Chapter 24

CHAPTER 24

I zzie squealed and tightened her grip on Archibald’s neck as he charged up the red-carpeted stairs with her in his arms. Not that she was complaining. She’d always dreamed of being carried up the stairs by a big, strong man, just like this. Besides, Archibald was going faster than she could possibly manage in skirts, and she was eager to reach their destination.

Izzie had been impatiently awaiting this moment for years. As Archibald bore her to their marriage bed, her toes curled in her slippers, because at last , she was going to find out what the fuss was all about.

Archibald carried her across the threshold of his bedroom, kissing her forehead as he deposited her gently on the bed. But instead of joining her on the plush mattress, he jogged back to the door.

“Archibald?” she asked, sitting up. “You’re not leaving?”

“No,” he said, pulling a key from his pocket and locking the door. Before she could blink, he was back across the room, pinning her to the mattress with his hips. “Most people know better than to interrupt a newlywed couple, but you’ve met my parents. They’re impervious to social cues. And my valet is even worse. He knows certain things are unacceptable, but he couldn’t care less.”

He lowered his lips to her neck and pressed kisses against the sensitive skin of her throat. When he spoke, his voice was deep. “And this time, nothing is going to interrupt us.”

Izzie liked the sound of that. And, as her husband claimed her lips, she reflected upon how much she liked this new version of Archibald, Married Archibald. To be sure, she had liked the old Archibald, Determined-to-Do-the-Right-Thing Archibald, as well. It had been especially diverting, trying to tempt Determined-to-Do-the-Right-Thing Archibald into doing the wrong thing, such as touching her in a way he clearly wanted, but mistakenly believed was too forward.

But Married Archibald had no such compunctions. Married Archibald was undressing her with those marvelously big, warm, strong hands of his. And she loved it!

“God, Izzie,” he murmured as her clavicle came into view. He lowered his lips there, muttering, “So beautiful,” between kisses.

She squirmed upon the bed, kicking off her slippers, and curled a stockinged foot around the back of his calf muscle. It was as big around as her head and flexed deliciously beneath her curious toes.

Izzie’s motion caused her thighs to fall wider open, which had the splendid effect of allowing the swollen ridge beneath the placket of his breeches to settle against her core. That reminded her of the delicious things he’d done to that particular part of her anatomy yesterday in her parents’ drawing room, and she circled her hips against him, forcing him to break off his kiss with a groan.

This also reminded her that things were not yet equal between them. While most of her body had been bared to his gaze at one time or another, she had yet to see anything below his waist, which seemed patently unfair.

She yanked at his beautiful blue jacket. There was the sound of a seam ripping, but Archibald did not appear to care. He tossed it to the floor in an inglorious heap, then busied himself shoving her dress down.

They tumbled around the bed, panting between kisses and clawing at one another’s garments until she was down to her shift, and he wore nothing but his breeches. Izzie reached eagerly for the buttons on his falls, behind which there was a familiar bulge, but Archibald clamped his hand around her wrist.

“Wait,” he said, breathing hard.

“Name six good reasons why I should,” Izzie countered. “I, for one, am extremely eager to see what you’ve been hiding under here.”

“Don’t want to… alarm you,” Archibald said through gritted teeth.

“Happily for you, I am not the easily alarmed sort.”

He released her wrist, and her curious fingers began tracing his shape through the fabric. More eager than ever, she began undoing his buttons with one hand while continuing to explore him with the other. His head lolled back, and he groaned.

Izzie was enjoying driving him out of his mind, possibly a little too much. She managed to undo enough buttons that his falls sagged open, and she eagerly reached inside his breeches to take him out.

She had no trouble locating his man-part; indeed, the words impossible to miss came to mind. The moment she grew concerned was when her fingers failed to meet when she attempted to wrap her hand around it.

“Archibald!” she exclaimed as she brought it out for her examination. Although she was an innocent, she had wormed information out of a housemaid and made a detailed study of her brother’s book of scandalous prints. She had thought herself relatively well-prepared for this moment.

But nothing she had learned up until that point had suggested that he would be so thick . She knew where Archibald’s shaft was supposed to go, and this was not going to work.

“It is going to work,” Archibald insisted. Apparently, she had spoken that last bit out loud.

Izzie considered him from another angle. “I don’t believe it is.”

Archibald kissed the top of her head, then pulled her into his lap. “This is what I was trying to avoid. I will admit, we may have a rough time of it on our first go. That’s true no matter what, though. But just as my body swells and changes when I grow aroused, your body will respond in kind when you become aroused. You may not think it will fit now. But if I pleasure you enough, it will.”

“That doesn’t sound entirely bad,” Izzie conceded. Well, there was nothing for it. A bride wasn’t permitted to inspect her husband’s intimate bits before the ceremony. You got the husband you got, and she’d managed to marry the one who was part Clydesdale. “I suppose let’s give it a try.”

Archibald kissed her deeply. Without warning, he tossed her back on the mattress. With a snarl, he seized the neckline of her chemise in both hands, then ripped it clean down the front, baring her body to his gaze.

Izzie whimpered, and something between her legs gave a damp pulse. Archibald was studying her, the corner of his mouth twitching. “I thought you would like that.”

“I did,” she gasped, shrugging off the remains of her shift.

He sat up so he could look at her. “God, Izzie. I’ve been dreaming about seeing you like this for so long.”

“You have?” She had never been naked before a man prior to this moment and had wondered if she would find it embarrassing. But there was nothing tawdry about the way Archibald was looking at her. His eyes were full of yearning, full of worship. Just when it occurred to Izzie to feel abashed about her meager bosom, Archibald reached out a hand, then paused as if he didn’t dare touch her.

“What is it?” Izzie asked.

He swallowed thickly. “It’s just… you’re perfect . It’s like touching a goddess. I feel so unworthy.”

Well, if he liked her diminutive curves, who was she to go telling him he was wrong?

“Funny,” she said, placing a hand on his firm chest and letting her fingertips trail lower across the sculpted muscles of his stomach, which flexed beneath her touch. “I think you’re the one who looks like a god.”

His breath had gone shallow. “Not a god. Just a blacksmith.”

She traced one side of the vee where his hips met his abdomen. “Hephaestus, then.” She began tugging at his breeches, which were sagging around his thighs.

He turned to sit on the side of the bed so he could pull them off. He didn’t meet her eyes as he said, “Aphrodite despised Hephaestus. She would have been happier with Ares.”

He made the remark with a forced lightness that made Izzie suspect it contained a kernel of truth, or at least, what he believed to be the truth. “That’s because she was an idiot, as shallow as she was insipid. In fact, I refuse to assume the role of Aphrodite in this scenario. I think we can all agree that I have much more in common with Pandora.”

That earned her a smile as he tossed his breeches aside. “But Pandora didn’t marry Hephaestus.”

She forced herself to tamp down her curiosity and keep her eyes on his face as he turned toward her, fully nude, as she sensed this conversation was more important than he was letting on. “She did this time. That’s the best part about being the author—you get to write the ending any way you want. And include as many guard bears and naked pirate swordfights as you wish.”

Archibald paused in the act of reaching for her. “Wait—are you referring to your book?” At her nod, he continued, “So, you’re saying you wrote a scene where naked pirates, er… cross swords?”

“My goodness, it sounds tawdry when you phrase it that way! Of course, there is. Just the regular kind of swordplay, mind you. But my point is, we are the authors of this story. And I say things would have worked out splendidly for Hephaestus had he married someone worthy of him.”

“Hmm.” He didn’t look convinced. “What happens next in our story?”

“This.” Without warning, she pushed his chest with both hands.

Archibald did not budge so much as an inch. He sat there blinking at her, confused, before comprehension dawned in his eyes, and he obligingly fell back on the bed.

She threw a knee across his torso to straddle him, placing her hands on his chest. “I’ve got you now, Archibald Nettlethorpe-Ogilvy!”

“I surrender,” he groaned as she lowered herself to lie on top of him.

She had intended to kiss him, but the second every inch of her skin came into contact with his big, warm, firm body, her brain guttered and went out.

“Ar… Archi- ohmygod ,” she moaned. “N-need a minute. Can’t think. My God , that feels so good!”

His strong arms stole around her, which did nothing to restore her composure as she was exposed to the exquisite sensation of even more of his skin caressing hers. “It really does, doesn’t it?” his deep voice rumbled beneath her ear.

“Why do people ever leave their beds?” Izzie asked, rubbing herself against him like a cat.

He chuckled. “And we haven’t even come to the good part yet.”

“Are you sure?” Izzie gasped. “I can’t imagine it getting better than this.”

“Let me show you.”

Then he was kissing her, and the combination of Archibald’s hungry mouth on hers and his gorgeous body laid out beneath her made her feel drunk with pleasure. His hands were everywhere, which was exactly where she wanted them. Her hands seemed to explore his body of their own accord, enjoying the hard ridges of his stomach, the little dimple behind his hipbone, and the gasping breath he took as she traced the shape of his flat, brown nipples.

Abruptly, he sat her up, spreading her legs so she straddled him. He aligned her damp core with his man-part, which was pointing all the way up, flat against his stomach. He bent his head and caught one of her nipples in his mouth, giving her a deep pull. Her whole body hitched as she cried out, which had the effect of rubbing that magical spot he had pleasured with his tongue the previous day against the thickness of his cock.

“That’s it,” he encouraged, flexing his hips to slide back and forth against her. “Use me to take your pleasure.”

She couldn’t seem to stop herself from doing just that. Everything Archibald was doing to her felt so good , and after yesterday, she knew enough to realize that she was building toward another one of those glorious explosions.

After a few minutes of pleasuring her breasts, Archibald suddenly grabbed her, flipping her over and reversing their positions. He started kissing his way down her stomach, and Izzie spread her legs, hoping he might kiss her again on that place that was now pulsing like a heartbeat.

He didn’t disappoint her. “So beautiful,” he groaned, kissing the inside of her thigh. “God, how I’ve longed to kiss you here.”

“Please, Archibald. Please!”

He buried his face between her legs with a moan. This time, Izzie was even more aroused than she had been in the drawing room, and the pleasure came upon her immediately.

“Please don’t stop!” she cried. “You’re going to make me come!”

Archibald didn’t stop. But just when Izzie thought she was going to tumble over the peak, he slid one of his fingers into her passage. It went in up to his middle knuckle, but then met resistance.

Izzie froze, distracted from her pleasurable daze. It didn’t feel bad so much as tight . Which was unsurprising. Archibald’s fingers were as beefy as the rest of him.

“Shh,” he said, pressing a kiss against her thigh as he gently slid his finger in and out. “You just need a moment to get used to me. It’ll be all right.”

He resumed stroking her with his tongue, and she willed herself to relax. Indeed, with each passing minute, the feeling of being stretched grew less and less, until he was able to slide his finger all the way in without any discomfort at all.

She was again making progress in that indelible climb toward her peak when he added a second finger, and she came screeching to a halt.

He groaned, pressing his forehead against her stomach. “I know it’s hard, but try to relax,” he said, kissing a trail down the place where her leg met her torso. “You’re doing marvelously. And after today, it will never hurt again.”

He settled once more between her thighs, his mouth finding that little nub between her legs where it felt so good to be fondled. He began stroking it in earnest with the flat of his tongue, and the pleasure was so staggering that she almost forgot the uncomfortable sensation of being stretched.

He soon added a third finger, which put her right back to where she’d started. But she couldn’t deny that she was making progress. When her thighs began to twitch, and she felt sick with the need to climax, she tugged at Archibald’s shoulders.

Archibald glanced up at her, studying her reaction. He repositioned his mouth over that bud between her legs and started to suck.

Izzie started to babble aloud. “Oh, Archibald! That feels so good! I’m… I’m going to… Oh. Oh, my God . Archi… Archiba… Oh, my God!”

There were no more words after that, just cries of pleasure as she exploded like one of the cannons her husband was so good at making. Her back arched off the bed, and her legs shook uncontrollably on either side of his head. Archibald stayed with her the whole while, drawing out her pleasure and then gentling his strokes just as the sensation became too much.

He slid up the bed and pulled her into his arms. She was sweating and panting, but he didn’t seem to mind.

She framed his beautiful face, pressing kisses everywhere. “You’re wonderful . The best husband in the world.”

He laughed bleakly. “I hope you still feel that way ten minutes from now.”

“Ten minutes?” she asked. “Is that how long it’s going to take?”

He nodded tightly, veins standing out in his neck. “Probably less. I want you too much. But it’s probably not a bad thing for your first time to be quick.”

“All right.” She pulled him on top of her, and he came willingly. “I’m as ready as I’m going to be.”

His entire body was tense. “I’m afraid this still might hurt.”

“It probably will.” She pressed a kiss against the column of his neck. “But that’s all right. I’ll get through it.”

He nodded, then reached down to position himself at her entrance. She immediately felt pressure as he started to slide forward. She took a shaky breath and reminded herself to relax.

A look that bespoke the best kind of agony stole across Archibald’s face. “Oh, God, Izzie. You feel so good .”

It helped to have something to concentrate on other than her own discomfort. This was a special moment for Archibald, too, and she wanted to make it good for him.

She began tracing shapes across the smooth skin of his back with the pads of her fingers. “That’s it. You can keep going.”

His eyes were squeezed shut. “I can’t believe this is happening. I can’t believe I got to marry you. I’m the luckiest man in the world!”

That made her heart glow. The tension between her legs eased a fraction.

He opened his eyes, his brow creased with concern. “Is it too painful?”

“It’s not,” she hastened to reassure him. “It feels… snug. Very snug, but I wouldn’t call it painful.”

His face remained skeptical. “If you’re sure…”

“I am.” She tightened her grip on his shoulders.

“All right, then.” Tentatively, he pressed forward. Much to her surprise, his cock slid into her unimpeded until he was buried to the hilt.

His eyes rolled back in his head. “Iz… Izzie.. Oh, my… my… Guh. So guh…”

A giggle rippled out of her, seeing her normally precise husband incoherent with pleasure.

His gaze snapped back into focus. His forehead was knotted with consternation. “Izzie, I—I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to go so fast, it just—”

“It’s all right.” She stroked her hands across his shoulders. “It didn’t hurt.”

“R-really? Then I can…”

She kissed his cheek. “Go ahead.”

Studying her face, he slowly withdrew then pushed forward again. It felt strange but not painful.

Seeming to satisfy himself that he wasn’t ripping her apart, Archibald’s head lolled to the side and the tempo of his thrusts increased. “Oh, Izzie! That feels so good… too good. I’m not even going to last a full minute.”

She didn’t understand the reason for his rueful tone. “That’s all right.”

“D-do better… next time,” he gasped.

Archibald was obviously overwhelmed. Izzie, on the other hand, wasn’t feeling the same desperate sort of pleasurable sensations building within her. But she loved the feeling of Archibald, his weight upon her and his skin against hers. She loved seeing the pleasure on his face. And she especially loved this feeling of closeness that had blossomed between them.

His shoulders hardened to iron beneath her fingers. “Izzie!” he cried. “Izzie, I… I…”

His motions grew frantic, and she could tell his crisis was upon him. She clung to him as tightly as he was clinging to her and murmured soothing sounds in his ear as he cried out her name. Then he gave a great shudder before collapsing on top of her, eyes closed, head next to hers on the pillow.

After a moment, his eyes opened. He looked dazed. “Izzie.” He brought a hand up to trace the outline of her cheek. “I almost thought it was a dream. That was amazing . Thank you.”

He kissed her, but only briefly before rolling onto his back, cradling her against him. “I must be crushing you.”

“It’s all right.” It was true, although Izzie had liked being crushed, at least a little bit. But it also felt nice lying snuggled up to Archibald with her head on his shoulder, so she didn’t complain.

He drew the counterpane over their legs. His deep voice rumbled beneath her ear. “How do you feel?”

“Happy,” she answered without thinking.

“Happy is good,” he murmured.

They lapsed into a contented silence. Izzie found that she enjoyed having his big, muscular body at her disposal. Her hand traced across the flat planes of his chest, then the bulging muscles of his arm.

As she explored the tightly contoured ridges that crisscrossed his stomach, she noticed a tent forming in the bedclothes directly over his groin. Ducking her head, she grinned into his shoulder, then began stroking him with diabolical intention. She lingered over his flat nipples, enjoying his gasping breath. She scraped her nails gently up his side and was gratified by his shudder. She rubbed her own naked body against his like a cat, earning her a tiny moan, one she could tell he was trying to suppress.

But when her fingers stroked down past his stomach and slipped beneath the edge of the counterpane, she abruptly found her wrist seized in an iron grip. Suddenly, she was flat on her back, both of her hands held in place above her head and her husband’s hips pinning her to the mattress.

Izzie’s mouth went dry and the place between her legs went wet. As always, she really liked this position.

His eyes were slightly wild. “Unless you want me to fall on you like a rutting animal—”

“Yes, please,” Izzie moaned. She couldn’t help but roll her hips against the ridge of his hard cock.

He made a sound of despair. “You’re not supposed to say yes, please . It hasn’t even been five minutes since I took your maidenhead. I’m trying so hard to be good.”

“I know. I would try the patience of a saint,” Izzie agreed. “Do you have any idea how gorgeous your arms look when you hold them up over your head like that?”

“Gorgeous?” He gave her a strange look. “I’m not sure that a brutish, hulking blacksmith can be considered gorgeous.”

“You do look like a blacksmith. But you would also make a good Viking. I was thinking—maybe sometime we could find some furs to spread out on top of the counterpane. Then you can carry me into the room, toss me on the bed, and ravish me.”

His arms were shaking, and his voice when he answered was strained. “If that is something you would like, I would be glad— more than glad—to do it for you. But surely I need to be gentle with you for at least a few days.”

Izzie wrapped her legs around his hips and started to rub her core against his swollen cock, back and forth and back and forth. “You want to do it again.”

His eyes had gone hazy. “I… I...”

“You can’t hide this ,” she said, grinding against him.

“Of course, I want to,” he bit out. “But I wouldn’t hurt you for the world.”

“But it didn’t hurt! That’s the remarkable part. And…” She bit her lip, too shy to say the rest.

She got nothing past Archibald, who was studying her face intently. “And what?”

“Nothing.” Seeing that he wasn’t buying it, she sighed. “It’s just… I did want another try at it. To see if I enjoy it more the second time around.”

Archibald released her wrists and pulled her into his arms. “You were perfect. I’m given to understand that few women truly enjoy their first time.”

Izzie ducked her head into his neck. That wasn’t what the housemaid she’d questioned had told her. She’d said that, although there would be a moment of pain when she lost her maidenhead, there would be nothing but pleasure after that.

Izzie hadn’t felt that stab of pain. But the truth was, she hadn’t felt the pleasure, either. Not the way she did when Archibald rubbed that little nub between her legs.

Archibald laughed ruefully. “And if you didn’t find your pleasure, it was my fault. Don’t worry. I’ll last longer this time around.”

Izzie was on the cusp of asking what the significance of how long he lasted was when his words washed over her. “This time around? You mean… we’re doing it again?” she asked brightly.

He was really quite handsome when he smiled. “You’ve strong-armed me into it.”

Izzie couldn’t suppress a giggle at the notion that she could strong-arm this man into anything.

“But,” he continued, flopping onto his back, “you have to take the lead. That way I’ll know we’re only doing things that feel good to you.”

She sat up. There had been a picture like this in the book Harrington kept hidden under his mattress—of a man lying on his back with a woman astride him.

She had liked the way she felt when she looked at that picture…

She swung her leg over Archibald’s torso so that her core was aligned with his. She had liked it when he loomed over her, holding her wrists. When she was entirely at his mercy.

She found that she liked having him at her mercy just as much.

“Oh, dear,” he said, looking up at her. “I recognize that expression. You like this, don’t you?”

“ Yes ,” she breathed.

“Go on then,” he said, flopping his head back against the pillow and raising his arms over his head. “Do your worst.”

She did.