AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Mine,” she said.
He took her left hand in his. “Malachite,” he recited as he rubbed his thumb over the first stone in her betrothal ring and proceeded. “Iris. Nephrite. Emerald. It is an acrostic.”
“Oh, Alfred.” Felicity’s eyes sparkled brighter than the diamonds that surrounded his bold claim.
“Mine,” he repeated. “Mine.”
He fit his hands beneath her head and slanted his mouth against hers, his tongue taking hers hostage, licking, biting her lips, her neck, her throat. She arched into his body, returning kiss for kiss, biting his shoulder as he inched into her, stretching her, until she gasped against his shoulder.
“I would be gentle,” he breathed, and she wrapped her legs even more closely around his hips.
“It feels…” she said, unsure how to explain that everything she’d overheard or read had left her in expectation of being rent asunder, with the accompaniment of lashings of pain; yet in reality, something gave, and it was followed by an expansion and a fullness throughout her body, much more so in her delicate parts, without the agony the aging wallflowers whispered about behind the palms. Those delicate parts no longer seemed so delicate, and so she thrust herself forward until he was flush against her body.
“Bloody hell, woman,” he groaned, and she gasped out little puffs of air as she became accustomed to his shape. “Are you in distress?” He made to move away, and she clenched him with muscles she didn’t even know she had. His forehead lowered to her shoulder. “You are going to kill me.”
“You are no use to me dead.” She bit him on the bicep.
“My toothsome bride, in more ways than one.” He moved slowly, and she let him, then moved up against him as he returned.
“This is very nice,” she sighed as they did it again.
“Nice.” He wrapped one arm around the small of her back and somehow brought himself even closer. “Let us do better than nice.” He tilted his hips and touched her within in a way that had her legs scrambling to keep him in that exact position. Every nerve in her body was afire, and she rubbed against him, the abrasion of his rougher skin against hers stimulating beyond sanity. He lifted himself up on his knees and shifted deeper within her, then he leaned down to suckle her breasts; she drove her fingers into his hair and welcomed the building sensation that meant she was close, so close.
“So close,” she managed. “Please, please, Alfred—”
He growled in her ear, burying his face in her neck. “Now, my love, my love…”
And it burst within her, the chaos of love that shook her from head to tiny toes. With it came a gathering much in the way the air pulled in on itself during one of Alfred’s Changes, a compression that connected them, wrapped around them, and flowed between them, such that she experienced the tension of his release as well as hers as it moved up his spine from a well of fire in his lower back. Her own release built, in no way resembling the way it always had: this was a conflagration that took each one of her senses, magnified them beyond bearing, and turned them in stunning disarray, until all—sight, smell, touch, taste, and hearing coalesced and burst within her. In the midst of it all, she heard his roar as he reached his summit, their bodies trembling as one until they trembled no more.
Neither moved. Neither could. Their labored breaths evened, their hearts slowed, their eyes opened, each into the other’s; he rubbed his face against hers, then she stroked down the center of his back, along his spine, down to his bum. They murmured and breathed, breathed and caressed, until both lay still in one another’s arms.
“You called me your love,” she whispered in his ear.
“You are.” He held her close. “My one and only. My beloved. My love.”
“I love you,” she said. “My beloved, my unexpected, extraordinary love.”
“I love you,” he replied. “My mate, my true heart, my one and only.” He pulled up a sheet and wrapped it around them, breathing nonsense words into the nape of her neck as he tucked himself against her back. She threaded her fingers through his as they came to rest underneath her breasts, and her thoughts drifted.
Here was her husband, a husband the like of which she’d never imagined for herself. A peer of the realm, for the love of galoshes, virile and influential and impressive… She remembered the passion she’d had for the vicar and giggled into Alfred’s forearm, shook her head when he nudged her inquiringly. The vicar, who had been slight and gentle and wispy, bless his heart, whom she reckoned, since he had a living, would ensure her security for all her days.
She was secure now, but no quotidian, pastoral security for her. Her safety was invigorated by the strangeness of her new people, by the unlikelihood of their existence, by the notion that her dreams would become reality, by the reality that the man holding her chose her above all others and made her dreams come true.
Would she have been an able match for him had she not been so independent for the last few years? It seemed hard to think any good had come from her terrible losses, but she might not have been who she was now had she not needed to grieve and resolve to thrive. Might she have met him at some function at the Hall had he determined years ago that she was his? Would he have been his same self, untempered by his own losses? Would they have met then, in all their innocence, and had the same quality of bond? It made her wonder.
Here they were, now, and that was all that mattered. She doubted he was game for philosophical debate at this moment, as his, his—willy stirred against her. She giggled again and found herself turned, in a heartbeat, in his arms.
“I would know what amuses you, my love.” His hands lifted her up, and he turned once more, settling her atop him.
“I had not thought you would revive with such swiftness. That never happens in novels.” She raised herself on her hands and lowered her breasts onto That Chest, and exulted in the resultant resolve of his member.
“Yet another benefit of being such as I,” he said. “No, do not,” he cautioned as she rubbed her sensitive parts on his belly. “It will be too soon for you.”
“It is not,” she said as she moved to lie beneath him.
“If it is not, there is no need to change position.” He slid her down and onto him.
“Ah!” She laughed. “I have skills in this area.” His deep intake of breath proved her right. “Let us see how they translate in this situation, shall we?”
