Page 65 of His Forsaken Bride

“Oswald?”

“Just hold still a moment and give me this,” he groaned. “I need it. I needed it this morning. I’ve waited to be here all the damned day long.”

“Oh.” She was silent a moment and all he could hear was her breathing. “So, when you said the day did not start right…?”

He gave a shallow dip of his hips and she broke off her words with a breathy moan. He felt himself break out in a sweat at how good she felt. At this rate he wasn’t going to last long. He lifted off her, bracing his hands against the mattress at her hips and planting his feet square on the floor. “This is going to lack finesse,” he said regretfully, as he surged forward into her with a hard thrust. Fenella exclaimed, and he saw her grip the sheets. He did it again, and her plump body bounced beneath him in a way that made him grit his teeth. From this vantage point, her shapely backside was on full view, her pale shoulders and the sacral dimples at the base of her spine. And he liked it all. Grasping one hip firmly, he ran the other hand up and down her back as he thrust into her. His heated gaze took in the way she undulated beneath his palm, as though she liked his touch. It made his throat burn. He clenched his muscles and seized both her hips hard as he thrust again and again. All these years of abstinence had probably been a mistake, he thought. A mistake Fenella was going to pay dearly for. The pleasures of the flesh had never been a weakness of his, but you wouldn’t know it from the way he was going at her. He reached around between her legs to find her bud and stroked it. Fen gave a shocked cry and then a wail and he felt her body squeeze tight around him as she exploded in rapture. He pushed into her with his full driving length and stayed planted deep while she shook and trembled around him in the aftershocks, sobbing into the mattress. Only when she was finally still, did he roll her over onto her back. “Stiff?” he asked, rubbing her arms and then her legs, as she winced and inched up the bed. Her eyes were drawn to his still inflamed manhood where it bobbed against his thigh, demanding attention.

“Not as stiff as you,” she gulped.

He would have laughed, if he still didn’t have an edge of desperation about him. She held out her arms and he rolled atop of her. “Fen,” he said urgently.

“All is well,” she assured him, and wrapped her legs around his hips.

He aligned their bodies and then drove back inside her with a deep groan which he breathed into her neck. He felt her hands settle tentatively against his back. The pace he set was brisk, but he managed to stave off frantic. For now. The bed rocked with his exertions, Fenella’s breath hitched. Her hands slid up and down his back and the sensation of her touch made his pleasure climb even higher, until it was almost unbearable. He ducked his head and kissed first one, and then her other full breast. It was only at this point he realized he had not kissed her lips yet that evening. He set that to rights at once. She returned his kiss with enthusiasm and the feel of her tongue in his mouth triggered his release. He pinned her to the mattress and rocked his hips against hers until the blaze in his chest was quenched and his ardor was spent. He slumped over her, his breathing labored.

“You set me ablaze,” he told her in a low voice, touching his forehead to hers. Then he rolled off her to give the poor thing room to breathe. “I don’t know how you do it. Until now, I’ve always considered myself a prim, uptight sort.”

“Prim?” she repeated in a choked voice. “Hardly.” She fell silent a moment, then jumped when she felt him touch her hair. It was tousled and coming down her back, having lost half its pins. She rolled onto her side toward him. “It did look nice, this morning,” she said, patting a hand to her disordered locks.

“I rather like the way it looks now,” he said. “Well tumbled. Like you.” She was just about the most delectable sight he had ever seen.

She laughed. “You, Oswald Vawdrey, are about as far from prim, as can be.”

He grinned at that pronouncement.

“And where’s my shift?” she asked, rolling to peer over the side of the bed. At some point, he’d divested her of it.

“You don’t need it.”

“What?”

“The bath, remember?”

“I’m too tired to take a bath.”

“It’s fine, I’ll do all the work,” he promised and rolled onto his side. To his surprise, he found he hadn’t removed his signet ring or chain in his haste to bed his wife.

“What’s that?” her voice cracked as he removed the chain from round his neck.

He looked up in surprise. “This? Just my old seal ring.” He showed her the gold ring that was suspended on the chain. It was an orange carnelian stone carved with the Vawdrey panther. “This one I wear,” he said turning his hand to show a large ruby seal ring which was engraved with a crowned panther, denoting his status as earl. He supposed it was sentimentality that made him keep his father’s old ring around his neck. “I normally take it off when I undress, but on this occasion, I was over-keen.” He gave a rueful smile.

“Not the ring. The thing next to it. It looks like a locket?” she said in strangled tones.

He frowned slightly and looked down at the two items on his chain. “This?” he held up a small gold padlock shape. “I suppose. I’ve had it for as long as I can remember. It was my mother’s, I think. I don’t have the key.”

“Oh.”

Something in her tone was off, but when he looked up sharply, she dropped her gaze.

“Is it inscribed?” she asked.

He turned it over in his fingers. “Yes,” he said and waited, but she did not ask him with what. “Not Forgot,” he read out anyway. “Which is ironic, as I don’t remember her.” Fenella had turned strangely silent. “What’s wrong?” he asked, dropping the chain and reaching for her.

“Naught,” she assured him, and reached up to lightly touch his face.

He scooped her off the mattress and headed toward the tub. “I hope the water’s still warm.” He held her suspended over the tub. “Do you want to test it before I drop you in?” he said quirking a brow at her.

She dipped her fingers into the fragrant water. “It’s fine-,” she said, and he released her with a loud splash.