Chapter Ten Husbands and Wives
Chapter Ten
Husbands and Wives
E lizabeth walked to the bed, determined to seem ready. Relaxed. Trusting. She turned to August, forcing a smile. “I suppose I’ll remove my robe.”
“You’ll be more comfortable without it.” His smile looked more natural than hers. “Let me help you.”
His fingers brushed over her shoulders as he drew her robe away. She watched from beneath her lashes as he draped it over a nearby chair. He took off his loose cravat next, then undid his shirt buttons. She tried not to stare as he removed his shirt, revealing a great deal of nakedness. His chest was quite, quite bare.
And strong.
And not unpleasant to look at.
He turned to lay his shirt beside her robe, revealing a muscular back and shoulders that seemed broader than when they were clothed…and they had seemed broad even then. She dropped her gaze when he returned to her. She saw his smile at the edge of her vision and felt foolish. This wasn’t a moment to be shy.
She gathered her courage and lifted her chin, meaning to meet his eyes, but became distracted again by the dark hair on his chest. As he breathed deeply, in and out, she noted the way the hair tapered to his trousers’ waistband, alongside shockingly defined muscles. Goodness, men were built so differently than women.
He went to the bed with his trousers still on, which was well enough, for her eyes were already full of his top half. She dropped her hands when she realized she’d been gripping them at her middle. This was her friend, August. Surely there was nothing to fear.
He gestured for her to join him, smiling to put her at ease. She climbed onto the bed and he crowded near her from his side. She didn’t know where to look. “I’m ready to learn things,” she said. “How do we begin?”
“Lie down beside me.”
“Do I need to take off my shift?”
His gaze skimmed down her rather revealing wedding attire. “No. Unless you want to.”
“Hmm. It’s rather cold. I might leave it on for now.”
“It is cold, isn’t it? Let’s snuggle together. That’s the best way to start.”
He opened his arms, and she slid into them, resting her head on his bare shoulder. He was so warm. So solid.
“This feels nice already,” she said. “We fit together, although you’re much bigger than me.”
“Indeed, I am bigger.”
Was he bemused, or just relaxed? Why was she so unsure what to do? She stared at his handsome, square chin as his fingers brushed across her cheek, then down her jawline. He tilted her head up until their eyes met. As he held the intimate contact, his knuckles traced along her neck, trailing down to her collarbone. She suppressed a shiver at the stirring contact. No one had ever touched her this way.
“Breathe,” he said softly.
She realized all her air had stalled in her chest as she experienced his caress. She let it out with an embarrassed smile.
“Do you think you’ll be all right?” he teased. “We’ve barely begun.”
“I’ll be all right, yes.”
He touched her so expertly, so easily, his fingertips rising over the curve of her shoulder to meander down her arm. His thumb brushed the side of her breast. She blinked and had to remember to breathe again.
Back up her arm. Across her shoulder. The sensation mesmerized her. This was not like spanking, the only other physical contact they’d shared. This was as soft as spanking was hard. Soft, but powerful.
He leaned to kiss her as he’d done earlier, brushing his lips over hers. She knew better how to react this time, closing her eyes and letting her mouth play against his. He opened his lips a bit, and she opened hers in response. She’d seen her mama and papa kiss like this when they believed they were unobserved. It was certainly something to do in private, for it was close and warm and luxurious. It seemed a way to lose oneself in another…
His hand opened on her back, large and hot through her shift’s fabric. He pulled her closer, his kiss gentle but intoxicating. From her back, his hand moved to her waist. Each place he touched her, she seemed to burn with the knowledge of it. He’s holding me. He’s caressing me.
Then, without warning, those hot, questing fingertips moved across the mound of her breast. She squirmed, surprised but not displeased. The pad of his thumb brushed over her nipple, and she broke their kiss, gasping at the sudden throb of sensation. She ducked against him as he touched her nipple again, this time tracing around it, bringing more exquisite feeling.
“Do you like that?” he asked.
She nodded, unable to conjure words. He kept on, stroking, teasing, circling with maddening skill until her whole body trembled.
“I’ve never felt anything like this,” she finally answered in halting breathlessness. “You’re very good at…touching me.”
“Thank you. I’m trying my best.”
He grinned. To him, this was play. Easy to do. She understood he was more experienced; in fact, his skill level compared to hers seemed unsporting. How was she to keep up? She ought to touch him too, but she could barely control her own reactions and emotions. She gripped his arm, the one tormenting her, and his caresses stilled. She didn’t want that, so she moved her hand to his chest instead, to the glistening, scratchy dark hair and tanned muscle.
“August…” She reminded herself that he was her friend, someone she had known and trusted a long time. “So this is what a wedding… What a wedding night is like?”
“More or less.” He watched her eke out another halting breath. “Though I fear to tell you, we’re only just getting started. If it’s too much for you, we can stop.”
“Just getting started? How much more is there?”
“A great deal more, but we needn’t do everything in one night.”
As he spoke, he moved his hand from her breast, down the front of her stomach, to the apex of her thighs. It was the part of her that felt heaviest when he caressed and kissed her. She’d rather understood he was going there next, but a fit of reluctance grabbed her. She clenched her legs together and met his gaze.
“I’m afraid of that. No, not afraid. Well, afraid of what you’ll do to me. No one…” She swallowed hard as he drew up her shift’s hem. “No one has ever touched me there.”
“Have you touched yourself there?”
His question surprised her. “No. Should I have?”
He threw back his head and laughed. She blushed furiously.
“I think,” he said, when he stopped laughing, “you will regret the time lost. Let me show you how it feels. I’ll be gentle. You may find it to your taste.”
The way he said taste was so seductive. So voluptuous, like flickering candles in the dark.
“I’ll touch you here to start,” he said, tracing the tops of her naked thighs. “Kiss me again, Lisbet. Yes, so sweetly…”
She let herself get carried away by his lips once more. His kisses were even more voluptuous than his words. Taste. Touch. Yes, so sweetly…
She gripped his shoulder and felt the tendons in his neck move as he leaned toward her. Strong. He was so strong. She was so vulnerable, and yet…
“That’s right. Let me show you. Open for me.”
One of his knees slid between her thighs, easing them apart. She was truly hot down there now, hot and heavy and sensitized to his smallest movement. His trousers’ fabric was smooth, the highest quality, but it felt rough against her tensing inner thighs. She fought the urge to push her shift back down, to cover herself.
Trust him. Follow his lead.
He palmed her quim as he’d palmed her breast, splaying his fingers wide. As he kissed her, one of those fingertips parted her and pressed a hidden button of flesh that vibrated in response. The sharp pang of pleasure made her bite down on his lip. He hissed at the pain, then laughed. Not a mocking laugh, but a sensual one. The sound of it made her press her hips forward, begging for more. More touch. More glorious feeling.
He gave it to her, stroking her most tender, sensitive center.
“Oh,” she cried. “I do like this. I never knew… Is it supposed to feel this good?”
“Yes.”
Just one word, yes . She caught the edge of tension in its softness. He wanted to touch her like this, craved it, although she was the one getting all the pleasure.
“It truly feels so good. But… August…” But I need more. I need release from this tightness and heaviness, this pulsing, aching joy.
“Let me kiss you,” he said.
She lifted her lips obediently back to his, but he slid down her body.
“No, darling. Down there.”
“Down there?” Her legs clamped shut again. “You can’t—Not there—”
“I can. Husbands and wives do.”
She meant to protest, to turn him away, but before she could, his lips and tongue were doing what his fingers had already done, but better. Hotter, wetter, warmer. Oh my goodness…
He spread her thighs and pushed her nightgown higher, laying her bare to his gaze. She felt a mere second of embarrassment, followed by unfolding pleasure more decadent than she could have imagined. He held her pinned while she thrust, gasping, against the wonder of his mouth. Her hands did not know where to go. She covered her eyes, then threw them to the sides, then gripped his shoulders.
There was nowhere to go but where he took her. She had no choice. She was too far gone. She held him tighter and tighter as his mouth wrought mayhem upon her sensitive button. How was he doing this? How had he learned it?
How did it feel…
So…
Glorious…?
Her body’s longing reached an apex beyond her comprehension. She bucked against his skillful lips, his miraculous tongue, as all the building desire and feeling exploded. Her whole being shook as clenching rivulets of pleasure rocked her center, her hips, her arms, her legs, down to her very toes, which curled at the climax’s intensity.
Afterward, she could only lie gasping. He kissed her one last time down there, then murmured, “Breathe.”
“I can’t,” she said. “I can’t breathe. What have you done to me?”
“Made you come, darling. A heady benefit of marriage.”
He moved back up beside her and kissed her, so she tasted herself on his lips. She was confused, amazed, still aroused.
“I can’t believe what you just did to me. Married couples do such things?”
“Why wouldn’t they? Didn’t it feel good?”
“It felt indescribably good.” She pushed her shift down, trying to collect her wits. “My goodness.”
He leaned over her, smirking. She looked up at him and narrowed her eyes.
“Don’t say it again. Don’t say there is more, that we are only getting started.” She stared at him, realizing. “But there must be more. Things I can do to you to make you feel pleasure. There are things like that, aren’t there?”
He seemed to grit his teeth before he answered her.
“Yes. There certainly are.”
August was aroused to distraction. To agony. In her innocence, his wife didn’t realize how close he was to ripping her gown from collar to hem and stabbing into her maidenhead.
No, you animal. Her first time cannot be like that.
He’d only meant to give her a little taste of love play, some teasing kisses and caresses. Nothing more than that. Now his cock was about to burst from his trousers’ confinement, and what would she do then, confronted by such a sight?
Scream, maybe. Cower. He was not a small man. He did not intend to consummate their marriage tonight.
“You don’t have to do anything for me,” he said. “If you’re tired…”
“I’m not tired at all. I’m feeling rather energized after…whatever that was that just happened.”
“I licked your pussy,” he said, giving her some vocabulary. “You came from it, rather beautifully. I’m pleased you enjoyed it, but you needn’t reciprocate.”
“You said you would teach me what husbands and wives did together. Things they might share.”
Was she pouting now? He ought to spank her. He needed to kiss her. Anything but get out his cock and terrify her with it.
“Here.” He took her hand, pushed past reason by arousal, and placed it over the front of his trousers, over his engorged, aching member.
Her eyes went wide. “What is that?”
“My cock.” He moved her hand up and down the length of it, glad that her touch was muted somewhat by his trousers’ fabric. “When you stroke it like this, it feels good to me. Very good. As good as my caresses felt to you.”
Her eyes widened as she traced over his hardness, measuring his size with her fingers. “My word,” she whispered. “This feels very big.”
“Sometimes it is. When I’m aroused, like I am now.” Breathe. Now he needed the reminder as she explored him, curious and artless. “All men are equipped so. They get hard like this for…for conjugal relations.”
He saw her mind work. “For conjugal relations? For joining ?” Her jaw dropped. “This is supposed to go inside me?”
“Not tonight,” he said in the face of her alarm. He gritted his teeth against the feral urge to plow into her, into that hot, wet place he’d just explored so intimately with his lips and tongue. This was Elizabeth. Sweet Elizabeth.
Hell.
He undid his falls and let his cock spring free, long, thick, and flushed with sexual heat. She stared at it, then at him. “Can I still touch it?”
“Yes.”
She looked dubious. “Will it hurt you?”
“No. Not in the way you think.”
He could not explain more, especially when she traced his length in her tentative, curious way.
“If I stroke and touch you, will you be able to do that same thing I did?”
“Coming,” he said on a shaky exhalation. “It’s called coming.”
“Coming. Can you do that the same way as me?”
“I can, but it will be different.” He struggled to maintain control as she wrapped her hand around him. “Ahh. God. Like this, darling.”
He put his fingers over hers to show her how to pleasure him. She was so eager. Too eager. Elizabeth being Elizabeth, how could he expect anything else?
“Does that feel all right?” she asked.
“It feels…marvelous.”
“But you look as if it doesn’t feel marvelous. If you like…” She paused a moment, seeming to steel herself. “You may put it inside me if it absolutely must be done.”
“Elizabeth.” He was torn between laughing and weeping from the want of it. “I’ll decide when we’ll join that way. Not tonight. Perhaps in Oxfordshire, after the holidays, when we get home. For now…”
“I’ll kiss you as you kissed me. Will that help with your discomfort?”
“You needn’t—”
She was already leaning over him, pressing her lips to his cock’s straining tip. “I’m sure I won’t be as good at it. Not right away. But I’ll try.”
“You don’t have to—Elizabeth—”
He lay back with a groan as she opened her lips and licked him, clumsily, wonderfully, in a tentative imitation of his recent foray between her thighs. Oh, God. He’d only meant to pet her a little, show her the sensitive parts of her body and what pleasure he might bring her at some time in the future. Now she was using her mouth on him like a courtesan in training…
She is not a courtesan. She’s your wife, and you should be glad she’s the adventurous type.
He’d always known in some part of his brain that she would be a sensual creature. Her reactions to the spankings ought to have been a clue. But this…
Oh, God, she tormented him, making his cock thrum with need. He wanted to tell her to open her mouth wider so he could bury himself in her throat, but that would be crass. He could feel the ghosts around them watching him in judgment. On a wedding night? With a virgin?
Yes.
He was past the point of speaking, or stopping her. He nudged her lips apart with his fingers and guided his cock’s tip inside. She hesitated a moment, but she understood. He jerked as her hot mouth enveloped him, licking and caressing him as well as she could. If he was smaller, he could thrust deeper, but he didn’t want to alarm her. He stroked the rest of his length, letting her bring him to a peak of stimulation.
“Don’t stop,” he said. “I’ll come if you don’t stop.”
She did stop, but only long enough to say, “Oh, I would like that.”
Her innocence and boldness made a titillating combination. Too titillating. He wanted to come in her mouth, but no. He had to draw the line somewhere for this virgin on her wedding night. Instead, he guided her back, withdrew from her lips, and climaxed onto his stomach, letting her watch his essence as it pumped from his jerking member. She stared with shocked fascination, her gaze going from his cock, to his face, to his cock again.
“ That’s how you come?” she asked, when his crisis had passed.
“Yes, my curious one. That’s how it happens for me.”
“Did I…pump out liquid like that when I…?”
“No.” He made his laugh gentle, so as not to hurt her feelings. “Only men ejaculate semen. It makes babies,” he added as he wiped it away. “When I’m inside you and I come, it can make a baby.”
“Oh. I see.”
He knew she was thinking again about putting that inside her. She continued to watch with undisguised curiosity as he went soft, little by little, reducing to a more reasonable size.
“I—I understand so much more now,” she said. “Thank you for showing me these things. And for showing me your…thing.”
“You can call it my cock, although I wouldn’t use the word in company. It’s something we can talk about privately, now that we’re married. And yours is called a pussy. Or a kitty cat. Or any other pet name I come up with in the future.”
“I’m certainly your pet now.” She flirted with him, batting her eyes. He loved that she was open to playful sexuality. At least for the moment. He worried about hurting her when he finally took her virginity, worried about how that might change her feelings toward marital intimacy.
“Indeed, you’re my pet, though if you’re too sassy about it…” He grabbed her and upended her, throwing her across his lap. He gave her a couple spanks over the top of her wedding shift. She kicked and yelped in protest but didn’t try to get away.
“I shall have to ask my friends how often they recommend spanking a new wife,” he teased.
“That would be entirely domineering of you.” She turned to look back at him. “I have it on authority they spank theirs far too often.”
“I imagine you’d like it.”
He smacked her arse again, not too hard. Just hard enough to make her fidget. It was so tempting, so terribly tempting, to give her a full, stinging spanking on her bare arse, but once he did that, he’d be hard as a rock again, and he knew where that would lead. He was already halfway there.
No, he’d save their first married spanking for another time. He righted her and tucked his cock back into his pants, then went to the fireside table for two glasses of wine. He handed her one and proposed a toast.
“To marrying someone you already know and love,” he said.
She clinked glasses. “To marrying someone you already know and love. I’m so glad about it.”
“Me, too.”
He thought, momentarily, of flicking some of the dark wine on the sheets, to put a stain there. He wondered if they’d come looking for blood in the morning, proof that he’d taken Elizabeth’s virginity.
Probably not. Thank God they’d evolved beyond such tests and rituals. It meant he could take things slow and build up Elizabeth’s confidence before he sacrificed her upon his cock’s altar. That was for the best.
It wouldn’t be easy to take things slow when she was so eager to please him, but all told, it was an excellent problem to have.
When they finished the wine, he extinguished the candles and changed into a nightshirt, leaving the generous repast for the servants to retrieve in the morning.
“Do you think it’s Christmas by now?” she asked as they climbed beneath the covers to sleep.
“It must be, surely.”
“Happy Christmas, then,” she said in her charming way.
He answered with a kiss, drawing her close. Her legs brushed against his as she settled into his arms. So sensitive, this one. So chaotically alive. “You’re my pet and my Christmas gift both,” he whispered. “Now go to sleep. It won’t do to look woebegone and pale when we see our guests at breakfast.”
She made a soft, amused sound. “I’m afraid how I shall look tomorrow. Everyone will know, won’t they, that we did intimate things together?”
“They’ll guess, but they won’t really know.”
“I suppose that’s all right.” Her voice grew drowsy with sleep. She placed her hand on his chest, just over his heart. “I hate to sleep, for that means our wedding day is over. I’m glad everything turned out so perfectly.”
May it continue so , he thought to himself. He didn’t doubt her for a second. It was himself he didn’t trust.
*
Elizabeth woke several times in the night, unused to having a man in bed beside her. August would soothe her back to sleep, cradling her closer in his arms. She dreamed of him then, of his scent and body, and the marital intimacies he’d shown her. By morning their legs were twined together and her face rested right against his.
She opened her eyes, blinking, to find him looking back at her. “How long have you been awake?” she asked softly.
“Long enough to know you’re adorable when you sleep. And restless.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
“You needn’t be. We’re coming off a rather eventful night. And day. All of it has been…” He shifted beside her, then lay back a little. “How are you this morning?”
He watched as she considered her answer. He certainly noticed her blush, with her cursed pale skin.
“I’m fine, dear August. Very fine. I mean, entirely comfortable and…well, perhaps not well-rested, but that is neither here nor there—”
He cut off her blathering with a kiss, a gentle, lingering brush of lips over hers. How strange to lie beside her friend and receive such attentions.
He drew back and looked at her again. “You are truly all right, Lisbet? I did not overstep last night?”
Overstep? She wasn’t sure what he meant by that.
“I’m perfectly fine,” she assured him. “Although I don’t know how I shall face my mama and papa at breakfast.” She put her hands to her hot cheeks. “Am I blushing again?”
“You’ve not stopped blushing since you opened your eyes.” He grinned at her. “And as long as you’re smiling, your mama and papa will be delighted.” He glanced at the window. “Delighted to see you at luncheon, that is. I fear breakfast has come and gone.”
*
There were no plans for an immediate honeymoon, with the weather so cold and wintry. To Elizabeth, that was just as well. The Christmas Day celebrations were enough to make her feel like a newlywed bride. Her friends and family teased her, calling her Lady Augustine at every turn as the company drank cider, ate sweets, and opened gifts after dinner in the parlor.
August’s gift to her was a sedate woolen scarf. He blushed and laughed as she opened it. Of course, he’d brought a gift for a friend’s sister, not a wife. Her gift to him was a work of music, since they’d had piano lessons in common. The night before they were to leave Cairwyn, he took her to her grandpapa’s music room to play it for her.
They’d been married three days by then. They’d kissed and snuggled, and explored one another’s bodies each of the nights after retiring to their nuptial chamber, although he had not put his thing—his cock —inside her yet. She was content to let him lead, as her mother suggested. He told her he intended to take things slow until they grew more familiar with one another. Well, familiar as lovers, since they were now so much more than friends…
Going to the music room together reminded her of their lessons, of Cousin Larissa eating biscuits and August lecturing her for her poor practice habits. She hummed along to the waltz she’d given him as his fingers played over the keys. The piano was ever so slightly out of tune, but with his talent, the song sounded good anyway.
Those fingers could do marvelous things.
When he finished the waltz, he transitioned to a new piece by memory, a rich, melodic sonata from the previous century. He altered some of the well-known passages with his own improvisations, adding sweeping runs and extra chords. His sideways glances made her giggle.
“I’ll never play like you,” she said as he shifted to a lazy gavotte.
“You can easily play as well as me if you practice. You have the talent.” He graced her with an encouraging smile. “But you must love music, truly adore it, to play it well.”
“You’ve adored it forever, since you were a little boy.”
Was she hearing his thoughts, or merely stating the obvious? She mustn’t get in the habit of trying to read him. If he worried about her perceiving his every thought, he’d soon go mad. She rested her head against his shoulder, suppressing a yawn.
“Getting tired, love?” he asked, changing the gavotte to a lullaby. “Shall we retire? We’ve a long journey back to Oxfordshire in the morning.”
“Not yet. Not until your pretty lullaby is done.”
“Ah, but I can make it go on forever. Until you’re fast asleep.”
She laughed, shaking her head. “I can’t go to sleep here, or you’ll have to carry me upstairs.”
“Do you think I couldn’t?”
She leaned closer against him, against his solid strength and muscled arm. “I’m sure you could, but what if you tripped upon the stairs?”
“This manor’s old stone stairs?” He pulled a grimace, sounding a dissonant note. “That wouldn’t be good for you.” He played a few more measures, beginning the lullaby again. “Are you excited to go home? Home to St. Pierre with me?”
“Of course. I’m your countess now.” It still felt strange to say it. “I suppose I must meet the servants and set up my rooms.”
“I hope you’ll furnish your rooms, and the entire house, any way you like, no matter the expense. I want you to feel comfortable. And I’ll set up an allowance for your household needs, for things like gowns and shoes and…whatever else you like.”
“You’re very kind.”
“Isn’t that what husbands do? Spoil their wives?” He chuckled. “That’s what my friends do. I’ve not studied on it much. I find myself married a bit sooner than expected.”
“That, too, was very kind of you.” He jested, but she answered with sincerity. “I’m so grateful to you, August.”
“You needn’t be grateful. It was my honor to do it.”
Honor. The word had been bandied about a great deal in the commission of their marriage, by many people.
But honor was not the same as love.
I wish I knew you better, August. I wish we could have had a courtship, or an engagement, or anything to help us feel more naturally at ease.
“When I go home with you,” she said aloud, “then we will seem very married. Very settled.”
“Indeed.” He finished the lullaby with a shimmering glissando. “We are very married, Elizabeth, and very settled. Husband and wife, until death do us part.” He glanced about the room, making sure there were no servants or houseguests, then turned to her and lifted her chin. “Let there be no more talk of gratitude, darling. I’m sure I’m the luckier one by far.” He kissed her, tenderly, sweetly.
For honor or for love?
With all her talents of perception, she couldn’t tell. Perhaps it wasn’t imperative to know all those answers right now.