Page 113 of An Inconvenient Vow

Jeffree’s eyes closed and he bit his tongue between his teeth. “Keep saying my name like that. I like it.”

“Ohh, Jeffree,” she obliged.

He grunted, grabbing her backside, giving her an encouraging bounce over his lap. Sabina gasped, her eyes flying wide.

“W-wait!” she panted. “Don’t do that!”

“Why?” he asked gruffly. “It feels like you like it. You’re gripping me so tight.”

“It’s too much, too soon.” She sounded panicked. “I won’t have any strength left to me.”

“You don’t need any strength,” he pointed out. “I’ve enough for both of us.”

“No!” Sabina knew for a fact if he kept doing that she would reach her peak too soon. “I want to do this for you.”

A pucker appeared between his brows as though the idea of her moving in this position intrigued him. He fell back onto his elbows, his gaze raking over her body with a proprietary eye. “Move then, wife. Show me.”

Sabina tutted at the return of bossy Sir Jeffree and shifted over him, redistributing her weight as she tipped forward and placed her palms on the bed on either side of his shoulders.

“Gods,” he uttered, his gaze riveted to her breasts as she started to propel herself, lifting up on her knees and then lowering herself back down onto him. She was not sure how many times she had managed to repeat this before she was panting and his gaze caught fire. Sabina could not look away from the way his eyes were devouring her. When he looked at her like that, she felt like the most desired woman in Karadok.

Suddenly he sat up, his hands gripping her hips tight, moulding her to him as he groaned and shook through his release. “Sabina…” he groaned. “Sabina, I cannot withstand you.”

Sabina gasped as she felt his release set off her own. Pitching forward, she buried her face in his neck and sobbed as his arms slid up her back and wrapped tight around her.

*

She was not sure how long they lay together in contented silence, but eventually, they disentangled long enough for them both to wash again in the cold bathtub water. Jeffree threw on his braies and chauses. “I will go and see what has become of our supper,” he said as Sabina donned a clean shift.

He returned not much later with some cold chicken, bread, and a herb salad on a tray. “We could go out and eat it in one of the other rooms, but it is already crowded out there with just Hugo, Wilton, and Osborn cluttering up the place.”

“I had no idea the courtier quarters at the palace would be so small,” Sabina commented, taking the plate he passed her and balancing it on her lap. Her ears still burned from the heated words Jeffree had given her. Why had she always thought he was terrible at praise? This moment of ease and comfort between them now soothed her, for it showed he could also be considerate of her feelings when passion was not ruling him.

He gave a murmured agreement and disappeared, only to reappear minutes later bearing two goblets of wine, shutting the door behind him with his foot.

Sabina made a good supper, for she found she was suddenly ravenous. It was only as Jeffree was piling up the plates on the side that she noticed the marks appearing down his right side. “My gods Jeffree! What is that?” she gasped, pointing.

He glanced down at the large red welt spreading down his right side. “This is what happens when you get struck from your horse with a lance,” he answered dryly.

“I thought the armor would protect you!”

“It does. To a certain degree.”

She stared. “Well, I feel guilty now,” she murmured, “for all the fuss I was making. Does it pain you?” A horrible thought occurred to her. “My sitting atop you did not contribute to it, did it?”

He gave a short laugh. “Of course not.” He set the tray on the side and joined her on the bed. Sabina stretched out beside him with a contented sigh. “By the by,” he said, turning toward her, with a pucker between his brows, “you never did tell me what it was that set you crying.”

“It was so silly,” she confessed, “I am almost ashamed of reacting the way I did. I think the heat combined with how sticky and over-warm I was just made everything worse. I felt totally overwhelmed.”

He slipped an arm around her shoulders. “What happened?” he persisted curiously.

Sabina sighed and rolled into him, tucking her head under his chin. “Lord Kentigern gave me the tourney crown. I felt just dreadful for his wife, but very likely she—”

“What?”

His furious yell made Sabina jerk her head back so sharply it smacked him on the chin. She gasped and fell back as Jeffree scrambled to an upright position. “What did you just say?” he demanded, rubbing his jaw. “Lord Kentigern did what? Repeat that!” It was almost uncanny how the words echoed their earlier conversation but with a wealth of difference in the emotion behind it.

“I—well—Lord Kentigern,” she repeated, “he gave me the tourney crown.”