceness.”

  Her smile contained a fair dose of remorse, too. “And because you showed me such care, I felt you didn’t care.”

  His hand tightened on the base of the bed until the knuckles shone white. “Never think I don’t care, Flick.”

  She gave a broken laugh. “Edmund, it seems we’re both victims of our good intentions. If I’d known you wanted me, I’d have been braver. At least after the first time.”

  He still looked troubled. “We didn’t know how to talk to one another then.”

  “But we know better now.”

  His expression was austere. “My prayer every night I was away was that I’d live to come back to you.”

  “And mine was that you’d live to come back to me.”

  “We’ve been fools.”

  She shifted against the sheets in a futile attempt to ease the insistent heat between her legs. “We have.”

  A sensual glint entered his eyes. “Do I still make your heart beat faster?”

  She extended one hand toward him. To her surprise, it didn’t tremble. But his admissions tonight had taught her a measure of courage. “Why don’t you come closer and find out?”

  To her regret, he didn’t immediately take her up on the invitation. “If I touch you now, I won’t be kind. I’ll use you to the limit. I’ve starved for you, and only your complete surrender will satisfy me.”

  Ooh, that sounded so exciting. A wanton thrill rippled through her, and her toes curled against the sheets.

  “Show me,” she whispered. “Show me, before I die of wanting you.”

  MISTLETOE AND THE MAJOR

  CHAPTER SIX

  When he stepped out from behind the base of the bed, Canforth felt the heat of his wife’s gaze on his naked body. As she leaned amongst the pillows, admiration brightened her eyes, and something very much like desire. With a shock, he realized that a frailer version of that desire had always been present. Even from the first, when he’d been too blinded by her virginal delicacy to see.

  He hoped to hell that his rapacious need didn’t kill that precious longing. He’d tried to warn Flick what she invited. Once he was heaving about on top of her, she mightn’t be so encouraging. But now that she was willing and within reach, he could no longer hold back. For God’s sake, he was only human.

  The sight of her threatened what little remained of his precarious control. His eyes devoured her from the top of her ruffled head to her slender bare feet. Damn it, but she was a glorious creature. Slim and graceful. Piquant face under a cascade of mahogany hair. Satiny, white breasts, crowned with beaded nipples, like rubies in the snow.

  He stopped beside the bed and took her hand, his pulses jolting at even such an innocent contact. When he met her shining eyes and read the hunger there, he knew she was ready. He’d always felt like a hulking monster beside her, but tonight they’d unite as naturally as a wave ran up a beach. His attention lingered on the feathery curls at the apex of her thighs, and he thanked heaven for granting him this chance to discover her secrets.

  What he’d learned already left him reeling with surprise. To think, she’d wanted him when they married. Even more wondrous, she wanted him now. And despite time and distance, they’d both stayed true to their marriage vows.

  Flick raised her chin and the steady courage in her eyes made his heart soar. “I’m not afraid, Edmund.”

  Never had he loved her more. His blood seething with sensual impatience, he kneeled next to her and kissed her. Another of those ravenous, passionate kisses that had turned his dream to fire, before he’d discovered that it was no dream. Flick responded with more of that unpracticed fervor that risked burning him to a cinder. His injured leg protested all this movement, but he ignored it.

  He slid his tongue into her mouth, savoring her rich flavor. A sound of encouragement emerged from deep in her throat, and her hands crept around his neck, pulling the hair at his nape. The sting intensified the fierce sensations assailing him.

  In a fever of need, he kissed Flick all over, tasting the silky skin at her collarbone and inside her elbows, and the delicate pattern of blue veins across her breasts. He nipped and sucked at her nipples, making her cry out and dig her nails into his shoulders. When she undul
ated against him in unabashed demand, he saw stars. He stroked between her legs, until she moaned and writhed. A gush of feminine arousal rewarded his caresses.

  On a groan, he dragged her under him. Her brown eyes were open and glittering with excitement. He kissed her, torn to the point of torture between building her arousal and seeking his satisfaction. Knowing he had no choice, when he’d wanted her so long and so desperately.

  With a sultry smile, she cupped her hand against his scarred cheek. “Don’t wait another second, Edmund. Not one more second.”

  He sank into another kiss, succulent and hot. His hips jutted forward, and he slid into her body. Controlling the pace of his entry threatened to rip him into a million pieces. By heaven, she was tight. Through the furious blood pounding in his ears, he heard her make a sound of discomfort. He paused and sucked in a jagged breath, battling for restraint. When he scraped his teeth along her neck, she shuddered, and her body softened, letting him edge deeper.

  Canforth could hardly endure the pleasure streaking through him. Pleasure mixed with pounding frustration. He burned to plunge inside her, claim her to the core, find his consummation. Only possessing her would assuage the agonizing absence of the last years.

  “Trust me, Flick,” he muttered. “Let me in.”

  She made an incoherent murmur and tilted to meet him. He kissed her again, advancing into delicious resistance. Sucking in the warm, musky scent of her skin, he buried his head in the crook of her shoulder. Her breath was humid and erratic on his ear, and her arms clasped him closer.

  For an excruciating moment, he lingered to let her adjust to his invasion, before even that delay asked too much. With a guttural groan, he seated himself fully within her.

  She cried out and clenched hard around him. When he raised his head to look at her, her eyes were dark and heavy, and flags of color marked her delicate cheekbones.

  He was a large man, and she was slightly built. When they’d first married, this discrepancy had troubled him, made him fear he’d hurt her if he yielded to his passions. Now it turned out that they were a perfect fit. Flick shifted with voluptuous languor, and Canforth felt the change of angle like a blast of trumpets.

  “Are you all right?” he murmured.

  “I love having you so close to me. Don’t stop.”

  He doubted if he could. Her throbbing heat turned the world to gold. This union was extraordinarily profound. He’d loved her from the first, but he’d never before felt that their souls meshed into one entity, while their bodies entwined in sensual bliss.

  Resting deep inside her, basking in the snug welcome, the horrors of war faded to nothing. At last he was home. He released a shuddering breath and gave himself up to pure pleasure.

  Canforth became preternaturally aware of a host of marvelous physical details. The radiant, sleek heat where they joined. The brush of her nipples against his skin. Her long hair tickling his scarred hands. The way her legs cradled him. The scent of arousal thickening the air.

  Piercing joy filled him, but the transcendent stillness couldn’t last. His body tightened with the need to move, to push forward, to seek the explosive ending to his endless longing. Every muscle tensed in anticipation. He kissed her hard. “Hold on.”

  Luxuriating in the barrage of wild sensations, he withdrew, then thrust to the limit.

  ***

  Felicity jerked under the ruthless invasion, even while sensual pleasure flooded through her. As Edmund drove into her like a conqueror, she sank under his weight and strength. His animal hunger was astonishing. She arched up and crossed her legs over his back, holding him close against her.

  With startling speed, her incandescent delight in his passion spiraled beyond her control and became something greater. Something unfamiliar. Something focused not on his pleasure in her, but on her pleasure in him.

  A ravenous hunger that wanted to swallow the universe in one bite coiled in her belly, tighter and tighter with every thrust of his body. She moaned and dug her fingernails into his shoulders, as the volley of sensations intensified. The flagrant carnality of this union left her shaking.

  The hard slide of his body lifted her higher until she poised giddy on the edge of some terrifying, glorious, inescapable precipice. The breath crammed in her lungs, and she closed her eyes in excitement and fear.

  Edmund growled as his movements became less controlled. He bucked against her, making the grand old bed creak. How she relished his uninhibited need. How she relished her untrammeled responses.

  Yet still she teetered on the brink of the chasm, desperate to cross over, but unsure how to break across the final barrier to whatever waited on the other side. Tears of frustration clogged her gasping breath.

  “Come over with me,” Edmund whispered into the side of her neck as he plunged, pushing her deep into the mattress. This was like a war. But magnificent and untamed and brilliant, too.

  “I can’t…” She strained against him, but that mysterious ending hovered beyond reach. Her blood thundered like a stormy sea, and her muscles ached with frantic longing. He pounded into her, his movements choppy and urgent.

  “You can,” he almost snarled. He tensed and thrust his hand between her legs to the source of that insistent ache. When he touched her hard, she bowed up and stepped off into clear air. The old Felicity shattered into a million sparkling crystals. She cried out on a high, pure note and shuddered into a release so exquisite and overwhelming, it was like streaks of lightning ripped through her.

  At last she was flying. As she soared, wild and free, she clung tight to the man she loved.

  With another long groan, Edmund jerked in her arms. Through her quaking upheaval, she felt the hot spurt of his seed.

  When at last she floated down from the outer reaches of bliss, she realized that her cheeks were wet. Edmund sprawled over her, crushing her into the bed. The scents of sex and satisfaction weighted the air.

  Fighting dizziness, she gulped in a shallow breath to ease her burning lungs. Dear God, she’d have to tell him to move soon, or end up suffocating. But how could she bear to push him away? She’d never felt so close to him, even when he’d slid inside her, or when he’d yielded to shuddering release. Through the lonely years, this closeness was what she’d longed for most of all. After that rapturous flight that split the heavens wide open, she couldn’t yet bring it to an end.

  His big, strong body felt loose and exhausted in her arms. He breathed in great gusts, and his skin was damp with clean male sweat. She couldn’t doubt that she’d satisfied him. As he’d satisfied her. When until tonight, she’d had no idea what satisfaction meant.

  A wry smile curved her lips. How absurd to discover the joys of the marriage bed eight years after speaking her vows.

  Felicity turned her head to kiss the cheek he pressed against hers. In this radiant aftermath, tenderness vied with sated desire. With a lazy caress, she ran her hand over his thick red hair, marveling at its silkiness. Her husband was such a fascinating mixture of the gentle and the strong.

  Although it meant she could finally snatch a full breath, she was disappointed when he shifted. “Hell, Flick, I must be squashing you flat.”

  “I like it,” she admitted softly.

  He rose on his elbows and bent to kiss her with a piercing sweetness that melted her bones to syrup. “Thank you. That was unforgettable.”

  She stared up into gray eyes, glowing in the candlelight. “Welcome home, Edmund.”

  He kissed her again with more of that soul-stirring care before he rolled to the side, separating their bodies. At the prospect of his departure, she couldn’t contain a sound of distress. From the day she’d agreed to marry him, she’d promised herself that she wouldn’t ask for more than he was willing to give. But after what they’d just shared, everything had changed. She was about to break that particular promise.

  “What is it, Flick?” He leaned over her, brushing her tangled hair back from her forehead. “Did I hurt you? All these years, the thought of
you has driven me mad. I wasn’t as considerate as I might have been, damn me for a careless brute.”

  She caught his hand and kissed it, feeling the hard, shiny skin of his burns under her lips. When had she and Edmund become so physically demonstrative with one another? On their honeymoon, they’d rarely ventured much past the marital act. Her fears had crippled her, inhibited her natural impulse toward showing affection.

  Was it possible that her husband, for all his worldly experience, had felt a similar diffidence? Difficult to imagine dashing Edmund Sherritt as shy, but looking back with the advantage of maturity, she wondered if that might explain their mutual awkwardness.

  “You’re not a careless brute. And I love what we did.” She blushed, which was ludicrous, given her recent passionate responses. “I hope we’ll soon do it again.”

  A smile curled his lips, and he kissed her. Who knew he was a man who liked to kiss? Certainly not the woman who had married him so many years ago. “It’s a safe wager that we will. I was in such a goddamned rush to have you, I missed a few things that require attention.”

  In this bed, he’d transported her to another world. She couldn’t imagine feeling more wonderful than she had on that wild journey through the stars. Yet now it seemed she had more to discover. How thrilling.

  “Oh?” Anticipation heated her blood. “Such as?”

  He cupped her breast and brushed his thumb across the peak with an idle caress. “Every inch of your body deserves a week of admiration.”

  Her nipple beaded into a tingling point, and that swirling restlessness in her belly stirred anew. How on earth could she be interested in love play, when she’d only just found bliss beyond her wildest dreams? “A mere week?”

  “On my first foray.” Sitting up, he swung his legs over the side of the bed. He wasn’t quick enough to hide a wince of discomfort.

  “Edmund, I forgot about your leg.” Felicity scrambled out of the bed and darted around to kneel in front of him.