She thought he’d make a jest out of that, but he merely met her gaze and said, softly and earnestly, “Be careful, Phillipa.”
Her throat tightened around the reckless words she longed to say: Ask me to stay...beg me not to go. Please, Hugh, tell me you don’t want me to be with him, that you couldn’t bear it, that it would kill you.
She turned to look out the window, thinking, I’m doomed if I say those things, and telling herself she shouldn’t have to, that he would beg her to stay if he cared enough, if he cared at all...
If he cared like she did...and wished to God she didn’t.
Quietly he asked, “Are you sure you’re ready to go through with this?”
That wasn’t the same as asking her not to. Without turning around, she said, “Can I sleep with a man I can barely stand for the good of the realm? I think so. I just—” The words caught in her throat. Taking a deep breath to fortify herself, she added, “I just don’t want him to be the first.”
Keeping her back to him, she closed her eyes, waiting for his response, dreading what it would be... I’ve no taste for deflowering maidens...it’s a tedious business...
Unable to hear a thing over the blood roaring in her ears, she wondered if he was even in the room or if he’d left, laughing to himself—
She hitched in a breath when his arms encircled her from behind. He pulled her back against him, nuzzling the top of her head; even through all their layers of clothes, she could feel his heart hammering as wildly as hers.
There came a hot tickle in her hair as he whispered gruffly, “Neither do I.”
Chapter 11
“Don’t let me do this unless you’re sure,” he murmured into her hair.
“I’m sure.” She’d never been so sure of anything in her life.
He loosened one arm from around her, reached out and closed the window shutters, sliding the wooden pin across to latch them. Taking her by the shoulders, he turned her around so that she was facing him and gathered her in his arms—gently, as if she were breakable. Still gripping the hairbrush, she returned the embrace, her face in the crook of his neck, breathing in the warmth of his skin, savoring the strength of his arms around her, the rightness of this, of him being the first...
If only there could never be another.
He kissed the top of her head, saying, “I just don’t want you to end up regretting this.”
“I won’t. But...”
“Yes?”
“I’m afraid you might already regret it.”
“Me? I’ve wanted this desperately, almost from the moment I met you.”
“But...those things you said last night, about...preferring experienced women...”
From deep in his throat there rose a little sound like a cross between a chuckle and a groan. “You must never believe anything a man says when he’s angry at a woman.”
Drawing back from her a bit, he touched his lips to her forehead, very softly, and then to her eyelids, her temple, the crest of her cheek, the tip of her nose...
He lifted her chin with his fingertips, whispering, “Are you nervous?”
“A little.”
“Me, too.” His mouth was warm against hers, the kiss sweet and soft and perfect.
She was astounded at his tenderness, which was the last thing she would have expected after their encounters in the orchard and the stable. He’d been so unrestrained then, ravenous in his passion. Tonight he seemed determined to hold back, for her, and she found herself deeply moved by that.
When at last the kiss ended, he said, “Your hair needs brushing out. Let me do it.”
The request surprised her, but she merely handed him the hairbrush, whereupon he led her by the hand to their big bed, shoving the bed curtains aside so that she could sit on the edge of the feather mattress, made up with embroidered linen sheets and a white silken counterpane. He sat next to her, turning her so that she faced the foot of the bed and he was behind her, and proceeded to unplait the braid she’d started on. When he finished that one, he did the rest, then drew the brush slowly through the unbound tresses, over and over again, the stiff boar bristles grazing her scalp in a most deliciously soothing manner. She closed her eyes, relishing the sensation.
He took his time at this task, brushing her hair until it crackled. She felt luxuriously tranquil, as if she were floating on the surface of a warm, calm lake, with no obligations, no expectations, just pure gratification of the senses.
Setting aside the brush, Hugh gathered her hair over one shoulder so that it pooled in a silken mass in her lap. A moment passed, and then she felt his lips, hot and soft, on the back of her neck. And again. And again.
The sensuous daze he’d induced in her only heightened the pleasure of his kisses. She felt their heat, their promise, deep down to the very core of her being. They kindled something in her, a yawning hunger that had lain dormant too long, and that would now be appeased.
Her heart quickened when she felt him tug at the golden cord that laced her tunic up the back, untying its knot and pulling it through its eyelets. The gown’s once-snug bodice loosened and hung slack over the kirtle of gossamer, crinkled silk that she wore beneath it. Phillipa could breathe freely for the first time all day.
He reached around her to untie the ribbon that secured the kirtle’s low, gathered neckline, clearly intending to remove it as well, but she closed a hand over his, stilling him.
“Could I...leave the kirtle on?” she asked, turning to look at him over her shoulder.
She’d half-expected him to argue with her, or perhaps chuckle at her squeamishness, but there was no hint of displeasure or even condescension in his tone when he said, “Of course. I’m too impatient.” He gave her another gentle, lingering kiss, then asked, “Would you like me to put out the oil lamps?”
Touched by his solicitude, she said, “Perhaps all but one.”
Rising from the bed, Hugh extinguished two of the three lamps, immersing the chamber in a soft amber twilight. He took off his belt and tunic and untied the leather thong that bound his hair. The top few ties of his shirt were open, revealing a smoothly muscled chest lightly furred with golden hair. He sat on the edge of the bed to pull off his shoes and chausses.
Standing, Phillipa shucked off her red silken gown and hung it up, letting some of her hip-length hair fall to the front for modesty, since her kirtle was filmy enough to see through. She kicked off her gold-dyed kidskin slippers and pulled back the bedcovers.
“You don’t go to bed in your stockings, do you?”
She turned to find him standing behind her in naught but his shirt and drawers, smiling at her.
“N-nay.” But neither did she go to bed in her kirtle; tonight her customary bedtime routine didn’t apply, but she wasn’t quite sure what should take its place.
“Allow me.” Kneeling at her feet, Hugh reached beneath the floor-length hem of the kirtle and glided his hands up a stockinged leg, making her breath catch in her throat. He removed her garter and unrolled the black silken stocking with an ease born, no doubt, of years of practice, but Phillipa didn’t let herself dwell on all the women who’d shared his bed. Tonight he would share hers, and that was all that mattered.
When he’d stripped off both stockings, Phillipa reclined against the pillows heaped against the headboard and pulled the covers up to her waist, taking care that her hair still cloaked her. It was foolish, she knew, to worry about her sheer kirtle, considering what would soon take place between her and Hugh, but in her entire life no one, not even Ada, had ever seen her unclothed.
Joining her under the covers, Hugh braced himself on an elbow while lightly stroking her face and throat with his left hand, contemplating her with drowsy-eyed intensity, as if he might be content to do this for hours. It had never occurred to Phillipa that sex might involve much touching other than that necessary for the act itself. How long would they be engaged in these preliminaries, she wondered, before he climbed on top of her and finished things? Would he want her
to touch him? Would it hurt much when he pushed into her? She assumed ejaculation was instantaneous; if not, she would be at a complete loss as to how to proceed.
She was at a complete loss in any event.
“I wish I were more experienced,” she admitted. “I’d know what to do then, and it would be better for you.”
He smiled as if at a misguided child. “It’s never been better for me than it is right now. You’re doing fine.”
Phillipa licked her lips anxiously. “I wouldn’t want to become pregnant. I understand there are ways—”
“I’ll pull out.”
She studied the Saracen rug hanging on the opposite wall as she tried to make sense of that. The methods recommended by Trotula and her colleagues to keep from quickening with child involved wearing certain items around the neck or placing them in the entrance to the womb. If by “pulling out,” Hugh meant that he would withdraw his member from her body before releasing his seed, then the act must take longer than she’d thought.
Hugh rubbed a finger between her eyebrows. “You get a little crease right here when you’re fretting about something. It’s actually rather appealing in most situations—but not this one.”
She let out a pent-up sigh.
“How much do you know of what men and women do together in bed?” he asked.
“Apparently less than I’d thought.”
He chuckled as he smoothed his palm down the center of her chest, letting it rest warmly between her breasts. His smile faded. “Your heart is racing. You’re afraid.”
“A bit.”
“Of what? Pain?”
“Partly. And partly of my own ignorance. I’m not sure what to expect, aside from the pain. I’m afraid I’ll do the wrong things, or not do the things you’re used to. I’m afraid I’ll disappoint you.”
“You couldn’t possibly disappoint me.”
“I already have, by not taking off my kirtle. An experienced woman wouldn’t be ashamed to be naked in bed with a man.”
“I’m not going to pretend that I wouldn’t love for you to take that kirtle off. A thousand times I’ve imagined what you look like without your clothes on. Every night, I dream of holding you naked in my arms.” He grinned. “But the cleverest women know that a man is sometimes more enticed by that which is hidden from view—” he slid his hand beneath her concealing blanket of hair, lightly shaping a breast through her kirtle “—than by that which is openly flaunted.”
His hand felt so warm through the finely-creased silk, his touch so soothing and yet so seductive.
“I’ll tell you what to do, if it’s important,” he promised as he prolonged the caress, creating a maddeningly subtle friction that made her nipple as tight and hard as a pebble. “And I’ll tell you what to expect so nothing will alarm you. As for pain...” His expression sobered. “I can’t promise you that there will be none. But I’ll do everything I can to ensure that your pleasure overshadows it.”
“Is that possible?” she asked dubiously.
He smiled and gently thumbed her nipple, igniting a little thrill of sensation that snaked deep inside her, making her gasp with startled pleasure.
“I don’t think it will be a problem,” he said smugly as he treated her other breast to the same delicate torment.
“It’s just that I hadn’t realized, until recently...” Warmth swept up her throat as she pondered how to express it. “That is, I used to think that a man’s...the part of him that...” Her gaze dropped automatically toward the covers bunched around his hips.
“The part that enters a woman,” he supplied without, thank God, smiling.
Drawing in a breath, she said, “I saw a picture once, when I was young, a picture of Adam, and his...his part, it looked, well, very small and very...” She shrugged. “Not like anything that could cause a woman any real discomfort.”
“Or any real pleasure,” he said wryly. “I know that type of picture, and it’s...a bit misleading. You’ve gathered as much, and now you’re more apprehensive than ever because you’ve no idea what to expect. There’s a simple remedy for that.” Pushing the bedcovers down, he reached beneath his shirt for the drawstring to his drawers.
“Oh.” Phillipa sat up. “No, please don’t—not yet.” She buried her scalding face in her hands. “God, you must think me the most priggish, childish little—”
“Not at all.” Sitting up, he enfolded her in his arms. “I’m just rushing things again. Of course you need time.”
“Oh, God,” she said plaintively, “it is tedious, initiating a virgin, isn’t it?”
“Being here like this with you,” he whispered into her hair, “and knowing that I’m the only man you’ve ever given yourself to, is the most astonishing and beautiful and thrilling thing that’s ever happened to me in bed. Don’t doubt that. Not for a moment.”
She looked up and searched his gaze, finding it entirely free of guile and filled with tenderness, and felt something unfurl dizzily inside her.
No, she thought. ‘Tisn’t real, what I’m feeling, ‘tisn’t to be trusted. The prospect of making love for the first time was wreaking havoc with her emotions. She didn’t harbor such feelings for Hugh.
She couldn’t harbor them. She wouldn’t.
“‘Twould be better for you, though,” Hugh said, “if you didn’t fear me.”
“I don’t—”
“You fear that part of me you won’t let me uncover.”
“Ah.”
“Here.” Hugh urged her to lie down on her side, with him facing her, pulled the covers back up to his waist and raised his shirt. “Give me your hand.” When she hesitated, knowing what he intended, he said, “I’ll leave my drawers on if it will help. I won’t untie them until you’re ready. In fact, you’ll have to untie them yourself—I solemnly vow not to touch them. How’s that?”
“Most reassuring.” She couldn’t help smiling at his efforts to put her at ease, although she was still absurdly reticent to play along.
With a crooked smile, he added, “The...part in question is fairly quiescent at present, not the sort of thing to make a lady swoon in terror.”
With a roll of the eyes, she presented her hand, which he directed under the covers and pressed, gently but firmly, between his legs. Through the finely-woven linen of his drawers she felt a warm mass a good deal longer and thicker than “Adam’s” minuscule instrument, but fairly pliant to the touch. Common sense and her memories of what she’d felt against her thigh last night suggested that it would not remain so.
He guided her hand farther down. Her bewilderment must have been obvious, because he said, “Adam’s anatomy was incomplete, I gather.”
“Evidently.”
Hugh drew her hand up, molding her fingers to the shaft beneath his drawers, which seemed to have swelled somewhat.
“How does it feel,” she asked, “when that happens? When it gets...”
“It always feels good,” he said, releasing her hand, “like heat gathering in my loins. But tonight it feels extraordinary, because you’re the one making it happen.”
She explored him tentatively through the loose linen as he grew, it seemed, heavier in her hand. He watched her quietly, his gaze losing focus as she lightly stroked the length of him. She marveled as his flesh stiffened to her touch, but withdrew her hand abruptly when it twitched and began to rise.
“Don’t stop,” he implored, putting her hand back where it had been. He kissed her as she fondled him, his hands in her hair, his breathing becoming faster.
Hugh deepened the kiss, his tongue flirting with hers. Pulling her great mass of hair behind her, he let his hands wander over her in a slow, mesmerizing dance that filled her with a quivery warmth.
With her free hand, she caressed his chest and back and shoulders through his shirt, feeling his muscles tighten as his arousal escalated. He moved his hips, thrusting against her hand, the linen of his drawers taut over his straining organ.
“If...if you’re ready,” she said, “
you may as well go ahead and...”
“You haven’t untied my drawers.” He smiled into her eyes.
“Ah.” He really did mean to make her do it. She reached for the drawstring but couldn’t quite bring herself to pull it.
“You’re hesitating because you’re not ready.”
Steeling herself, she said, “Yes, I am.”
Phillipa tensed when he pulled the skirt of her kirtle up over her hip, although the sheet and counterpane still covered her. A soft little cry escaped her when he touched her where no man had ever touched her—where she’d never even touched herself. He investigated her gently, parting, probing...
She squeezed her eyes shut at the tempest of sensation generated by callused fingertips on her most sensitive flesh.
“You’re not ready, not quite,” he said. “‘Twill be better for you if you’re wet when I enter you.”
Wet? “Ah, yes. Of course.”
“I want you to...finish, even though it’s your first time.”
Good Lord, she thought, was Ada right? Could women really...
He smiled as he rubbed at that spot between her eyebrows. “You don’t have any idea what I mean, do you?”
She shook her head in frustration. “I wish I weren’t so ignorant about...matters of the flesh.”
“I’m glad you are.” He rolled her onto her back, bracing himself over her as he lowered his mouth to hers. “It means I get to be with you the first time you reach the height of passion.” He kissed her softly. “I can look upon your face when you come apart...” Another kiss. “Perhaps even be inside you. Close your eyes,” he murmured as he threaded his fingers through her hair, fanning it over the pillows.
She did, trying not to think about how much of her he could see in this translucent kirtle without her hair to shield her.
“You’re so beautiful,” he whispered as he swept his fingertips over her throat, her breasts, her stomach... Her eyes flew open when he reached beneath her rucked-up kirtle, but he kissed them closed again. “Relax,” he breathed against her eyelids as he slid his hand upward. “Think of it as a journey to a place you’ve never been before. Let me take you there.”
Lords of Conquest Boxed Set Page 49