Chapter 33

CHAPTER33

Emma kissed Silas with all of the relief she had been holding back since the kidnap, throwing her bare arms around his neck, running her hands through his long, wavy black hair. She kissed him as if there would be a tomorrow guaranteed for them, and it would be filled with as much passion as that moment.

He kissed her back with equal fervor, his hands wandering to all of the places his eyes had appreciated earlier, as she had bathed under his admiring gaze. Her skin was still slippery with the oils from the water, subduing the usual roughness of his palms. She longed for that friction, cursing the maids for pouring so many things into the bath.

Silas, however, seemed to be relishing it. “Your skin is like silk, my love,” he growled. “And you smell so delicious that I could eat you.”

“A morsel or a feast?”

He grinned. “You, my love, are always a feast… for the eyes, the soul, the mouth, the tongue, and a few other things.”

They crashed back together, kissing more feverishly than before, her fingernails clawing at his shoulders, his back, his arms, while he caressed her with a rougher touch. He kneaded her breasts with his palm, his other hand grasping her supple buttocks, pulling her closer to the hardness that swelled beneath his trousers.

Turning her, he walked her backward to the bed, his mouth never leaving hers, his hands never ceasing their exploration of what was now well-known territory. As they walked, she unbuttoned his shirt, half tearing at it in her frustration to get the wretched garment off.

She wanted to feel his smooth chest under her palms, wanted to taste the salt of his skin on her tongue, wanted to press close to his heat until she was flushed with need, wanted to have nothing at all standing between them. Once she was a duchess, she would be having a word with his tailor, for there were far too many buttons for her liking.

With every stumbling step they took toward the bed, she managed to free more of him, pushing his waistcoat and shirt from his shoulders. They whispered to the floor, creating a breadcrumb trail to their destination of desire.

“Oh…” She jolted as the backs of her thighs hit the edge of the bed.

Silas simply took another half-step, knocking her slightly off balance. She sank down onto the mattress and stared at the wonder of him: the hard lines of his chest, the ridges of his muscular abdomen, the bulging muscle of his arms, the straining diagonals of muscle that joined his chest to his stomach, but it was the deep vees at his hips that made her breath catch.

She reached for the fastening of his trousers.

Silas’s hand closed over her wrist, halting her. “Eyes on me.”

Her gaze snapped up.

“Do not toy with me,” he growled. “I want this to last a long time.”

She frowned. “The marriage?”

“No, my love.” He stifled a laugh. “This.”

Her eyes widened. “Oh.”

“But if I hurt you, if there is any pain, you must tell me at once,” he urged, his voice thick. “It will not change anything between us if you do.”

She nodded slowly. “I will tell you everything that I am feeling.”

“Oh, my love, please do,” he purred, loosening his grip on her wrist.

Emma needed no further encouragement, unfastening his trousers, easing them down the tight, defined muscle of his thighs. She did her best not to stare at the part of him he had been determined to keep hidden until now, a thousand thoughts racing through her mind—namely, how what he had told her of making love was supposed to work with something of that size.

He stepped out of the trousers and repeated, “eyes on me.”

“They are on you,” she replied.

He laughed. “Up here.”

She met his gaze once more and, for a moment, they just looked at one another. His eyes shone with the hunger she had seen many times before, but there was something else in those beautiful pools of autumnal, golden green—a gleaming core of pure love, solely for her. She hoped he saw the same thing in her eyes, for her heart was ablaze with love for him.

He tipped forward, sliding one arm around her waist, and as he climbed onto the bed, he pulled her with him, moving her up toward the pillows. There, he lay down on top of her, his thumb brushing her cheek, content to just observe her for a while. It calmed any nerves that might have lingered in her mind, his eyes, his smile, his warmth soothing her.

Dipping his head, he caught her mouth with his in a slow, sensual rhythm. The air crackled around them like the world before a mighty storm, her skin luxuriating in the heat of his, her entire body reveling in the new sensations of feeling his thighs brush against hers, his stomach flush to her, his bare chest rising and falling in time with her bosom, his manhood straining to be joined with her in the most intimate way.

But his hand got there first, his fingertips pushing between her eager petals. Her hips bucked in response, and he slid his fingers inside her, catching the gasp she unleashed with a fierce kiss.

She clung to him, dragging her nails across his powerful back, arching her neck as his skilled fingers pulsed inside her, his thumb circling her swollen bud in the teasing rhythm he knew she liked. For weeks, he had been a dedicated student of her body and desires, learning everything that made her scream his name. Everything that could bring her to the edge, so he could tease her before tipping her right over the precipice into paradise.

He seemed to be in no rush to feed his own desires, focusing on her entirely.

As she writhed and moaned, grinding into his palm, savoring every strum of his thumb, he began to kiss his way down her neck. She held her breath as his mouth lingered close to her pert nipple, his breath tickling that sensitive mound of flesh. She exhaled a shuddering groan as his lips finally closed over that peak, sucking sparks out of her, conjuring fireworks that exploded in her belly, and sending tiny lightning bolts down every limb.

“Yes, my love!” she panted, grasping a handful of his hair, her other hand twisting a blanket into knots. “Yes!”

Rolling his tongue over the peak of her nipple, her back arching to bring her closer to his mouth, he traced a familiar path down her stomach. Reaching her hips, he kissed between them, his tongue tasting the tingly flesh beneath those curving bones.

And like any good explorer familiar with the terrain, he followed the direction of those curves down between her thighs.

The first lash of his tongue against her most sensitive spot was like an earthquake erupting, her legs shaking as the ripples shivered up and out, seizing hold of every part of her.

“Oh, my love,” she gasped, thrashing now. “Yes!”

He listened closely to the music of her body, guiding the orchestra of her very being toward a rousing conclusion, conducting a whole symphony with his tongue and fingers.

Within minutes, she was crying out his name, not caring if the entire household heard her. “Yes, my love! Oh, Silas…”

She thought she felt him smile, but he did not cease his attentions yet. He merely slowed to a softer encore, waiting until the ferocious tide of her pleasure had ebbed, letting her shudder and quiver to a stop before he did.

I must be the luckiest woman in the world.

She sagged back onto the mattress, smiling contentedly.

Her breath caught as he withdrew his fingers and turned his head to kiss the inside of her thighs, retracing a leisurely path back to her lips, his touch and tongue teasing a few more sparks from her before his kiss grazed against her mouth once more.

She kissed him breathlessly, still thrumming from the force of her conclusion. She held him close, knowing that nothing would ever be better than this, entangled in utter privacy with the man she loved.

“Are you tired?” Silas asked.

She shook her head. “Not even remotely.”

“Good,” he whispered, kissing her hard.

His body moved against hers with each press of his lips, his knee sliding between her legs, nudging them apart. She needed no encouragement, kissing him back with ravenous desire as she parted for him. His lips were a delicious distraction from any intrusive fear that might make a last-minute entry.

“This is what I was afraid of,” he murmured slyly, “and I am afraid it is too late for me to remedy.”

She paused. “Afraid? What do you mean?”

“I was afraid of becoming utterly obsessed with you. Alas, my love, it has happened,” he breathed, guiding himself between her thighs, sliding back and forth to tease her with the velvety length of him.

She smiled. “Then, we are suffering the same fate.”

“I am pleased to hear it.” He drew back his hips and everything stilled, as a pressure settled at her entrance: her heart, her breath, her ability to think, the rush of her blood, it all froze in anticipation.

Dipping his head, he kissed her softly, and as his tongue flicked against hers, he eased inside her. So slowly, so carefully, as if he were afraid he might break her.

He could not have been more wrong. She gripped his arms, feeling the flex of muscle, as her body shattered the trance that longed-for moment had held her in. There was a slight sting at first, but it was swiftly buried beneath a wave of the purest pleasure, each inch of him awakening something new in the very depths of her.

A gasp escaped her lips, her fingernails digging deeper into his arms as he buried himself to the hilt.

“Are you in pain?” he asked quietly.

She shook her head. “No… do not… dare stop!”

“Are you sure?” A hint of mischief snuck into his voice.

She nodded, running her hands down his back, urging him closer while she lifted her hips, making sure she had every bit of him within her. It was a sensation unlike anything she could have hoped to describe. It was like she had been locked away for four-and-twenty years, and someone had finally opened the door, allowing her to see the world in all its glorious color and vitality for the first time.

Pleasure pulsed up into her belly and down her legs, her knees trembling at either side of Silas’s hips.

As he slowly drew back, reality as she knew it smashed into a thousand glittering pieces, revealing the true paradise that she had only touched the borders of over the past few weeks. The friction she had craved upon her skin was now a slick friction within her, the movement striking a flint at the center of her bliss, igniting it into an immediate, all-consuming furnace.

“Oh, my love,” she growled, desperate to feel all of him again.

She lifted her hips, drawing him back inside. A moan of pleasure escaped his throat, a partial look of surprise raising his eyebrow.

“What happened to patience?” he said silkily.

“I do not know the word,” she gasped in reply, crying out as he sank back into her, all the way to the hilt.

He stilled there for a moment, pausing to gaze into her eyes. She gazed back, heart racing, and pulled his head down to feel his kiss as he moved inside her once more. A slow, satisfying thrust that made her see stars, her brain pounding with the pressure of managing so many feelings at once.

Before long, she understood why Silas had often referred to it as a “union.” On the bed in the manor that would soon be her true home, in the arms of the man who would soon be her husband, the delirious became one entity, one soul, one future tangled together in two bodies, joined in a promise and a vow that both intended to keep.

They moved together on a sea of gasps and searing sighs, their moans mingling in the air that thickened with the heat of their lovemaking. She met every measured stroke of his hips, savoring the sensation of being filled by him, shivering with the ecstasy of that delicious friction. It was more than she could ever have imagined, her daydreams and nightly dreams not even coming close to the true experience.

But he did not neglect his other duties, lavishing her feverish skin with fiery kisses, sucking upon her pert nipples, grasping at flesh and whispering sultry secrets in her ear to let her know that whatever intensity she was feeling, he felt it too.

“You are my madness, love,” he rasped. “I am ablaze with you.”

She writhed and thrashed, wondering if she might be a wildling after all. The way she clawed and kissed and nipped and bit and licked and raked at him seemed to suggest that he, too, had unleashed a beast in her. One that refused to be restrained. Then again, Silas was the one who was teaching her; he had set her loose, so it stood to reason that he might gain a few scratches.

And when his hand slid between them, his fingertips touching upon that secret bud of hers, it was as if she had transformed into another creature entirely. A creature made for passion and love. A creature made for this, with him.

He barely had to strum upon that sensitive spot before her conclusion—which had been building and building with every stroke of his manhood, every deliberate brush of his flesh against that bud—hit her. Since they had lain down together, it had felt like a storm was brewing, and the first fork of lightning had just flared from those rumbling clouds. It splintered through her, ricocheting from the top of her head to the tips of her toes, pummeling back and forth, leaving no limb unshaken, no speck of skin without gooseflesh, no part of her unscathed from its almighty power.

She threw her head back, spine arching, hips lifting, and screamed his name with everything she had; to help alleviate the pressure of that raw, unbridled pleasure, if nothing else.

Lightning bolt after lightning bolt crackled through her veins, her body seizing as her head pounded and her breath got stuck in her blazing lungs. She gripped handfuls of the blankets beneath her, panting out Silas’s name again and again, alongside some words that were not suitable for the household’s ears.

For a while, she thought—and half-hoped—that it would never end. But gradually, the lightning drifted away into the distance, leaving behind rumbling thunder that throbbed throughout her, dimmer but no less delicious.

She collapsed back into the blankets, heaving in deep breaths.

Graciously, Silas ceased his skillful strumming and stilled within her. He slid his arms around her and caught her mouth with his, kissing her slowly, almost lazily. She smiled against his lips and kissed him back in kind, dizzy with bliss.

“How about now, my love?” he whispered. “Are you tired?”

She chuckled. “Not yet.”

“Now, that is wondrous news.” He flashed her a wolfish grin, and she had the most glorious feeling that it was about to be the longest and most satisfying night of her life… if the birds did not ruin it with the dawn chorus first, for the hour was ticking toward morning.

“I suspect I shall have to be quieter,” she said shyly. “The staff might be waking soon.”

Silas narrowed his eyes. “Do not dare. Be as loud as you can. I demand it.”

“Oh, well, if you demand it…” She smirked, and kissed him, already eager for more.

* * *

Silas hurried through the woodland, clutching the note in his hand. All around him, the distant music from the ball weaved through the trees, while the scuttles and sounds of night creatures provided accompaniment.

His heart thudded hard in his chest as he ran with every scrap of strength he possessed, leaping over fallen logs, stumbling through tangled weeds and tree roots, desperate to reach that glade in the forest where he knew he was needed. The note in his hand bore no discernible words, but he knew what it said as well as he knew his own reflection.

Something is supposed to happen here… His subconscious mind bristled at the change, waiting for a scream that refused to come. Yet, he tore on as if he had heard it anyway, as if someone’s life depended on him reaching that glade before the clock struck midnight.

He broke through the tree line that bordered the glade and hurtled straight for the hut in the center, noting the movement of a shadow through the window, where a single candle flickered.

Panting, legs aching, he reached the door to the hut and wrenched it open… but no dark shadows spilled out, no one struck him in the head, no one screamed, and no one stole away what he had come to save.

Once again, his subconscious mind griped that the scene was not playing out as it was supposed to.

But, in dreaming, Silas’s heart leaped as he saw Emma standing in front of the rustic kitchen table, inside the hut. She wore a gauzy garment, tied at the waist, with billowing sleeves, crafted of a fabric so delicate and thin that he could see everything… and some things he had not expected to see.

She settled her hand upon a rounded belly, large with new life.

Silas gasped. It was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. She was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, her hair loose and free, her cheeks flushed with pink, her eyes wide as she looked toward him.

“There you are, my love,” she said, opening out her arms. “I was worried you might be late.”

He ran into those outstretched arms and scooped her up, swinging her around and around, smiling so wide that his cheeks ached. “I am sorry that I was,” he murmured, setting her back down. “But I came to you as fast as I could.”

“You are not late, my darling,” she insisted, as that invisible clock in the forest began to ring out the first of twelve chimes. “Why, I should say you are right on time.”

He shook his head. “No, my wildling, I was late, but I swear I shall never keep you waiting, ever again.”

“And I, my love, will never run,” she told him.

As he leaned down to kiss her, the forest evaporated. His eyes shot open, a smile still fixed upon his lips. He turned to the sleeping figure beside him, nestled into the crook of his arm, her head upon his chest, and bent to kiss her gently on the brow.

Outside, daylight was breaking across their corner of the world, and he realized with a jolt of his heart that it was the first night in a very long time that he had not had a nightmare, but the most pleasant of dreams.