by J. A. Coffey
He eased in, and Jess caught her breath, feeling her flesh stretch with the strange sensation.
Darius gathered her into his arms, taking fistfuls of her hair in the process, and in one thrust he penetrated her flush to his body.
It hurt. Mind-bogglingly hurt. Jess felt her eyes snap open and tears leak out as she stared at the ceiling, finding no words- and no breath- sufficient to say.
"Oh my God."
But it was Darius who said it, Darius whose face grimaced in pain, Darius who pressed his forehead hard into the pillow. "Are you okay?"
It was muffled, but he asked expecting an answer, an answer Jess did not know how to give.
He looked at her and seemed to melt. "I'm so sorry, honey. You're so damned small. This should be the worst of it, I swear."
Damn it hurt. Through her tears and lack of breath she asked, "How could you even know that?"
"Because sex wouldn't be pleasurable to women if every time hurt like the first." Both his thumbs wiped away her tears before he gathered her back into his arms. "Here, try to relax those muscles that are gripping me like a frigging vise."
Her fingers loosened on the skin of his back, and he chuckled, "I mean, down there." He wiggled as if to demonstrate, and her body clenched again, making him wince.
"Oh." Now that she knew which muscles, she focused on relaxing them.
"Oh, dear God, thank you."
He remained motionless for a moment, and Jess ran her fingers down his back. She had to know, and she took a deep breath before asking, "Is that it?"
He propped himself up on his elbows. "Is what it?"
"Did we make love?"
He laughed and touched his forehead to hers, holding it there. "Ah, Jess, I absolutely love your innocence. Yes, in the fact that you are officially deflowered- by your very-honored husband, on your wedding day, nonetheless- and no, I have not yet begun to make love to you." He shifted a bit between her thighs, and her body clenched again, making him suck in air. "I have to thrust, Jess. It's a guy thing. But I'll go slowly."
She nodded, watching him, ready to follow his lead.
He pulled out, then slipped back in, and she felt her body shrink and expand with his movements. After a few times, she seemed to understand, and when his hand cradled her hip and drew it off the mattress, Jess arched into him, feeling his shaft sink a touch further than a moment ago.
"You're killing me, Jess. Just thought you should know."
"In a good way?"
"Exquisitely good." He kissed her to soothe his words, and she felt him smile against her lips.
In and out he slipped, bringing with the motion a torrent of pain and pleasure, but the more he slipped, the wetter she became, and suddenly she couldn't tell the moment when the pleasure outweighed the pain she first felt.
"Oh my God, Jess. You were worth waiting for. Every damned minute."
He crushed her to him, his coarse black chest hair ticking her nipples, his sweat mingling with hers to help their bodies slide in perfect union.
"Are you okay?"
"Yes." She meant it. "It doesn't hurt anymore."
"I'm glad." But he grimaced as if in pain. "Okay, my love, it's my turn." He gave her a meaningful glance that she could not interpret, and then his thrusting began in earnest. Faster and faster he slipped into her, his face contorting with what she could only assume to be sheer agony. But she then thought hers might be making the same expression, and she believed she comprehended his feelings.
A battle cry emanated from his lips, and he yanked out of her and hovered over her stomach. She followed his gaze and watched a tiny pool of milky-white cream spill from him.
"Is that...?"
"A thousand of my heirs, yes." Darius lowered himself to one elbow. "When is your period due?"
She felt her face flame red at the brazen question, but marshaled on and replied, "In a few days."
"Few meaning three, or thirteen?"
"Four, I think."
"Oh, lovely." He rolled off her, smiling, and collected a handful of tissues from the master bath and cleaned up her belly.
She watched while he gathered up his offering and made an observation. "I thought there'd be more."
"A common misconception." His focus angled skyward at that. "Funny choice of words." She liked how the corners of his eyes crinkled at his pun.
He kissed her, tossed away the paper wad and flopped to her side, head propped on his elbow, and asked, "Want to broaden your horizons? Try what was on page fifty-three?"
She thought she knew what he meant, but she noticed his red-streaked erection, frowned and said, "You're bleeding."
He looked down. "That's you, love. Your virginal blood. Just like in the olden days, when they would present the wedding-night sheets to the priest."
Her lip screwed up on its own. "Well, that's gross."
"Thank God for change."
She glanced down to her thighs and saw the proof of what he said right there on her skin. She smiled. She kind of liked that there was tangible proof of their union. "What was on page fifty-three?"
His grin warmed her to her very-naked toes.
"This." He got back up and knelt between her legs and drew her buttocks onto his lap, guiding himself into her before gripping her hips to hold her in place.
He desperately wanted her to explore her sexuality and enjoy all that their lives and bodies could. He wanted to watch her eyes darken when she came, watch her face distort with her passion, wanted to lick and suck on every available inch of skin and have her feel comfortable enough to want to do the same.
He eased his length into her and watched as she caught her breath. After a second she told him, "I feel like I'm being invaded."
He grinned. "I'm a man. It's all about claiming territory."
She gasped at his audacity, and he laughed, feeling joy he never knew possible.
"So I'm territory? To be claimed?" Her voice rose in mock indignation, only the glint in her eyes belying her words.
Darius nestled his fingers into the lush curls at the apex of her thighs, sliding into her cleft to stroke her clitoris in time with his thrusts. Her breaths came in tiny spurts, and he watched her pelvis tip towards him, craving more of what he offered. His rubbing finger changed its tempo, as did his thrusts, and she arched and cried out. When her eyelids and body grew heavy, he eased her back to the mattress and sprawled atop her, cradling her face to kiss her slowly, languorously. "I have offered myself to you in every way a man possibly can: legally, financially, spiritually, emotionally, and now, bodily. From this day forth, Jess, I am your man. In every way, I am yours, and I hope to my very marrow that you are mine, as well."
He watched her nod and relax under his weight, and a glisten of a tear peeked between her lashes. He did not want to make her cry, though. He had already harmed her with their personal trials, with the attempts on their lives, and now, with their joining. He nuzzled her ear and whispered, "You aren't going to shackle me, now, are you?"
Her fingers slid up his back, and he smiled to encourage her bravery. His wife was a wee bit timid abed.
His wife.
A gleam of mischief flashed across her face prior to her stating, "I've always wanted to be the ol' ball and chain."
He growled a little warning but smiled as he said, "I forbid it."
Those fingers lightly tickled his sides. "I'm going to have to get in touch with my inner nag."
Another warning. "Jess...."
She tickled him in his armpits, and he gasped and tickled her stomach. Both of them squealed and tried to escape and retaliate simultaneously.
Jess managed to slip away- he let her- and hopped off the bed, causing Darius to stalk her around the cavernous room.
Giggling, she backed into a corner by the fireplace, and Darius framed her face and pushed her against the wall, kissing her with every ounce of passion he felt for this amazing woman.
Her breasts heaved against his chest, her abdomen quivered against his
rock-hard length, and all he wanted was to sink into her again and again and again.
He felt the desire for her thicken his voice. "We could do it standing, you know."
He felt her liquefy in his arms, and he drew her up along his chest, holding her on her tiptoes. When he pulled back to gaze at her, he noticed the flush across her cheeks and throat, her soft languid expression, her heavy closed lids.
He scooped her up and laid her gently on the bed.
She softly laughed. "Back for more?"
"I never left." He nuzzled her throat before kissing her and adding, "You did."
"You weren't done chasing me." Her arms had fallen lax to her sides, and her eyes remained closed, but he eased his body atop hers anyway, nuzzling the skin under her ear before suckling her lobe.
"I will never be done chasing you." She smiled at that, and he nudged apart her legs with his knee. "Now, where were we?"
"Mm. I think you were claiming me."
A soft laugh escaped him. "Ah, yes. I recall now. But I think it's time you staked your own claim."
Her eyes popped open at that. "Really."
It was her turn to gather intel on a strange new territory, so Darius rolled to his back, his eyes daring her. "Come on, Jess, let your fingers out to play."
He felt his skin scorch under her assessing gaze, but he forced himself to lie still.
He liked the mischief he saw in her. "To boldly go where no man has gone before?"
He laughed and rolled his eyes. "I promise you, no man has gone before you. We do have that in common."
A tumble of hair fell over her face as she bent to kiss him, and he felt he kissed more locks than lips, but Darius wanted Jess to explore and exploit her sexuality, so he moved nary an inch.
Timid fingers rubbed along his forearm, then his chest, nestling into the hair around his nipples and making him catch his breath. She snuggled up to him, lifting his arm so she could lie next to him, and he watched her hand come up to brush his hair off his forehead.
He had a feeling she was overtaxed; she no longer seemed amorous, and he felt he might have made a mistake in letting her take the lead. He started to maneuver onto his side, still hard and ready to reclaim her, but a hand on his chest stopped him.
Jess smiled up at him and brushed along the stubble of his chin. He watched her lips part, saw her uncertainty. But she looked up at him with the purest expression he had ever seen as she said, "I love you, Darius Covington. I came to life the day I met you, and I haven't stopped loving you since."
Everything inside him melted at her words, and it seemed as if his vision blurred for a split second as he blinked at her. Hearing those words from her sweet lips was a balm to his soul, one he never even knew he sought until he found it.
He found himself rolling onto her once again, kissing her feverishly and easing once more into her slick welcoming cleft.
Her knees came up, and he felt her ankles lock around his buttocks to hold him close. "Darius, I promise I will love you until the day I die."
Chapter Fourty-Eight
Morning light filtered in through the blinds, slanting across the floor in symmetrical lines reminding him of bamboo mats. He heard Jess pacing thoughtfully around their bedroom, pausing and studying each piece of furniture.
He flopped his arm over his head. "We're married two weeks, and you're already redoing the furniture?"
She cracked a grin at him and retorted with, "I'm a woman, what can I say? We rearrange things. It's what we do."
He groaned, knowing a comeuppance when he heard one.
"Why did Ollie decorate his entire house with priceless antiques, but his bedroom with furniture store pieces? Like this bed. It's not even real brass. It's spray paint. And the couch is from the seventies. The bad part of the seventies."
He pulled his pillow over his head. "Because he was eccentric. It's what rich, old people do. Give me a few decades and I'll be doing the same thing."
The pillow was snatched from his face, and he heard her walk to the window to tug open the blinds.
"You are an evil morning person. Shouldn't you be tired?"
He sensed her amusement as she said, "Interestingly enough, sex seems to energize me. Who knew? Now, my thinking is that Ollie replaced his personal things in here with junk- um, I mean, random items- in the hopes that we would compromise on the interior bedroom furnishings."
Darius let his arm flop to the bed, resigning himself to the fact that it was morning and he had just married a morning person. "I'm listening."
She crawled next to him, nestling close, and he could smell the scent of her shampoo. He cracked an eye, rewarded with the sight of her damp hair hanging down her back. He loved that look on her. He found it sexy.
She drew a line up his chest, circling his nipple. "There's this bedroom set at work that I love. I overpriced it, I admit, because I really, really liked it."
He thought for a moment. "The one by your office. The complete set, carved oak. Looked English, maybe 1890s."
"That one."
He looked at her then, intrigued that she was actually considering owning something that she had intended to sell. He watched and waited, wanting her to finish her thoughts, knowing this would be a major turning point for her. She licked her lips, obviously uncomfortable with the thought, yet doing mighty battle to make her wishes known. "I thought we could, you know, maybe trade out this room for that set."
He pretended he needed time to decide. "Is this your first step in replacing every antique in the house?"
She apparently had braced for that response, for she held his gaze. "No. I love each piece that is here. I've been doing some thinking, and losing every item I treasured really made it hit home to me how important these are to you." Her gaze swept down, and she went back to toying with his chest hair. A little longer and he was going to have to energize her again.
Oblivious to his burgeoning erection, she continued, albeit seeming a little uncomfortable. "I realized I was trying to make you go through what I just survived, and it was awful. When I think of what I lost, I feel like a giant hole has bored away part of me. I can't ask that of you. I can't ask that of anyone."
She licked her lips and looked up to hold his gaze. "What was in this house was yours, Dar, always has been and always should be." She inhaled a cautious breath. "So I'm asking if you would mind trading out these new cheap pieces for a really nice antique set that I love."
They had reached the crux of the matter, and he was glad she understood his view finally. But this marriage would be a partnership like he promised, and he would not go back on his word. "So, you're saying if I acquiesce to your desire for a beautiful antique bedroom set, you will not take that as license to sell or trade every other antique in the house?"
"I will not."
"And are you saying that you can understand the benefit to keeping and appreciating items of value, even if they seem to be underused?"
"Like my emerald-green gown that I only wore once?" The smile that turned her lips held great rue. "I understand and now fully appreciate underused items."
He held her gaze, loving her more and more with each passing minute. "Then, I think we should trade out these items and bring in that set you love. We can take the brace off my old bed to make it accommodate a queen, or get new ones, it doesn't matter to me."
He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and kissed her tremulous lips. He knew how hard this had been for her, knew it would take a revelation to make her change her views, and he wanted to meet her halfway. He rolled on top of her, enjoying that she spread her legs for him automatically after only two weeks. "I've been doing some thinking."
She wiggled underneath him to get comfortable, and he felt himself harden right on cue. Damn, he could make love to his wife twice per day and still have juice for more.
"Oh?" she asked.
"The middle room on the right, heading towards the stairs. I love the wallpaper but not the furnishings. I was thinking of taking
it from Edwardian to Queen Ann. What do you think?"
"I...think I'd have to see it."
"Well," he tugged off her panties and eased into her, accompanied by her soft sigh, "I think we should go shopping for a new look. Know any antique stores in the area?"
He loved how her body hugged him tight through every motion he made. Her ankles circled him, and she smiled and said, "None that would deal with the likes of you. Your reputation, I'm afraid, has painted you a raging monster."
"Mmm. Quite true. Perhaps we should shop in England, where they originated. Would that work for you?"
Incredulity filled her gaze, and she tried to stare at him but his powerful thrusting made her lids close. "Perhaps for our honeymoon?"
"I'm sure it could be arranged."
Her subsequent whimpering told him he had made the right decision.
Chapter Fourty-Nine
Although Darius was supposed to be the nervous one, Jess fidgeted and fumbled and dropped anything and everything her hands touched. They stood at the front door, ready to leave, but Jess couldn't seem to make her body cooperate.
"What if they don't-"
"Jess." His fingers pinched her chin to hold it still, drawing her gaze to him. "I'm your husband now. They'll have to get used to the idea."
"But my dad-"
"Is now mine, too. For better or worse."
Heavy breaths made her shoulders rise and drop, but as she studied him, she breathed slower, and her lungs finally stopped their heaving.
"We'll be fine, Jess. I will do right by your parents."
She nodded, picked up and dropped her purse, then he watched her phone skitter across the marble floor, and her keys next clattered down, and she kicked them away while trying to pick them up.
"That's it. I'm driving."
"But-"
"One ditch a month is my limit, Jess." She glared at him, her lips upturned, and he planted one on her cheek. "Love you, Kitten."
She laughed but got in a shoulder jab.
He elected to take the Model T, thinking if anything her father would appreciate a fine machine, and Jess nodded approval at his choice.