Page 13 of Katherine the Vixen

Too aroused to wait much longer, he swept the woman into his arms. He’d not warned her of his intentions and she let out a little cry of surprise when her feet left the floor. Smiling into the dark, Siaspar laid her on the bed. There would be no problem doing his duty tonight. Suddenly he was hard as stone and he wanted to make the most of it. Last night he had consummated his marriage, nothing more. Tonight he would make sure to get her surrender.

“Shall I stroke you?” he asked in her ear, his hand already on her hip. “Do you think you would like that?”

Katherine was utterly at a loss. What was she supposed to answer to such a question? How was she supposed to answer when she was under strict instructions not to talk? She made a non-committal noise Siaspar seemed to take for an agreement for a moment later his hand glided down to her thigh. He started to stroke her in a manner that seemed almost…tender. This was different than it had been the day before, somehow intimate.

She swallowed hard, not knowing what to do, unsure what to expect.

“I will take my time tonight. I want you to warm to me. I want to hear you moan.”

Moan. Yes, if he carried on what he was doing she might be unable to stop herself from doing that. But surely that would not be a problem? Surely all women moaned in the same way? And if they didn’t, as he had never heard Lady Malpas moan before and had no point of comparison, he would not get suspicious.

A finger started to trace idle circles on the inside of her thigh.

“Do you like this? What else would you like? Where would you like me to touch you?”

Unable to answer out loud, she took his hand and placed it on her breast. It was a good thing she was forbidden from talking, as she feared she might well have had asked him to suckle her like he had the night before, and that was too scandalous by far.

Siaspar bent his head, bringing his lips to the curve of her jaw.

“Your breast. Very well. But I’ll use my mouth there, because I need my hand to stroke you to release.”

He was doing it again, saying things that barely made sense. Stroke her to release? What was⁠—

Her thoughts scattered as at that moment, his hot, deliciously soft tongue wrapped around her nipple. Yes, yes, yes! This was what she had wanted.

“We are married, there is no harm in us enjoying ourselves in bed, even if we cannot come to any agreement in life,” he said, before sucking the wet nipple deep into his mouth.

Katherine almost jumped out of her skin as, at that same moment, he slipped a finger between her thighs. He started stroking along her seam, which, she noticed, had gone slick with need. He carried on a moment, varying the movements, reaching higher up and focusing on a point that seemed to be begging for his attention. It was not long before she had an idea of what he’d meant by “stroking her to release.” Something was happening in her body. Something extraordinary, something that would free her from this exquisite torment.

Still stroking her, Siaspar renewed his assault on her nipple.

And then it happened.

She froze, all her muscles went rigid and then started to dissolve, as a hot sensation rushed to the place he was teasing.

“Oh,” she cried out, unable to bite the word down.

“Da iawn,” she heard Siaspar purr, his mouth against her swollen nipple.

Very good. She knew what those two words meant. She had heard them many times since she had arrived, but she had never thought to hear them as praise for her reaction to a man’s caresses. And not just any man, but the master of the castle.

It seemed incredible. And yet it had happened.

Before she had completely recovered from the best moment of her life, Siaspar came to position himself between her legs, and his hand closed on her breast, soft and persuasive. His mouth came to her throat, nuzzling at the tender flesh, sending shivers all along her body. Then his other hand cradled her nape in a protective cocoon. All the while he kept his weight off of her, careful not to crush her.

The position was so intimate she could not stop herself from lifting her knees and parting her legs to accommodate him better. When he positioned himself at her entrance, which now felt impossibly swollen and wet, she wrapped her arms around him in instinctive response. Slowly, guided by instinct, her hands slid to the small of his back. The skin there was so smooth that she started to stroke him. Muscles flexed under her palms as he moved, and this proof of masculine strength sent her core pulsing.

Slowly, he eased himself inside her.

It was nothing like the night before. Katherine’s whole body was awash with sensation and that first thrust caused her no pain. Quite the opposite. Siaspar started to move with fluid strokes and she knew that he wouldn’t stop before she had erupted again. Which would happen before too long. Despite her determination not to utter a single sound, soon she found herself unable to contain her moans and pants. Had she been at liberty to speak, she would have asked him for more, perhaps even for a kiss.

In that moment Siaspar was not the man she had been forced to bed, he was not a stranger she had only very briefly met, and he was not the husband of a woman she disliked. He was behaving, she suspected, just as a real lover would. Had Lady Malpas been in his arms instead of her, her opinion of Siaspar would have been altered, Katherine was certain of it.

Her own feelings toward him were irrevocably changed.

Suddenly he reared up and plunged deeper inside her, moving with a new urgency. The reaction in her body was almost immediate. Her intimate muscles, unable to resist the assault, started to seize and then pulse. It was just like before, only better, because now her body had something to grasp.

“Oh,” she said again.