The Bridegroom Page 2
“My lady!” he groans.
I feel like groaning too, my hands clawing at his solid chest. I ache and throb. On instinct, I seek release, pressing my hips toward his penis. Only it can give me what I suddenly cannot do without.
He drops his hands to my buttocks, pulling me toward him. Breathing fast, he forces me back against the chilled window seat.
“You make me a mad man,” he admits with a growl.
I am mad, too. Mad with a desire I never thought to feel for a man I have reason to hate.
My bridegroom takes me then—up against the drafty window, thrusting hard. My virgin knot breaks. But I do not care. I ride him, my chemise pulled up around my stomach, my legs wrapped around his waist.
“Sweetheart!” he shouts, grabbing a frantic breath before he jerks once, twice, and then shudders like a sobbing child as he spreads his seed within me.
I cling to him, feeling limp and incomplete. I long for my world to be different: for this black knight to have been dressed in white, for this man who brought me to the height of desire to be my lover—the man who can give me what I cannot even begin to know I need.
We have been married two months, and it is the twelve days of Christmas feasting. We celebrate as a household.
I am changing. I delight at the chance to be with him. To laugh with him. Sing with him. Dance with him. Yet I feel unsatisfied.
A carol-dance forms in the great hall where the tables are pushed aside. He hands me down from the dais. I smile. The household claps for us.
We join four other couples. I stand on his right. He grasps my right hand with his right and my left hand with his left so that our arms cross.
His nearness and the warmth of his hands send shivers through me. I chance a glance upward and find him looking down at me, his gaze bathing me with almost a worshipful light. I choke back my uneasiness and shift my gaze away.
The leader begins singing acapella the French carol Angelus ad Virginem, and the others join in. The angel, coming secretly to the Virgin calming the Virgin’s fear, said: ‘Hail! Hail, Queen of Virgins!
The five couples circle clockwise eight steps and then open out facing in, all ten dancers joining hands. With eight more steps, we converge on the center and then retire, facing our partners once more. The happy notes pour over me. At the first clapping sequence, the strength of his hands against mine and the pleasure in his eyes magnify my delight.
And then we are parted, chaining our way around the circle to finish with a new partner, ready to repeat the steps to the words of a new stanza. When the carol ends after five stanzas, we reunite. The rightness of the reunion saturates my whole being.
My bridegroom captures my hand, lacing his fingers through mine. Heat blasts through me. Tension pops. With our fingers clasped together, we are bound as surely as if our union is truly blessed.
I seek out his eyes, black and glittering, full of challenge. My heart trembles with fear and a sudden excitement. I dare not glance away. His hair, so long and black, falls to his shoulders.
I press my lips together, gazing up at him, my nerves alive with longing. Finally, I murmur, “I would be your wife.”
He stands without moving, almost as if he does not believe my words, for he knows full well the meaning of them. I am offering my body willingly for once, not simply my duty as a wife. For a reason I do not want to explore, I need to be more than dutiful tonight. I want to give of myself.
With a low sound, he releases a breath. He allows me to see his eyes, revealing a poignancy that further pierces my heart. Silently, he lifts my left hand and kisses the back of it, his lips brushing over the engraved wedding ring that gleams in the faint light. My body shudders at his touch.
“I cannot accept your gift here, Sweetheart, but I will accept it where it is fitting. Upstairs. In the master’s bed.”
“I am yours, my lord.”
My words of surrender propel him into action. In a swift move, he scoops me into his arms, strides through the great hall and climbs the spiral stairs. The castle folk hoot and holler at our leaving. We do not speak. His countenance mirrors that of a Crusading warrior, intent with purpose.
I press my face into the folds of his surcoat, smelling his musky man smell and the faint scent of woodruff clinging to his clothes. I feel his muscles rippling beneath. Wickedly, I take pleasure at being the cause of his forceful action. Can I tame the wild beast? Waves of alarming delight pulse through me, wiping away all reason. That I now want to torment him in this feminine way defies all logic.
My face against the rough fabric, I smile. I have nothing to lose. Fate holds me in its grip. I will play out my destiny with wondering abandon.
I know his body needs what I give. He will take it, my generous offering, as is his right as my bridegroom, my husband. Later he will wonder why my mood changes toward him.
The firelight flickers faintly in the solar. The serving woman is dozing by the fire. When he kicks open the door, she startles and jumps to her feet.
“Place another log on the fire and get out!”
“Aye, my lord.”
He shoves the door shut and with me in his arms, turns toward the symbol of his authority, the marital bed.
“I will make you warm,” he says, staring down into my eyes.
Quickly, he strips from my head the flat-topped cap and confining barbette that bands my chin. “How I hate to see your beauty hidden by these things.”
“‘Tis the fashion, my lord.”
“Then I hate fashion!” Skillfully he removes the silver crespine, revealing the mass of my black hair, bundled at the nape of my neck. He makes quick work with the hair pins, tossing them aside as if he has done this many times before.
He loosens the bulk of my hair letting it fall heavily onto my shoulders and down my back. He catches the silken strands, gently brushing them away from my eyes, and smoothing them so they make their own headdress around my face. Devouring my eyes and lips with his ravenous gaze, he disrobes me. And I stand before him, naked, my female body taut in the buttocks and legs from riding, my breasts—half-hidden by my hair—full and enticing.
He draws a long breath as I shiver in the cold.
Seeing this, he rips his surcoat and tunic over his head and bends to pull off his boots. Finally, standing in only his braies, he glances at me.
I stare at his codpiece that covers what I long for, feeling the wonder of the moment. He fumbles to untie the strings at his waist.
“Let me help you,” I say.
He trembles at my touch. Unclothed, he reaches for me, but I step back a pace.
“No,” I whisper. “I will comfort you.”
Without his consent, I lay my palms on his chest. Shyly, like the maiden I was once, I fondle him with my fingertips. He shakes under my gentle stroking. My hands are like soft silk threads, thrilling his skin in the places where I touch. And then I lift up on my tiptoes and touch me tongue to a nipple, flicking it.
“Sweetheart,” he moans.
He rocks back on his heels. I put my hands on his waist to steady him. The touch only magnifies the way he trembles for me. I can see him fight for control. Does he want me to have my way with him?
When I knell and take his hips between my hands and touch his sword with my tongue, he groans like one dying.
“This is mine,” I bury my face into his hard abdomen and stroke his man part with my warm, moist tongue.
“I fear I cannot stand much longer, Sweetheart.”
He raises me up and captures me in his arms in a swift motion. Tossing back the fur coverlets, he places me gently on the bed as if I am a precious jewel. I look up at him from the white linen sheets. He cries out, making a little whimpering sound in his throat, and lowers himself beside me, resting on his side so he can watch me.
I do not remain inactive, but push myself up on an elbow and trace the ragged red scar on his arm, letting my hair drape over his shoulder, its sweet scent filling our nostrils.
“I will
comfort you,” I say again in a husky whisper.
With surprising force, I push his shoulder until he understands what I want, and he falls on his back, staring up at me and my mass of tangled hair. Then I straddle his waist with my strong thighs. This time I ride him. Lowering my head, I kiss him greedily. He slides his fingers down my back and into the curve at the top of my arse.
He returns my kiss, his tongue taking my mouth with fierce possession. I feel his erection touch my buttocks. I know he craves release, yet I play with him by making him wait. I will not accommodate his needs, only tempting him with the promise of my mons veneris, my mounds of love. Once again I flick my tongue over his nipples.
“I long to die in your lap!”
Still I will not relent, but scorch his skin with my fingers, my tongue, and the movement of my thighs against his hip bones. His muscles quiver from my onslaught. I torture him with a profound pleasure.
All the while, he watches me with half closed eyes. I drop my head to let my hair surround us. Then I throw my head back, breathing hard myself, a wicked, wanton smile spreading faintly on my lips. By pleasuring him, I am pleasuring myself, and at the same time driving him mad with my deliberate seduction.
“Sweetheart, please.” He makes a hoarse sound, raising his hips up, touching my buttocks, begging.
I answer him with a whimper and push myself up on my knees briefly. When I lower myself, I sit on his hard, long penis.
“My lady!”
I want him. He wants me. He reaches up to my breasts and cups them, teasing my nipples until they peak, and I toss back my head, my mouth falling open as I pant hard.
And then I move on him rubbing up and down so I drive him beyond madness. He writhes beneath me and clutches my arms, his fingers biting into my flesh. I rise up again and come down gently on the tip of his shaft, hovering there so he feels me slick and throbbing.
I run me tongue over my lips and gaze down at him with a taunting, come on look. He closes his eyes and moans his need. Then I settle around the full length of him, surrounding him with pure delight, letting him fill me. I place my hands beside his head to support myself as I drive against him, pushing him to the brink.
“Sweetheart,” he cries out. “I love you!”
He explodes, thrusting upward, every muscle in his body recoiling and then bursting forth with waves of sweet, dazzling sensation.
Closely after his climax I shudder with mine, climaxing for the first time. “My lord!” I cry out.
Sweet torture! My body shakes, out of control, and then I collapse upon him, breathing roughly in his ear.
This is what I am missing. His love. Now I am complete. Now I am fully a woman.
Darby York
Darby York believes her past lives have prepared her to write historical romance. She is happily married in this lifetime, dabbles in the metaphysical, and rescues stray cats and dogs.
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Darby York, The Bridegroom
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