Lynn Wood - Norman Brides 03 (27 page)

“Yes.”

“I love you, Michel,” she whispered on a drowsy sigh, leaving Michel to wonder if she was even aware of her innocent confession.  He tightened his hold around her and let her vow settle around his heart and lull him into sleep.

Elena woke exactly where she dreamed of being, cuddled close on her husband’s broad chest, with his arms wrapped tight around her and the sound of his heart beating steadily beneath her ear.  She raised her head for a moment, just to ascertain she was really in his chambers and she hadn’t dreamed the events of the previous night.  Assured by her quick inspection, she dropped her head back to his chest, settled herself to fit more closely against his muscular frame, and then sighing contentedly, closed her eyes and drifted back to sleep, her fingers tracing little idle designs on his naked flesh.

Beneath her, Michel gritted his teeth against the temptation of his wife’s stroking fingers, and when he was convinced she had fallen back asleep, he gripped her hand to cease her restless stroking.  She shifted again in her sleep, curling her silken flesh more closely against him, her soft middle cradling his morning erection.  His still surprisingly innocent bride had no apparent apprehension of the danger she was in. Her absolute trust in him and his control where she was concerned disturbed him somewhat.

He knew when she woke fully she would be painfully sore from their activities of the previous evening.  He’d been less than gentle when he initiated her into her more intimate duties of being his wife. Yet her virgin’s flesh had served his pleasure well and now he fought the same fierce battle with his discipline that he engaged in last night.  He would have thought the satisfaction he found in her arms and between her soft thighs would have eased his lust somewhat, but contrarily, the memories of their wedding night appeared to be having the opposite effect.

A more considerate husband would leave his young bride to sleep the morning away and allow her to begin to regain her strength from the damaging fears that had pressed in upon her from all sides over the past uncertain months since the inception of her uncle’s illness.  Michel accepted without being too heavily burdened by the guilt such an admission should cause his conscience that he was obviously not the considerate husband he conjured in his musings to compare himself with, because he had no intention of wasting the opportunity presented him to be alone with his lovely bride and satisfy his body’s urgent promptings.  And if his young bride squirmed in his arms just one more time in an attempt to settle herself more comfortably against his naked, burning flesh, he wasn’t even going to be considerate enough to wake her up before he spread her legs and thrust his burning member into her tight, damp heat.

Michel drew in a shuttering breath in an attempt to gather the quickly shredding tatters of what was once his unassailable self-discipline, amazed that it was his innocent little bride who was making such a mockery of all of his previous, preciously held assumptions about the strength of his control over his natural male lusts. Elena’s pure trust in him, rather than serving to strengthen his discipline where she was concerned had the opposite effect of stripping him bare, so he was forced to scramble to summon even the paltriest defense to ward off succumbing completely to her captivating bewitchment.

He always believed he would choose a wife who possessed his twin’s bold spirit.  It came as a complete surprise to him to discover he preferred for his life’s mate Elena’s gentle nature and more subdued beauty. Everything about Melissa was larger than life, her stunning beauty, her outrageous opinions, the way she loved, her refusal to back down in the face of even the most reasonable challenge.  He loved his twin, but surprisingly he discovered he did not wish to engage in the same daily battle with his wife that he contested with the other half of himself for the majority of his life.  His lips curved upward in astonished relief that he was not to be faced with the prospect of doing so. 

Thinking of Melissa’s new husband, he nodded in silent admiration of his brother-in-law’s bolder spirit.  Luke appeared quite content with the expectation that he would spend his life attempting to bring Melissa’s bold spirit to heel, as if he looked forward with great anticipation to the daily wrangling he would be forced to endure.  A battle Michel compared to the one he had often contested with one of the wild Salusian stallions he discovered early in life he had a natural skill in training.  Hardly surprising he possessed such a talent.  Hadn’t he been forced to acquire a soft hand with a wild spirit from the moment of his birth every time he attempted to squelch one of his twin’s hare-brained schemes?

His gentle bride stirred again and all thoughts of his wild twin fled his mind, as his body’s insistent prodding took on fresh urgency.  His arms tightened their hold around her clinging softness as he plotted his strategy to break down her shy defenses against his masculine passion.  He did not think he was up to a repeat of the test of his control required of him on his wedding night.  His lips lifted into a happy smile when he realized he was well ahead of his first night as a married man.  His wife was already naked in his bed and in his arms, and seemed very content to remain there for the rest of the day. Michel decided he could work with that.

Grinning at the foolish thought, he smoothed his bride’s waist-length hair in long even strokes down her back, pausing now and again to untangle the silken strands from his rough treatment of the previous evening. His sleeping bride’s only response to his initial for foray was to sigh contentedly beneath his hands and snuggle closer against his chest. Michel gripped his wife’s hips and shifted her position slightly so he was poised at the entrance to her woman’s heat.  Elena moaned softly in response to his tentative probing.  His hands cupped her fleshy backside and squeezed gently.  She moaned again and this time when she pressed herself closer against his him, his erect manhood was surrounded by her soft skin.  He felt his bride’s breathing quicken in drowsy anticipation and felt his own ramp up in response.

He slid his hand up along her finely curved back and brushed the sides of her full breasts pressed against his chest, before sliding one hand between their bodies to tease her nipple erect. A soft cry escaped through his bride’s parted lips and she turned her face against his chest to nuzzle his naked flesh.  Michel swallowed his own groan of longing as Elena’s lips closed around his own male nipple and teased it erect with her tongue.  Just when he thought he couldn’t wait another moment, Elena lifted her head from his naked flesh and stared up at him with a longing she made no attempt to disguise.

“Michel, do you think we could…is it too soon for us to…”

In response to her hesitant question, he gripped her hips and urged her over his pulsing manhood.  She threw her head back in abandon and rose over him to straddle his hips, her head bent close so her long hair enclosed them behind a silken curtain.  He grasped the back of her head and pulled her down to him before capturing her lips in searing kiss at the same moment he thrust into her.

If his bride felt the pain of his entry she gave no indication of it. Instead, she sat up and rocked over him, thrusting her hips forward and her head back. Michel cupped her tantalizing breasts above him and lifted his head to close his mouth around one tempting offering.  Elena moaned urgently at his attention and Michel quickened his powerful thrusts, driving her closer and closer to the edge, until on a stunned cry she tightened around him and then spent, collapsed against his chest. 

Michel rolled her over until his very satisfied, but still drowsy wife lay on her back staring dreamily up into his face. Entranced, he bent and reclaimed the lips she opened eagerly for him, responding to his desire with a wild abandon he would never have dreamt lay hidden within her. Unleashing the full force of his passion at her eager response, he sought his own satisfaction in her welcoming heat, rocking the bed with the power of the rhythm he set and capturing Elena’s hands and holding them over her head so she lay completely defenseless beneath him and at the mercy of his masculine desire.

She offered no protest to being held captive beneath him.  Instead she linked her fingers with his and clung to him while he took his fill of her. 

“Michel…” she whispered his name on an awed cry and he paused for a moment in his pursuit of his own release from the driving, relentless urging of his body’s passion to watch her deep brown eyes glaze over and she surrendered to him all she guarded within her to give.  She cried out again as he drove into her a final time, clinging desperately to his restraining hands.  Helpless to contest his effect on her, Elena arched beneath him and gave herself completely over into his care.  Michel watched awed by the depths of her trust in him, by her complete surrender to his thrusting passion. To a man whose faith was so recently tested by the false pledge of loyalty by one who knelt before him and then drove his betrayer’s blade into his king’s back, Michel was not certain how to reconcile the darkness that dwelt in the hearts of men with the purity of Elena’s innocent faith in him.  Abandoning his struggle to resolve in his mind the evidence of the disparate natures of men and women he released the desperate hold he maintained over his own passion and poured himself into his wife’s welcoming young body.

Silence broken only by the sound of their harsh breathing settled over the bed where they lay spent.  Elena grew increasing nervous at her husband’s continued silence.  They hadn’t spoken more than a few words since she and her reluctant groom first consummated their marriage the previous night.  She blushed at the memories of the intimacies they shared and couldn’t help but wonder if she had pleased him in the performance of her wifely duties.  Even though he had in a back-handed way assured her she had done so last night, now she wondered if perhaps she had done enough.  Maybe a woman who was closer to his own age, with a mother to instruct her in her wifely duties would have done something different, been more aggressive in her attempts to please her new husband. 

She was well aware Michel could have married any of the available daughters of the nobles in Calei, or even returned to his previous home to choose a woman who was more familiar with his past. Elena worried that if she was unsatisfactory in the performance of her intimate duties as his wife, Michel might seek the services of another.  She was not so very young not to know that some men kept mistresses to please them in ways that their wives apparently did not, or could not.  Tears stung her eyes at the thought of Michel sharing with another the precious bond they just shared.  Unknowing and unwilling to ask for the reassurance she needed from her new husband, she let the silent tears spill from her eyes until they landed softly on his naked flesh.

“Elena, did I hurt you?”  With the evidence of his wife’s silent tears on his chest damning him, guilt rose up within Michel at the memory of his less than gentle treatment of his innocent bride. When she merely shook her head against his chest in response to his question, he braced his weight on his elbows so he could see her face.  “If I didn’t hurt you, then why are you crying?”

“Are you going to seek out a mistress?” She asked in a devastated whisper.

“What?!! What?!!”  How can you ask me such a ridiculous question?  Why would I seek out a mistress?  Is that what you want?  Elena, I’m sorry if I was rough with you.  The pain you feel now will fade.  It is only because you were a virgin…” Michel let his voice trail off as the enormity of what his new bride was suggesting hit home.  Did she believe in her innocence he would be satisfied with a single night with her? Did she intend to return to her previous celibate state?  Even if that obscene plan was floating around in her silly head he had no intention of allowing it.

“You weren’t rough with me,” she denied, blushing profusely and unable to hold his stunned glance for long.

“Then why do you wish me to seek out another woman to satisfy my manly passion?”

“I don’t wish it.  I wasn’t sure…you didn’t say if you were pleased with me.  No one explained.  I don’t have a mother to instruct me in such matters.  I know you said it was your duty to teach me, but well, you didn’t really give me any instruction last night…”  Her voice trailed off at the slow grin spreading over his face.

“I see. Forgive me, bride, if I have been remiss in my husbandly duties.”

Elena could feel her face getting redder at Michel’s gentle teasing, but she summoned the courage to protest tearfully, “No, that’s not what I meant.”

Michel rolled them both over so his fiercely blushing bride now lay beneath him.  He bent down and brushed his lips across hers and then slid his lips along the long, slender column of her throat, to where her soft breasts beckoned for his attention. 

“Michel?”

“Yes, Elena.  Pay attention, sweetheart.  I’m going to instruct you now.”

“All right,” she answered breathlessly, her hands gripping the sheets, as his mouth slid lower, over her soft middle, to where the damp curls shielding her heat tugged at his will.  When his mouth moved lower still to close over her slick opening, and he tasted the evidence of his own release on her, she arched up urgently against him.  “God! God! Are we supposed to be doing this?”

He paused long enough to lift his head to stare down into her flushed face.  Her glazed, smoky eyes clung to his, her innocent uncertainty over the rightness of the intimacies they shared casting a shadow over the pleasure he gave her.  “I’m your husband, Elena.  Your body belongs to me now. Everything you have inside of you is mine.  Do not deny me the pleasure of instructing you and enjoying your pleasure in these precious moments between us.”

“No, I can’t.  Don’t you know? Don’t you understand?  It isn’t in me to deny you anything.  I want to belong to you…to give you everything.  I can’t be here without you anymore.  I can’t bear the thought of you sharing such intimacies with another.”