9. Tamsyn

9

Tamsyn

W ITH THE CURTAINS DRAWN, MY WORLD WAS DARKER, but not without visibility. Not completely. The opening above the bed staved off total darkness.

I sat up and inched back until I bumped against the headboard and could go no farther. My heartbeat filled my ears in a whooshing pulse. One of my hands stretched above me. My fingers curled into the smooth-worn wood, hanging on as though I were caught up in a storm—or bracing for an impending one.

He crouched at the end of the bed, watching me, reminding me of the Beast he was purported to be. Not just in name, but in fact. A great, coiled animal on the verge of springing, attacking his prey.

I took a gulp of air, marveling at how I could feel so warm even in the uncommon chill of the chamber. Not a sound reached us from outside the bed. We were sealed inside our own little cocoon, tucked away from the rest of the world, and I was grateful for that. Dread gnawed at me as I thought about all the people out there. I absorbed that fact in a way I couldn't before, not until this moment, and a surge of bile rose in my throat thinking about them just beyond the drapes, listening to us, straining for a peep or a glimpse beyond the curtains, relishing in my suffering. Because that was what they wanted. They didn't want silence.

They wanted to see. They wanted to hear. They wanted drama.

The air inside the curtained bed was murky and soft. Of course it was less murky for him. A veil didn't cover his face.

We remained poised as we were for several moments, frozen in a standoff, not moving or speaking, and I wondered if he had in fact lied to the king. Perhaps he had no intention of consummating and making this marriage between us real at all.

I was sifting through that possibility in my mind when he finally spoke. "We best get to this, hmm?"

So not a possibility. A certainty.

We would do it, then.

Swallowing, I nodded. It was for the best. Not doing it presented a whole host of complications.

He pushed off and crawled on his hands and knees toward me. "Do you lack a voice along with a face, lass?" he asked, his voice a husky scrape on the air. Evidently he, too, preferred not to be overheard. At least we were in accord on that.

I commanded myself to relax and eased from my position huddled in front of the headboard. "I am ready."

As ready as I will ever be.

Apparently my agreement was all he needed to hear. One of his big hands circled my ankle and dragged me down the bed onto my back in a single smooth move. I gave a small yelp, aware that the motion swept the voluminous folds of my nightgown up to my knees.

His gaze rested on the prim laces tied at my throat. "They did not dress you for enticement."

I recalled his dormant manhood and wondered if he was finding it difficult to get up the nerve to bed me.

He braced a hand on either side of my head and leaned over me, all that nakedness radiating heat like a stove, flushing me with warmth, and I sucked in a lungful of air.

"Who is in there, hmm?" The words fanned directly over my lips, and I felt the scald of them through the gossamer fabric.

I trembled—partly from the effect of his proximity and partly because the question sent a bolt of panic through me. No one he wants.

Shoving that aside as a problem for later, I moistened my lips and replied, "I am your bride, my lord."

A faint cough from outside the bed curtains reminded me that dozens of people were just beyond. Listening. Waiting in anticipation. I sent the drapes a baleful glance.

He followed the turn of my head. "Ignore them."

I shuddered. "I will try."

The warm fall of his breath ruffled the thin veil against my cheek. Our faces were so close. His features were vague and obscured, but I recalled them distinctly. The deep-set eyes beneath slashing eyebrows. The square jaw. The wide, unsmiling mouth.

His hands went to the laces at the throat of my modest nightgown, and I tucked my hands under my hips, quelling the impulse to slap at his questing fingers.

He made short work of the ties, his deft ministrations pulling them loose, peeling my nightgown open, exposing me to his gaze.

He went still.

I tensed, forcing my reticence aside. This was the obligation of a wedding night, and I always fulfilled my obligations. Not that the open vee of my nightgown fully displayed my assets. The opening wasn't wide enough, and, at any rate, I had always thought my assets rather underwhelming. No bigger than peaches. My breasts would scarcely fill his big hands.

And yet the way he stared, holding himself very still, I felt utterly naked, stripped down to my bones, and my peaches grew heavy, tingling with sensation. I was laid bare to the center of my torso, only a hint of my breasts visible, the inner swells vibrating from my labored breaths.

"Your skin," he murmured almost thoughtfully. He put one finger on me... gliding the tip down the valley of flesh in a fiery trail. "Flawless."

I couldn't breathe. I wanted to reply that he was flawless, too. That all of his smooth skin was remarkably perfect. Not a single imperfection or scar from battle or childhood mishap.

A movement beyond him snared my attention, and my stomach pitched.

The pale smudge of a lady's gaping face filled a crack in the drapes where the fabric had not— could not —fully come together.

I stiffened as she ogled us, her eyes wide as she drank greedily from her wine goblet. How very nice she had refreshments whilst she enjoyed the spectacle. I wanted to upend the wine into her face. I wanted to hide under the coverlet. I had been fooling myself into thinking I could pretend others weren't in the room with us.

"What is it?" he asked, noticing me stiffen. He looked over his shoulder where the drapes hung an inch apart, seeing the woman watching us for himself. "Fucking jackals," he growled, leaving me and seizing the edges of the drapes in a violent yank. To no avail—they would not completely close.

I gazed at the magnificence of his great muscled back, skimming the inked designs snaking down his shoulder blade. I tracked the long indentation of his spine, and wondered how even a man's back could be so beautiful. He lingered at the foot of the bed, his shoulders lifting as he inhaled heavily, clearly angry.

The moments stretched until he finally turned and faced me, his body filling my vision. "Don't look there."

"How can I not?"

"Eyes on me." He pointed to his face. "Look only at me."

A strange little thrill fluttered through me at the deep command... at the glittering pale of his eyes detectable even through the veil. And more than that. There was a sudden kinship between us. We were allied in this.

Until it's over and he learns the truth.

I settled back with a shiver, fixing my gaze on him and trying not to think about the lady watching outside the curtains of the bed.

The solidness of his warrior body pressed down on me, sinking us deeper into the mattress. My hands fluttered uncertainly to his chest, palms resting there over inked flesh, appreciating the strong thud of his heart. That black opal, gleaming dark as night, threaded with vibrant colors, dangled between us, brushing my skin, and I hissed, startled at the shocking spark from it, the humming warmth.

Looking up, my eyes blinked and sharpened, questioning what I was seeing.

The damp cold had churned itself into fog. It floated mist-like above the bed. I snuck a glance around his shoulder at that dreaded crack in the drapes. The same fog had infiltrated the chamber. I could no longer see the lady's face through that narrow opening. I could not see anyone or anything anymore save a milky-gray vapor. The fog intensified, found us in the bed, curling around our limbs as softly as fingertips, enveloping us... protecting us.

Exclamations rose from outside the curtained bed, remarks about the sudden haze stealing inside the chamber through the arrow slits. Complaints of the growing cold. Distress at the lack of visibility. Feet shifted and scuffed along the floor, and I realized some of the witnesses to the bedding were departing the room.

A relieved smile curved my mouth as I gave thanks, at least in this case, for unforeseen acts of nature.

He touched my face, and my smile slipped, alarm skittering through me. Would he break his vow? Would he pull the veil off me and look his fill?

Braced, I waited for what was to come. He made no such attempt, and, after a few beats, I exhaled.

My heart stuttered at his hand on my face. The veil barred skin-to-skin contact, but I felt that caress through the fabric as intensely as a brand. I managed not to flinch or recoil as his thumb stroked side to side, rasping the fabric against my cheek. I felt dazed that he should care enough for me, his wife of a few hours, whose face he had yet to see, to so tenderly touch me.

He lowered his head, brought the side of his face against mine, and whispered against my ear, his warm breath sending a tremor through me: "Trust me?"

Trust him?

I didn't even know him. Only his reputation for savagery. For death. And yet he was asking for my trust when he didn't have to— when he didn't need it to complete this bedding. He could go about this however he wished.

I pulled back and looked into those eyes staring so earnestly, even though he couldn't see me. I trusted him, I realized with a little astonishment. This stranger. My husband. I really did.

I nodded.

He smiled then, slow and beguiling, and I died a little inside.

This man was attractive when he was grim and unsmiling, but like this? He was viciously beautiful.

"Still not one for words?" he asked.

"I..." My voice came out as a croak, and I swallowed and tried again. "I trust you."

Commanding myself to relax, I melted back into the bed, accepting him.

And he wasted no more time.

He nudged my legs open with his body, settling his weight there, his hips between my splayed thighs.

My chest rose and fell, my breath coming quicker, sending the material draped over my face fluttering. My hands flew to his biceps, fingers burrowing deep into firm muscle, overcome with the impulse to hang on to something, to anchor myself. Hanging on to him seemed a fine notion. He could probably withstand a tempest.

He shifted, his member pulsing hot as it nestled against my sex, and I gasped. Only the linen of my nightgown impeded us. Hardly substantial.

"All will be well," he reassured, and then frowned. "I would kiss you..."

"But you can't," I finished, even as my belly came alive with butterflies at the notion of that mouth on mine, mating with my lips.

That mouth. Wide, well-shaped, and much too soft-looking for such a hard man. I couldn't resist.

I lifted my hand from where it clung to him and brushed my fingertips searchingly... curiously over his lips, wondering what it would be like to have his kiss. I had so little experience with kissing. Stig had been the only one.

He stilled above me, and I worried I had done something wrong. If I shouldn't have touched him. If I should have remained motionless, a limp fish beneath him. What did I know of these matters, after all?

He turned his face then and pressed a hot open-mouthed kiss onto my palm, his tongue slowly sneaking out to taste my skin, and I forgot all about what I should or should not have done. Sparks lit up my arm at the contact.

Hell's teeth. What is happening to me?

He reached for my other hand and pressed a fervent kiss over the bandage covering the fresh wound, still raw from the priest's blade—and yet that did not prevent the tingles from stirring beneath the dressing. The carved X throbbed and buzzed at his caress.

"Ohh." I sighed a breath that twisted into a gasp as he rocked his hips into me. I felt him... bigger. Harder. Alive for me. No longer indifferent to our coupling. Not as he had been when he first climbed into the bed.

He was aroused.

He finished devoting himself to my palm, pressing a last, lingering kiss to the inside of my wrist. Dropping my hand, he turned his mouth to my throat, feathering me with scalding-soft kisses that belied everything I had judged him to be: the Beast. Terrifyingly big. Ruthless. Unkind. Strong enough to break a person should he will it.

My neck arched, instinctively offering him more as I breathed in the cool moisture surrounding us like a frosted morning. And yet I was hot. So hot. Achingly hot.

He obliged, his teeth lightly scoring the taut skin before licking me, savoring me with his tongue as though I were some sweet confection.

I was possessed. My body was not mine. Something else. Burning. Scalding against him. Two fires coming together, merging into one inferno.

The heat in my chest snapped and expanded, catching ablaze, popping and racing along every pore and nerve. It was a shared fever between us. A wildfire gone unchecked.

My hands ran down the great expanse of his back, seizing him and pulling him closer, hips lifting up, grinding his hardness against me. The black opal settled and nestled heavily between my breasts, a scorching stamp, branding me.

My sex clenched. Moisture rushed between my legs, dampening my nightgown where he slid slickly against me.

"Fuck." He grunted.

There was a flurry of wild movement. His hands. My hands. My nightgown gathered and shoved up forcefully, bunched at my hips.

A shudder racked him that vibrated into me. His lips burned at my throat.

Need pumped in me, primal, as vital as the blood swimming in my veins, as thick as the viscous air filling my lungs.

I reached between us, found him, circled his thickness with my hand, running my thumb over the plump head. He groaned.

Emboldened, I guided him to my entrance, where I most ached. "Please," I said, the word a needy catch on the air, my voice unrecognizable.

I didn't understand anything except this driving hunger to have him, to possess him... to be possessed.

It was wildness. A frenzy. His hard hands seized my hips, fingers digging—and at first I feared he was pushing me from him, forcing me away.

An anguished sob broke from me. "Don't go... don't stop—"

"Not if there was a sword to my throat," he growled, and then those digging fingers were angling my hips, lifting me up and guiding my thighs to wrap around him, his hardness right there at my slick opening.

He pushed inside me, burying himself deep, and the pleasure-pain of it shattered me. Overtook me. The fullness. A stretching, tingling burn that begged for pause. For a moment.

"Oh!"

His eyes locked on my hidden face, glowing icy gray, wide with his own shock. "You're tight," he grunted.

I panted, hanging on desperately to him, the joints of my fingers aching.

"My apologies. It will ease," he promised with a formality that felt absurd as he pushed into me again, lodging himself to the hilt with a moan. "Fuck, you feel good."

He held himself still then. I was aware of the hard length of him, the throb and pulse of the cock inside me. He waited.

I flexed around him, working through the burning fullness, contracting and yielding to his shape until I was trembling, huffing, until I started to move and wriggle restlessly beneath him.

"Oh... oh," I whimpered, my inner muscles experimentally squeezing. My desire for more intensified.

More movement. More friction. More of the Beast.

I couldn't wait. I wasn't able. I didn't like this stillness, this paralysis. I was too overcome. My body clamored for action.

I reached down and bit him on the shoulder through the veil, tasting his salty-clean skin through the thin material, my teeth sinking into hot flesh. I didn't know how I knew to do that, but it achieved the desired result.

He snarled and drove into me again, plunging hard. Again and again. One of his hands flew from my hip and seized the gaping bodice of my nightgown, tugging it down. There was a brief rip as my breasts spilled free. He cupped one, lifting it to his descending head. He didn't break pace, thrusting inside my pulsing sex as the hot suction of his mouth closed around one nipple, drawing me in deep.

I cried out, despising the wild sound, knowing everyone could hear me outside our cocoon.

As though he could read my thoughts, his head came up and he covered my mouth through the veil, swallowing the sound.

"Forget about them," he commanded against the fabric. Against my lips.

That mystifying fog was everywhere now. Flooding the chamber, creeping into our marriage bed to cover us, curling against our bodies like a lover, smothering my overheated skin with a cooling film.

I sobbed, feeling a great pressure rising up in me. Wild. Confusing. I didn't know what to do with it. To fight the mounting swell or to dive into it? I moaned against his mouth, my veil wet and clinging like a skin between us.

He wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled me up until we were sitting, facing each other, still joined, panting, chest to chest. I rocked against his rolling hips, riding him instinctively, desperate for the friction.

I clung wildly to his shoulders as the tension built and built, deliciously, excruciatingly good. Even as the cold mist shrouded us, the air between us crackled and sizzled like food on a spit.

His fingers dug like talons into my bottom, anchoring me for his pistoning hips. His cock pushed and pulled deep inside me, fast and wild and relentless.

We lost any kind of rhythm, our urgent actions frenzied and clumsy. My fingers curled over his nape, clinging to him as my sex tightened around him, squeezing, working hard toward some indefinable goal.

I found it then. That elusive rapture.

My body erupted into a violent bliss. Bright spots blinded my vision as I burst apart and then went pliant, sagging against him as tiny shudders of pleasure eddied through me long after I had stilled.

He pumped several more thrusts, seeking, claiming, grinding out his own satisfaction with a deep, purring groan until he jerked still inside me, flooding me with his seed.

I dropped my face into the crook of his neck, overcome with embarrassment now that it was over.

Now that later was here.

He twitched inside me. His hands left my bottom, roaming upward to rub my back. I tensed, unaccustomed to such tender ministrations on my back. My back was not a place for gentle hands.

I looked at him, and even through the fuzzy barrier I perceived his pleasure, his astonishment. In this. In me. His wife.

I released a ragged breath, feeling the same pleasure, the same astonishment, and not a little shattered, because I knew it would be short-lived.

He grabbed my waist and lifted me off him, pulling us apart. The euphoria left me. Went with him. As though a piece of me had just been cut away. I felt depleted. Hollow. Suddenly as cold on the inside as the room.

The pull in my chest reasserted itself, a demanding clench. I covered a shaking hand over the area, rubbing, willing it to go away, to stop. With space between us again, I used my other hand to hold together my gaping nightgown, attempting to reclaim my modesty, however pointless that might be now.

"'Tis done," he breathed, the sound ragged.

Reaching for my veil, he pulled it from my face.