Mary Reed McCall (16 page)

His comment startled her into action. She tried to scramble off of him, murmuring apologies about his getting muddy for her sake, but she stopped her squirming when she realized that she wasn’t going anywhere. His hands held her hips firmly to him, and her struggles only succeeded in causing delicious sensations to blossom, forcing her into unavoidable, teasing contact with the hard length of his body.

Every inch of him seemed to touch her, tantalizing her senses and releasing a flood of warmth through her belly and to the tingling points of her nipples where they rubbed against his chest. When she stilled, his smile eased away, leaving his expression open, vulnerable and utterly sensual. His gaze flicked from her mouth to her eyes, and he shifted suddenly, dry leaves crackling as he rolled so that she lay half beneath him.

Gray’s arm cradled her head, but when his thigh slipped between hers, she gasped. Need curled hot and sleek through her, swirling up to ignite a desire that rippled to the ends of her fingers and toes. Her
eyes fluttered shut and then opened again as he cupped her face with his palm.

His breath whispered over her jaw. Lifting one hand, he stroked her cheek with his thumb. “There’s no mud here, lady. In truth, I’d wager our leafy carpet as soft as the finest bed of feathers.”

Catherine couldn’t breathe for a moment. The very birds seemed to cease their chirping, the rustling of the leaves faded into silence. Everything seemed to still around them, all but for the warm flutter of Gray’s breath on her cheek, and the exquisite, gentle caress of his thumb on her skin.

“The leaves are soft, my lord,” she managed to say, struggling to keep the husky note from her voice. “Yet the ground beneath is very…hard.”

“Aye, lady. ’Tis hard, indeed.”

Another wave of warmth swept through her; she couldn’t help but feel the swollen, rigid length of him that burned through her skirt against her thigh. A tiny moan escaped her before she could stop it, as with a tenderness that almost shattered her, Gray bent his head and kissed her.

Then he rested his cheek on hers, closing his eyes and whispering into her ear, “’Tis a hard and soft that God made to fit together, lady.” He brushed his mouth over her again, this time tantalizing the delicate spot at the tip of her jaw. “Let me teach you how perfect it can be. Let me love you as a man is made to love a woman. As a husband is made to love his wife.”

Desire curled up to surround her, filling her with
cravings, with wants and needs she’d never known. “I wish it more than anything,” she whispered, caution fleeing under the heated onslaught of emotion. She broke into a throaty moan when he moved to tease the sensitive spot beneath her ear. “Ah, Gray, teach me to be your wife in truth. To be yours in every way.”

Catherine wound her hands round his neck, threading them into his hair, pulling him down to meld her mouth to his. With a groan he leaned into her, slanting his lips across hers with passion that left her breathless and hungry for more.

He shifted over her more fully, and instinctively, she opened to him, cradling him between her thighs. Her breath came shallow, his kisses spilling across her cheek and nibbling down her neck. She clung to him, in turn raining kisses along the stubborn line of his jaw, reveling in the tickle of his stubble against her lips. His skin tasted faintly salty, his scent utterly masculine. Intoxicating.

Vaguely, Catherine realized that she should stop; they were good and truly alone here in the glen. She should stop this now and tell him everything while she still had the chance, even knowing that it would enrage him and break her heart. And yet a few more minutes wouldn’t hurt, would it? Not when she’d waited so long already. What he was doing to her felt so good, and…

Another moan broke past her lips; the last of her rational thoughts fled as Gray sank his hips between her legs and moved against her slowly, emulating the act of love. Only their garments served as
a cruel barrier to keep pleasure at bay. His motions teased her, making her arch against him with a need so new and sweet, she felt that she might splinter from the intensity of it.

Breathing his name almost as a plea, she slipped her hands beneath his tunic and shirt, wanting more of him, needing to feel the heat of his skin next to hers. Gray loosened the laces at the neck of her kirtle as she touched him, pushing the edges down over her shoulders. He bared her breasts, easing her back onto the soft bed of leaves, and she sucked in her breath as her nipples tightened to scarlet peaks in the chill.

But the cold vanished when he stroked his hand around her exposed flesh, gently teasing her nipples between his finger and thumb before leaning down to capture one of them in the wet warmth of his mouth. She cried out with the pleasure and pulled his head closer as he laved his tongue back and forth, never moving away from the sweet prize. He suckled and nipped at her other breast in turn, stroking his fingers around its fullness and keeping her warm with the heat of his body.

Catherine reveled in the pleasure of his caresses until she could contain herself no longer. From somewhere deep inside her raged an urge to tempt him in the same way as he did her, to feel every inch of him and stroke and fondle him to a fever pitch that matched her own.

She took his face in her hands, guiding his lips to her mouth and kissing him with all the longing and emotion that swelled in her. Loosening his shirt, she
kissed down his neck and pressed her lips to the places she’d bared, even as her fingers stroked down his chest and sides to splay over the strong, warm contours of his ribs.

“Ah, love, you’ll unman me,” Gray breathed in her ear, when she slid her hands down to his hips and around to the front of him. She brushed her palm over his rigid length, reveling in her new-found power as she grasped and massaged him firmly through the thin barrier of his breeches.

As if in sweet retaliation, Gray shifted her skirts and slipped his hand beneath, stroking his fingers up between her legs. She opened to him without thought, her cry mingling with his groan when he found her slick, wet heat.

“Elise,” he whispered, the muscles of his arms and chest corded with need as he stroked her, “God help me, but I want you. All of this time I’ve wanted you, even when I tried not to feel it.”

Catherine’s heart contracted at the sound of her false name on his lips; it filled her with an aching sadness that made her turn her face away, even as her body responded with surging, traitorous rapture to his touch. But when he slipped his finger into her, she moaned aloud, unable to stop herself from pressing into his hand at the rush of pleasure.

“I’ve dreamed a thousand times of touching you like this,” he murmured, gliding his finger in and out of her in an intoxicating rhythm, “but by God, I swear that none of my imaginings ever came close to the beauty of this truth.”

Catherine gasped and writhed with the intense
feeling; she struggled to keep control of herself, not to disappear into the swirling ecstasy that his stroking touch promised.

“Now,” she begged, shifting desperately under him. “Take me now, Gray. I want to be yours, in every way. Please, I can wait no longer.”

“Aye, love. We’ll wait no more,” he said, bracing his hands to lift himself over her. Then he eased himself into her slick opening and rocked slightly, closing his eyes and tipping his head back as he pushed gently into her.

Intense pleasure rippled through her when he sank completely inside. The smooth, hard heat of him filled her, and, responding to instinct as old as the ages, she lifted her knees to coax him deeper, losing herself in the mindless ecstasy of motion. He rocked in and out of her, pulling back to the very brink, and then delving inside as deep as he could go.

Catherine wrapped her arms tightly around his shoulders, her legs locked to his waist as he stroked into her. The seductive intimacy of their joining shocked her. Never had she felt such rightness—such
sanctity
—in this act. Tears of joy sprang to her eyes as she rose up to meet each of Gray’s thrusts, moaning the sweet music of his name into his shoulder. The salty taste of his skin was primal on her lips, and she nipped at him, writhing with passion and need beneath him.

Just when she thought it was impossible to feel more, she began to tense with an exquisite tide that started to overwhelm her, a gathering storm of sensation that threatened to tip her over the edge and
into mindless bliss. Her fingers clutched Gray’s back under the assault of this new and wonderful feeling. With a low cry, she arched up to pull him more deeply inside her.

And then suddenly, her body wasn’t hers to control any longer; she screamed aloud as she climaxed, pulsing around him, coaxing him to rapture along with her. Roaring her name, Gray thrust once more and sheathed himself to the hilt, filling her with his hot, liquid flow…

And delivering her at long last into a paradise of love and completion she’d never dreamed she’d find.

After a few moments, Gray rolled away from his wife. Reaching to his side, he grabbed his long cape and tucked it around them against the chill. Then he just lay back and allowed the feeling to seep through him. Warm and sated. He shielded his eyes with his forearm, willing his breathing to slow. But no matter how his body rested, his mind continued to churn. Something was amiss. Something important. It had shadowed his thoughts while they were making love; now it returned with a vengeance.

His wife wasn’t a virgin.

There’d been no barrier to break. No innocence to shatter. She’d been smooth and achingly sweet when he took her. So sweet that even now the thought of what they’d done, of the pleasure she’d given him, caused his groin to tighten again in anticipation. But hurt lanced through him as well;
she’d lied to him. A lie of omission, by keeping the truth of her lost virginity from him.

Lifting his arm a little, he peered from beneath its shelter to gaze at her, wondering what she was thinking. How she was feeling. She hadn’t uttered a word since their explosive climax. She rested next to him in silence, still but for the even rise and fall of her breast. Her eyes were closed, her face inscrutable.

She didn’t look guilty. She wasn’t acting afraid or nervous, or like a woman who was deceiving him. But then how to explain her lack of innocence?

Suspicion began to wind dark tendrils into his heart again, bringing with it memories of all the other times he’d felt this twinge in the past weeks, of all the other disparities he’d ignored because of his deepening feelings and his need for her. But they glared through his brain now, relentless, taunting.

He’d felt them from the start, from the moment he’d lifted her veil on their wedding day. There’d been her people’s false description of her and King Henry’s pointed comments about her changed appearance. And then the portrait. He remembered her strange reaction to it when Eduard presented it as a gift, and again later, when he’d caught her weeping over it. So many inconsistencies…

Elise opened her eyes. “Gray, there’s something I need to tell you. Something I should have told you long ago. ’Tis awful, and I pray you can forgive me for keeping it from you.”

Gray lowered his arm slowly, still looking at her. The tone of her voice had sent a shock up his spine; her expression was deadly serious. She turned to stare at him, eyes huge in her face, and he couldn’t keep back the renegade thought that those eyes were pleading with him, silently begging him to understand something that meant life or death to her.

Christ
. He’d suspected right. She’d been hiding something, and she was about to tell him of it. Pain and doubt cut through him anew. That she’d lied to him about anything was serious; aye, especially if it had been a deliberate deceit on her or Montford’s part to shame him. But she was acting as if she feared for her safety now, and that hurt him almost as much as her deception. She should know him better than that by now.

He began to speak but then stopped, so bothered by her stricken expression that the words lodged in his throat. She looked as if she was about to cry, or get on her knees and pray, or throw herself at his feet and implore his mercy. It made his skin crawl the way it did right before a deadly battle. It was damn unsettling.

Both to stem his feeling and to ease her anxiety, he reached out and grazed his thumb across her kiss-swollen lips, heat rising again in a heady swirl at the feel of her, at the warm, lush sight of her. Her scent lingered on his skin, reminding him of their lovemaking and sending a pleasant twist into his belly. He tried to push the warmth aside. He needed to stay focused. Stay clear. “Elise,” he said quietly,
“just tell me who it was and why it happened, and we’ll—”

“Gray! Gray, where the hell are you, man?”

The deep voice rang through the clearing, accompanied by a crackling, banging noise as if from a hundred stomping feet. Gray reached for his sword, cursing under his breath, even as he moved to shield Elise from the intruders’ gazes.

Alban and three young knights came crashing into the glen atop their steeds; Alban jolted his stallion to a halt when Gray glared up at him from his position concealing Elise on the ground. Reining his mount back, Alban shooed the younger knights from the glen, muttering something about taking care of it himself and ordering them to return to the village to await Gray’s arrival there. Then, red-faced, he dismounted and walked toward his friend.

“I’m sorry to have disturbed you both,” he muttered, “but it could not be helped. You must come back to the village with me, and quickly.”

“What the hell is it?” Gray snapped, tucking his cloak around Elise, who sat up, silent and wide-eyed, as he stood to lace his breeches and slip his shirt over his head.

“’Tis a bloody brawl. A half dozen lads from beyond the valley, newly-knighted, I’d say, from the looks of them, took insult at something young Drake said. Before anyone could intervene they were at it with our squires and young knights, swords drawn and fists flying.” Alban leaned down to pick up Gray’s surcoat, which had been thrown
in a heap at the far edge of the clearing. His brows lifted, and he whistled appreciatively, shaking his head as he tossed it back to him.