Page 77 of The Cornish Bride

No one was in the wide hallway, which was probably a good thing considering the state they were both in, clothes still damp and hair akimbo.

“Shall we go upstairs to change?” Sam asked, his gray eyes meeting hers. Was that hot passion she read in them?

Ysella’s insides turned to liquid. Did he mean what she wanted him to mean? That this might be the moment. Could she do it as she’d said she would? Be his wife, his true wife in every way. He wasn’t Oliver. He’d stop if she didn’t like it. He’d said she didn’t have to do anything she didn’t like. She was in control of this. She nodded.

Hand in hand, they climbed the stairs and turned right on the half landing. Hand in hand, they walked along the gallery. At Sam’s bedroom door, he halted and reached for the handle, but she gave his hand a tug. It was for her to invite him in.

Their eyes met, his questioning and hopeful. She tugged again and took a step towards her own bedroom.

He followed her.

At her door they halted again, eyes locked for a long moment. Then Ysella opened the door and stepped inside, pulling Sam after her. She closed the door with a well-aimed foot.

The four-poster bed stood in the middle of the room, a stark reminder of what they were here for. Ysella’s breath came fast and her skin blossomed with heat. She could put up with anything, even this, for Sam. All she wanted to do was make him happy, but at her own pace.

Still beside the door, they faced one another, unmoving, eyes still locked.

Ysella pulled her damp gansey off over her head and let it drop to the floor. After a moment, Sam did the same with his.

The silence between them stretched out, fizzing with electricity. Then Sam reached up and undid the top button of her shirt. His fingers strayed to the pale skin at her throat, oh so gently.

Ysella drew a shuddering breath and, with shaking fingers, began to unbutton his waistcoat, a hot sensation forming in the base of her stomach, and crawling lower. Was this how she should feel with the man she loved slowly undressing her?

With unsteady fingers Sam undid the next button on her shirt, and then the next. Her shirt gaped, revealing her stays and the swell of her small breasts. Would he touch them, like Oliver had. She knew now that had been an invasion. Would Sam do the same?

He didn’t. Instead, he shrugged off his waistcoat and tossed it to the floor. How hot his eyes were. Hot with passion. The sight of them frightened her a little. Only the fact that she knew he was a gentleman and she could stop whenever she wanted kept her going.

He pushed her braces from her shoulders and his hands went to her shirt, pulling it out of the top of her breeches to hang almost to her knees. It was much too large for her.

She should do the same for him. Dark hair, much darker than the hair on his head, curled across his chest, where purple bruises from the shipwreck blossomed, and down his belly to the top of his breeches. With a tentative hand, she touched his well-muscled chest, letting her fingers skim the bruises and run over his taut stomach. His body tensed beneath her touch. How warm his skin was, how his muscles rippled under it. She caught her breath as he did the same, and for a moment his eyes closed. The thought that her touch was giving him pleasure coursed through her. She let her fingers stray across his chest, wondering at the hair on it.

He caught his breath again, and his hand cupped her cheek, his thumb caressing her skin. “I love you, Ysella, and I will never hurt you. You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to. I don’t want you to feel you have to do it for me. If you do it, it must be for you.”

She shook her head. “I want to.” Her other hand joined the first, exploring his torso, running up and gliding over a nipple. She felt him jerk in response to her touch and knew her power. And in that moment, she knew that power was what she needed. Oliver had deprived her of all power, taking choice away from her, but here, now, she held the power because Sam had given it to her, willingly. She let her hand return to his nipple and was rewarded by his sharp gasp of pleasure.

She could do this. He was letting her.

In one swift movement she pulled her shirt off over her head to stand there in just her stays and breeches. Let him look. It was her allowing this, not him taking it.

Sam let out a quick gasp, his hand lifting towards her, then falling back to his side. “I think we need to take our boots off.” His voice was husky with passion. “Sit down and I’ll pull yours off, then you can do mine.”

He yanked her boots off with no trouble, but she found his harder to do, collapsing backwards onto the floor as the last one finally came free. He helped her up off the rug and for another pregnant moment they stood face to face, drinking one another in.

Ysella broke the silence by putting her hand on the top of his breeches, feeling his stomach contract as she did so. “I believe these will need to come off.”

“And yours.”

She undid one of the buttons on his fall, her fingers skimming the definite bulge, still a little afraid. But she was in control. She had nothing to fear. She undid another button, and another. His breeches fell to the floor, but the long tails of his shirt covered his arousal. She let her hand skim against it beneath the linen, more curious now than afraid, and felt it jerk as though it had a life of its own.

He suppressed a groan, badly. Men clearly found it very pleasurable if a girl touched their cock. She congratulated herself for having named it. That too, imbued her with confidence and diminished her anxiety.

“Shall I undo your stays?” he asked.

She compressed her lips. Once he’d done that, she’d be practically naked, and, for some reason, the act of him undoing her undergarment seemed to poach her sense of control. However, she nodded. She could allow him that.

He moved behind her and she felt his fingers fumbling with the laces. The realization that he was too nervous to do it properly gave her back her feeling of power. Here was a man who was perhaps as afraid as she was. She allowed for different reasons.

Her stays loosened and her hands came up out of instinct to cover her breasts, but he didn’t turn her around. That was for her to do. Still with her back to him, she undid the fall on her own breeches and let them fall to the ground. She was naked now, with not enough hands to cover her modesty.