Veils of Silk (38 page)

As she brought her hand back, she touched the small tight nub of his nipple, then rolled it experimentally between her fingertips. He shuddered, then exhaled, his breath shaking. "I'm sorry," he said hoarsely. "We—I shouldn't be doing this." The charpoy rocked as he pulled away, and the thick quilt fell back. "I'll look for the other lamp."

The air was as richly opaque as black velvet. Moving heat and the compression of air signaled the passage of his arm as he lifted it over her torso. Once he left the charpoy he wouldn't return and she couldn't bear the thought. She shifted with involuntary protest, accidentally bringing her breast into the path of his hand.

When his fingers grazed the swelling curve, he paused, arrested, unable to continue his retreat, his hand rigid except for a faint tremor. Before he could bring himself to withdraw, she caught his hand and pressed his palm against her breast. Warmth burned through the thin fabric of her nightgown.

He groaned, "Laura…" as his fingers tightened.

"Don't," she whispered, knowing that words would shatter the spell. "Don't talk. And don't stop."

And before logic or doubt could intervene, she closed his mouth with a kiss.

A battle between passion and restraint had been raging inside Ian, but Laura's command ended the conflict. With joy and humility, he realized that his perceptive bride must have deduced that he was now whole. Now she was willing—more than willing, eager—for them to become truly man and wife.

He was free to fully savor every wondrous aspect of Laura's sweet body and spirit. Even as a hot-blooded youth astonished by his first experience of passion, he had never been so completely bewitched. Her supple softness, her instant responses, her quick wondering breaths, were all miracles, for he had never expected to know them again. And like anything that one has thought lost forever, he valued passion all the more for having regained it.

But tonight was not only for his pleasure; he must also give his wife her first, vital lesson in the art of making love. Because his hunger was great, this first union would not be a prolonged one. And so he must take special care to help Laura discover her own capacity for passion.

With leisurely skill he trailed kisses across her flawless cheek from her lips to the tender hollow beneath her jaw. Her braid was coming undone, so he completed the process and loosened her hair into a spun-silk cloud. Then he buried his face in the gossamer strands, finding a faint, sweet floral fragrance.

With his tongue, he toyed with her ear, and was rewarded with a startled exhalation of breath that tickled him with warmth. His hand still rested on her breast, so he gently squeezed it while he nibbled his way down the vibrant arc of her throat. The tightening of her nipple against his palm proved so erotic that he replaced his hand with his mouth and teased the delicious hardness with his tongue.

She pulsated against him, her hands restlessly kneading his shoulders. Her gown was so sheer that he could feel the pebbly texture of her areola through the muslin, but that was not good enough. Remembering that the garment was secured by small buttons, he located the first and began unfastening, slipping the smooth spheres from their loops one by one.

After struggling with far too many buttons, he spread open the panels of her gown, releasing a luscious essence of sultry female and slumberous warmth. A man could drown in such delight, and go to his maker with a smile on his face. Perhaps later he would, but now he must do homage to her breasts, which fitted his palms as lushly as he had imagined they would. He cupped both and molded them together, kissing the scented cleft he created.

Even though he was experiencing her in a multitude of ways, he longed to see as well as touch the woman who had miraculously become his wife. But seeing must wait for another time. Though he chafed at the darkness, now it was his ally, allowing her to respond with a lack of inhibition that she would not otherwise have known.

As he suckled her breasts, she made a choked sound and her nails dug into his back. Suddenly feverish, he slid his hand downward from her waist, following the rounded contours of stomach and hips to the firm mound between her thighs. She gasped and rubbed against his palm. Impatient with the nightgown, he caught a handful of fabric and raised the skirt, baring her lower body to the cool night air. Then he untied the sash of his own robe and tugged the garment off.

He licked the warm ivory curve of her belly. It was firm and gently yielding under his tongue, subtly different from the blossom texture of her cheek, the taut smoothness of her throat, or the voluptuous depth of her lips. Slipping his hand between her knees, he began massaging the fragile skin of her inner thighs. Her legs opened as naturally as the petals of a flower greeting the sun, and urgent tremors pulsed through her as he caressed higher and higher.

After tracing the supple junction between abdomen and thigh, he trailed his fingertips through tangled downy hair until he could touch her intimately. She stiffened for a moment and made a raw, startled noise. But as he delicately probed into the warm, moist secret folds, her body eased again.

Ah, God, he had forgotten what joy there was in pleasuring a woman. Or perhaps he had not dared remember. With smoldering hunger, he bent forward to capture her mouth again. In the dark, he found first her cheekbone, then her welcoming lips. His fingers continued their ardent explorations, learning exactly what pressure and rhythm pleased her best, what hastened her breathing and the frantic cadence of her blood.

His deft touch was both wondrous and frightening, for it was dissolving Laura's sense of herself. She would whirl away, lost forever, if Ian were not anchoring her to the present with his taste, his strength, the pressure of his hard chest against her breasts. Her body began throbbing. She didn't understand what was happening to her, and was more than a little afraid, but she would not have stopped even if she could.

When the startling, urgent release swept through her, she twisted her mouth away from his, tasting the saltiness of his shoulder as she shuddered against his hand. In the aftermath she was so weak that she could do no more than press an exhausted kiss against his collarbone.

There was a long, still pause, and vaguely she registered the fact that he was as tense as she was limp. In one quick movement he raised himself and moved between her legs, his hand still on her, stroking, separating, triggering new shocks of sensation. His fingers glided through heated moistness until they penetrated a place for which she had no name.

She did not know, she truly did not understand, even when his searching fingers were replaced by a hotter, harder pressure. At first she thought only that he was caressing her in a different way. Then her mind snapped into wakefulness, stunned and disbelieving. No, it wasn't possible. He couldn't…

But he could, and he did. The slow, inexorable pressure abruptly ended in a
quick rip of pain, and suddenly he was inside her. They were joined as
intimately as the figures in the cave temple, and for a shocked instant she went
rigid. Then he kissed her again, his open mouth familiar and silently soothing.
Slowly she relaxed, first accepting the invasion, then finding surprising pleasure when he began to move deeper.

Curious, she raised her hips against him, intrigued by the way her slick heated flesh adjusted around his. He sucked his breath in and went still as a statue, so she pressed again, harder. He gasped, his control disintegrating, and his weight came down on her as his hips began moving convulsively, thrusting over and over in a rough, compelling tempo. His breathing lost all semblance of rhythm, and after a handful of moments she felt a potent throbbing deep inside her. At the point of deepest penetration all motion stopped. He groaned, a visceral, drawn-out sound that filled her with profound satisfaction.

His crushing weight lifted as he sagged to his side on the thin mattress. Then he pulled her close, kissed her on the forehead and cradled her against him, murmuring her name worshipfully, his palm cradling the nape of her neck.

At first, Laura lay content and almost mindless as his heartbeat slowed from tumult to normal, and then to the relaxed rhythm of sleep. They had consummated their marriage and were truly wed in the eyes of God and man. But how? She would swear that Ian had spoken the truth when he said he was incapable of marital relations. Certainly during the first weeks of their marriage there had been no sign that he had lied. Perhaps the lifting of his melancholy had restored him.

As she considered his situation, she felt rueful sympathy. Having married her on the premise that their marriage would be nonsexual, recovery must have put Ian in the devil of a quandry. In fact, that must be why he had stopped sharing her bed.

In the past Laura had always been able to sense desire from other men, so why had she completely missed the changes in Ian? She must have been blinded by her belief that he was incapable of intercourse. Looking back, she realized that she
had
felt differences in him, but had interpreted his feelings as anger or distress. Strangely, though other men's yearning had always made her uncomfortable, Ian's desire had not bothered her at all. Was that because she did not fear him? Yes, and also because she wanted him, as she had never allowed herself to want any other man.

The thought gave her a sudden chill as she abruptly realized the implications of the night's events. She, who had forsworn passion, had broken her vow. Dear God, the fact that she had completely forgotten what was at stake was conclusive proof of her weakness. What had seemed like wonder and discovery was in fact the prelude to disaster.

In spite of the warmth of Ian's embrace, she began shivering. Tonight she had succumbed to her own worst nature, and in doing so had opened Pandora's box. Her mind flooded with nightmare images, but this time she was wide awake, unprotected by the blurred unreality of dreaming. Her parents clawing at each other, passion making them savage as animals. The vicious threats, screamed in furious Russian. "
If you do, I'll kill you, or I'll kill myself. "
Her own hysterical, dangerous reaction to the betrayal of the young man she had loved and trusted.