"It’s up to you," she said, slightly disappointed that she had let her chance to grasp him slip away.
"No, this is your special night, darling."
She smiled up at him tenderly. "But I’m sharing it with my special husband."
He stroked her cheek with the curled backs of his fingers, his golden eyes glowing. "In that case, love, I would very much like to see you as naked as I am. And as a general rule, would not want to see you clothed in this house unless it is for practical reasons like in front of the servants, or for sensual reasons like wearing a silk dressing gown. I want there to be no secrets between us, no shame. I want us to be as innocent and free of worldly cares as Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden."
"What a nice image. Yes, as if we’re in paradise."
He nodded. "We shall be if we work at it. It’s a state of mind and soul, rather than an actual place."
"It seems like whenever I’m with you, I’m there, Ash. Dancing, in the woods, even in my drawing room at home."
"And you love Somerset?" he inquired softly.
"I do if you’re with me, Ash," she admitted.
"Good. So we can carry our paradise with us wherever we go, for you shall ever be at my side."
Ellen had already begun unfastening her sari, and now turned her back for help with the lower buttons of her undergown. He undid all of them slowly from mid-back to her waist, taking his time, brushing his fingers down her delicate skin every so often, making her feel as if she were on fire.
When finally Ash reached the last button, he peeled one shoulder down gently, then the other, planting a warm open-mouthed kiss on the nape of her neck. He ran his mouth down her back, his tongue lapping lightly as he went. Her nipples sprang to life and she gasped and stepped forward.
"Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean-"
She stepped back, but he had already raised his head. "That’s all right. Too much too fast. I’ll slow down again."
"No, really, Ash, I want-"
"It’s all right. We have all the time in the world," he said, not pressing the issue. "Now would you like to finish undressing yourself, or have me do it?"
"You do it," she said firmly, sorry she had pulled away like a shy schoolgirl and broken the spell between them.
He slid the straps of her chemise off her shoulders, and unbuttoned the tiny fastenings until her breasts leapt free. Ash was delighted she did not wear corsets, but she was so slender and well-shaped she certainly did not need them. Though sometime they could be quite sexy-looking, he admitted inwardly.
But then nothing to could be more glorious than the sight of Ellen bare, for her breasts were lusciously ripe, pink-tipped, with the most adorably pert nipples which just pouted to be touched, kissed.
Ash ran his hands down the sides of her body, not daring to touch their magnificence, but eager to strip off the last of her coverings. He reached her waist and skimmed the chemise over the tapes of her drawers and her stiff petticoat.
When the chemise whispered to the floor, he gazed into her eyes to look for any sign of consternation. When he saw none, he slowly began to untie the tapes of her petticoat. It and the drawers followed the chemise to the floor a few moments later, until she was clad in nothing but her slippers, stockings and garters.
At a motion from him, she sat on the stool he had vacated a short time before. He slipped her shoes off one by one, his warm hard hands caressing her feet. He ran his thumb along each instep and stroked the tops of her feet and her ankles as his hands traveled up to untie her garters.
In thrall to the marvelous sensations, she forgot her own nudity completely as her legs spread of their own accord. He untied her garters first, then rolled the stockings down each leg with whisper-soft caresses that had her spreading her legs even wider.
He took his hands from her, lacing his fingers together and clasping them as though he were praying.
"You’re magnificent, all of you, Ellen. Your hair, your breasts, your most feminine part, your legs, hips," Ash breathed, kneeling at her feet.
At the mention of her feminine parts she crushed her legs together, but he shook his head. "Can I just look at you? I won’t touch, I promise."
She knew his smoldering looks of old, and ached for his touch. But she gave a little nod and let them fall back into their naturally relaxed position once more.
He stared at her for a time, until she could feel the heat in her face turn from one of shame to one of desire.
"May I smell you? Between your breasts, and your thighs?"
"Breasts, surely, but-"
"You’re all woman. So fragrant and warm. With your own natural perfume. It’s an essential part of you. And we make love with all five senses. Like taste, if you remember."
She blushed and nodded. "Breasts."
"With my eyes open or closed? Should I just smell or may I look too?" he clarified.
"You’ve already seen them," she said with a blush.
"Looking and seeing are sometimes two different things."
"I understand," she said. "Look and smell."
He did both, closing his eyes and inhaling her cleavage deeply. She was roses with a hint of musk and vanilla, and he could feel his loins tightening almost painfully at the olfactory delight.
"And your thighs?" he whispered.
"Yes, but, I’m not sure-"
"Please, can you spread your legs wider so I don’t touch you by mistake?"
She complied wordlessly, trying not to faint with shame and embarrassment. He drew his face as close as he dared, for the temptation to bury his tongue inside her was vast.
He inhaled her scent in a long slow breath, and once again found roses, vanilla, and even a hint of cinnamon. Much as he longed to cherish her intimately with his tongue, he knew that was going to be several evenings down the journey of exploration.
So he thanked her, told her again how lovely she was and and sat back on his haunches.
"The water is getting cold. Do you want to go first, second, or together?"
"Would we fit?" she asked in surprise.
"If you sit with your back to me, yes, or we drape our legs over one another and sit face to face. Or me with my back to you."
"Yes, the last one," she decided, feeling she could keep in control with him right in front of her.
She got into the tub first and he came to sit between her thighs, careful not to grab her legs. The warm water bubbled and surged up over them, making her shiver with excitement. She took the soap he handed her, and the wet flannel.
"You can wash yourself or me, or both."
She did both, giving herself a few long strokes of the washcloth first before tackling his huge expanse of back. All his muscles rippled as he arched his back like a sleek, powerful cat. She stroked his long hair as well, and she could swear he even purred.
"Would you like me to do your feet and ankles?" he offered after a couple of groans of sheer delight. "Nothing above the ankles unless you want."
"Feet first, then, and we’ll see how far we get," she said with a sigh, for really, they had already gone too far, yet she found herself overcoming her fears and actually aching for more.
He took up a second bar of fine-milled soap and began.
Her feet certainly tickled, but it was a delightful sensation, and curiously intimate and thrilling even though it was so far away from the seat of her desire.
When she had finished with his back, shoulders and arms, she looped her arms around his chest to lave it, then moved down to his abdomen. She decided he wasn’t quite so huge and imposing when his manhood was hidden from her view.
Yet she knew it was there, and from what she had learned about her body thanks to her husband’s patience, she knew what marriage to him was going to entail
Eventually, she reminded herself, for he had promised her nothing like that was going to happen tonight. But it certainly left her curious about what was going to happen if that was not.
"Knees?"
"Yes, p
lease."
She stroked down his belly and up over his arms, then she took one hand while he scrubbed her with the other. Then they switched, and after a time he raised his hand from her knee and took both of her hands in his to lave them.
It was delightfully intimate, weaving their fingers together, feeling the texture of his hands as she had never dared to before. She recalled their first touch, palm to palm. Yes, there it was again. That quickening of the blood which made her felt as though she wanted to melt in his hands, surrender herself to his incredible touch.
Ash leaned back in the tub for a time, so that she took the weight of his broad back against her breasts. He rubbed his soapy back from side to side for a moment, peaking her nipples. She was aware of the surge of power within him, and the answering need for his warm body against hers.
Cradled to his wife, against her breasts, belly and thighs, he slid up and down and side to side. A moment later he began to stand.
"Where are you going?" she asked, worried that she had displeased him in some way.
He flashed her a warm grin which looked anything but unhappy. "To switch positions with you so I can scrub your back."
"Oh, yes, um, fine." She looked at his huge erection with no small degree of trepidation.
He could not fail to catch her stare. "It’s all right. You don’t have to lean back against him if you don’t want to. Just sit in the middle of the tub."
But she did want to lean back. She did very much. She felt the heat of him shimmer between them, could almost see the blood pumping in his veins.
But he held her at a distance as he used the flannel first to scrub her in long sweeping strokes which filled her breasts with a lambent heaviness. Then used his bare hands to wash her neck, shoulders and back. He worked his fingers gradually more deeply into her flesh and she said in a curious tone, "What are you doing, darling?"
"Massaging your back," he said, dragging his thumbs down her spine on both sides with a certain amount of pressure.
"Can I learn that too? It’s wonderful," she breathed.
"I learnt from my mother. She and I can both teach you. Or Michael’s wife. Mother taught her too. It’s how we all met, when I was paralysed and we were living in Bath."
"That must have been very hard for you. I mean, a man with a splendid physique such as yours, confined to a Bath chair."
"It was very painful," he admitted, "but I most certainly learned patience, and all about the life of the mind through my suffering. So I suppose it did have an ennobling purpose."
"You certainly are patient. Most men just grab and lunge and, well, fulfill their own desires with no thought for anyone else. Possess a woman like she was a horse, or a sweetmeat to be devoured."
"I’m trying to be patient, Ellen, though the gods only know how difficult it is when you’re so incredibly lovely. I hope you can be patient with me as well. I want to savour everything about you. We can spend hours in our room doing whatever you like, just letting the pleasure and contentment and excitement of being with one another course through us.
"But there might also be times when you want it to be fast and fun and heated. Games you might like to play. Fantasies to share."
"I want to try it all, but I don’t even know where to start. Just the simplest touch from you is so overwhelming," she confessed with a sigh as his hands continued to work their heady magic.
She soaped his feet, ankles and calves, and tried to imitate his caresses.
"Does that hurt?" she asked.
"No, not at all. In fact you can do it harder. Oh yes, lovely," he said. "And your thumbs on the arch of the foot, the toes, that’s right. Lovely. What about you. Too hard?"
Ellen was sure she was purring now. "You can do it a bit harder as well. I won’t break."
Soon she was feeling delightfully loose, so relaxed that she hardly noticed her legs had floated up and were resting along his own most intimately.
"Would you like to lie back?" he whispered close to her ear, so that even his breath was like a caress to her fevered skin.
"Mmm, please." She could felt his huge hardness pressing against the small of her back in an even more compelling massage stroke.
"May I wash your chest now, with my hands, love?"
"Yes," she sighed.
Desire made her loins heavy with dewy passion, and he said in a whisper, "You can just lie back and enjoy this, or you can touch yourself."
"It would be nice to, but I want to concentrate on what you’re doing," she said, glad he could not see her reddening face. "But you can touch me there too if you like. That day in the garden was incredible."
"We’ll go slowly, one thing at a time."
She could feel his hardness boring into her back. His lower body flexed so that he was rubbing against her from side to side. The entire lower half of her body began to arch back against him, thrusting her breasts upwards into his soapy hands.
After a time he asked, "Can I soap your belly?"
"Oh, yes."
Ellen hoped he would dip his hands lower, but apart from a tantalising accidental brushing at the top of her honey-coloured curls, there was no repeat of his most intimate caress the day they had got engaged.
He laved her hips, exploring the parentheses of her hip bones, the hollows, the soft indentation between hip bone and belly, then worked his hands back up to explore her ribs.
"Is the water warm enough for you?" he asked when she began to shiver.
He accidentally brushed the underside of one breast, and then she was lost. She arched back against him and gasped, unable to reply. He let her ride the crest of her passion, gentling his hands over her breasts to send her peaking even higher. The tips of his fingers pressed ever so lightly and whispered over her nipples, hardening them further.
She grabbed one hand to press it to her, dragging the other one down to her belly, his lower two fingers just at the curve of her mound as she slid her hand over his. "Please, please touch me there," she begged urgently.
"Show me what you want, like," he encouraged, nibbling one earlobe.
He spread his fingers to lace them with her own and whispered them over her delicate fleshy rosette. It was thrilling enough to touch herself. His hand was almost overwhelming. His warm hard fingers flicked lightly, exploring the hidden valleys along with her. The intense sensations shot her to yet another peak, leaving her boneless with need by the time she let go of his hand and raised her own.
Panting, she now begged him for a kiss, and he was more than happy to comply. Reclining as she was against his broad chest, Ash moved his hand up to cup her chin, turning her head sideways so that she could hear his strong heartbeat against her ear. This was true intimacy, the sharing of a bath, the total awareness of his presence, filling all of her senses.
"Thank you, darling, for the exquisite pleasure, and for marrying me," Ellen said when she had quieted at last. "It would never have been the same being you mistress. I would always have been fearful, insecure. I understand that now."
He nodded and gave her a loving smile. "I’m not entirely selfless. I would never want to risk losing you, my treasure. Oh, I’m well aware that infidelity is common enough in marriage, but it’s not something I would ever even contemplate. One may easily imagine oneself smitten.
"But this is a lifetime commitment to love, respect and sharing. There’s no problem in our marriage, in our lives, that we won’t be able to solve together if we practice patience and love and honesty."
"Thank you, Ash." She kissed him more heatedly than ever before, still swirling with desire.
"Thank you for making me the happiest of men."
"Are you, though?" she asked shyly. "I mean, you’re response doesn’t seem to be the same as mine."
"Our bodies are different. I can be pleased many times in different ways. But I need to concentrate, try to hold back. To keep the pleasure at a steady hum. You’ve let yourself go over the edge and now you’re feeling what?"
"Well, very satisf
ied, tired, spent."
"What if we aim for a steady hum of continuous pleasure? That is if you’re not too tired?"
"Not too tired, no. But I hope you mean in a bed. I mean, not that this isn’t lovely, but if we’re going to stay here we'll need more hot water."
"No, I was planning on a nice roomy bed for the next step, if you’re not frightened."
"No, not at all," she said truthfully. "I trust you with my life."
The Rakehell Regency Romance Series Boxed Set 5 Page 58