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Please her? She couldn’t begin to imagine this pleasing thing, but she smiled and nodded and clasped his hand more tightly. Trist jumped up onto her shoulder and crept carefully around her neck until he was half on her shoulder and the other half of him was leaning against Severin’s chest.
When the cheers started, Hastings thought she would sink into the rushes, not because she was embarrassed but because she was excited and she was afraid everyone saw it on her face. Everyone knew about this pleasure thing but her? She saw riddled old Belle, sitting at a trestle table, leaning heavily against Old Morric the blacksmith, who was feeding her bits of beef, one of his huge hands lightly caressing her breast. Why hadn’t Hastings noticed this before? Belle winked at her. Hastings knew Dame Agnes and Alice were both grinning like fools, but she simply couldn’t bring herself to look at them.
Just before they reached the solar stairs, Severin gave a shout of laughter, picked her up, and tossed her over his shoulder. Her long braids nearly brushed the floor.
Then he lightly slapped her bottom, making his men yowl with laughter. This is what it should have been like the night of their marriage.
He didn’t let her down until he reached their bedchamber. Slowly, he eased her down his chest, feeling her breasts, her belly sliding against him, letting her feel the length of his body, and when her toes touched the floor, he pressed his hands against her bottom and brought her against him.
“Oh,” Hastings said.
“Look at me, Hastings. That’s right. Don’t be frightened of me. Those other two nights, forget them. They were nothing, just bad dreams that will fade with time until they are no more. Will you try?”
“Aye, I will try.”
They hadn’t exactly been bad dreams for him because a man’s lust was easily assuaged, though he had wished she wouldn’t have fought him, that she would have welcomed him, at least a bit. That was over now. Now he had a girl who had bowed completely to him. He wasn’t about to let her unbow.
Trist leapt from Hastings’s shoulder to land on the bed. He stretched out his full length and stared at them, mewling loudly. Severin remembered Trist sitting beside him when Anne had been in his bed. The marten hadn’t made a sound.
“Will you come willingly with me, Hastings?”
“Aye. You are breathing hard, Severin. Does MacDear’s capon not sit well in your belly?”
He merely grinned down at her and gently pushed her back. She sat down on the bed, her hands folded in her lap, watching him intently, her lips slightly parted. So she wanted to see him, did she? If this was what it took not to muck up, then so be it.
He fumbled with his clothes, but finally it was done and he was naked, standing in front of her. He forced himself to keep his arms at his sides.
He would not muck up.
“You,” she said finally, her eyes on his belly, “are beautiful, Severin. I’ve thought so before, but it was just a simple thought with nothing to go with it. I did not realize what your beauty would mean to me. Please, come closer. Mayhap even close enough so that I could touch you if I wished to.”
Never had he stood before a woman naked, his sex swelled because he had no say in that, and he knew his sex would swell more and she would be afraid, but he prayed she would not be overly afraid. Just a bit. Aye, he wanted just a bit of hesitance in her when she looked at him. He stood directly in front of her. He watched her white hands reach out to lie palms flat against his belly. He shuddered and his sex hardened. He saw then that she had closed her eyes. She was feeling him, every bit of him, her fingers probing lightly into the muscles over his belly, moving slowly lower until her fingers tangled in the bush of hair at his groin. He wanted her to touch him so badly he thought he would howl if she didn’t. Lightly, so very lightly, her fingers found him.
His flesh was alien to her, he knew that. She circled him, coming ever closer. He wondered how much longer he could stand it. Then her fingers closed around him. Her eyes opened and she stared at her hands and at him held between her hands.
“Don’t be frightened, Hastings. Well, mayhap just a bit, so I will know that you admire my endowments.”
She licked her tongue over her lips. He nearly leapt on her. He threw his head back, his hands dug into his flanks, his throat worked convulsively, striving for control. But there was very little left. He pulled slowly away from her.
To his shock, she didn’t release him. She rose, still holding him, walking toward him even as he moved back.
He laughed, an agonizing laugh, but still a laugh because surely if one were to see this odd dance of theirs it would bring laughter and a bit of amazement.
He clasped her arms in his hands. “Release me, Hastings, else I will spill my seed on this beautiful carpet.”
“It is from Flanders,” she said, still holding him, her fingers stroking him slowly. “It is very old. Nay, not yet. Let me hold you longer. You’re hot between my hands, Severin. Hot and smooth.”
“You cannot. Please let me go, Hastings. It will be a close thing.”
She sighed. “Very well.” She released him. She sighed again, then said, “Will you help me, Severin?”
He was breathing so hard now, his chest was heaving. “Hastings, I cannot. If I do, I will rip your gown. Nay, sweeting, you do it. But be quick. I cannot wait.”
This was not the same man who had shamed her those two nights. Not the same man who had insulted her, who had looked at her as if he didn’t care if she were his wife or not. No, not the same man at all. She didn’t understand this, but she realized that she hadn’t wanted to release that male part of him that came inside her. She had liked to hold him. It made her feel incredibly strange, somehow urgent, mayhap even frantic. It also made her feel powerful. She wasn’t aware that her own breathing had quickened, but Severin was. He sat on the bed, watching her as she had him. She was quicker, her gown and shift pulled over her head in but an instant of time. Then she was pulling free her garters and rolling down her stockings. She kicked her feet free of the pointed-toe slippers.
“Come here,” he said.
She blinked at him, looked over her shoulder, looked back at him, and said, “All right.”
