The Heiress Bride (Sherbrooke Brides 3)

“Not at first. I was in my nightgown at first.”

“But you wouldn’t cover me until you’d looked your fill.”

“It wasn’t enough, Colin. I could have looked for a good deal many more hours.”

He had no smart reply to that. He leaned down, not touching her with his hands, and gently took her nipple in his mouth.

He thought she’d try to fling him off her, but she only quivered a bit, then became still as a stone.

“What are you doing, Colin? Surely that—”

He blew warm breath over her and she gasped.

“This is my prelude,” he said, and lowered his head again to his pleasant task. Her scent filled his nostrils and he strengthened his pressure on her soft flesh.

“Oh dear, Colin, that feels quite strange.”

“Yes, I trust it is also enjoyable.”

“I don’t know. Perhaps. No, not really . . . oh goodness.”

He very gently lifted her breast in the palm of his hand, pushing her firmly against his mouth. When he raised his head to look at her face, he also saw the darkness of his flesh against the white of hers. So different they were.

Perhaps having a wife wasn’t going to be such a disaster after all. He wanted to come inside her now, this instant, but he knew he would have to wait. He knew that women needed encouragement, particularly stroking between their thighs, and he knew also that he wanted to taste her, to learn the textures of her soft flesh against his mouth and his tongue.

Enough was enough. It was time to expand upon his prelude. He rose quickly to stand beside the bed. He was quiet a moment, just staring down at this new bride of his, the bride he hadn’t wanted, the bride who had saved him and his family for generations to come. He took off his clothes, calm and controlled, just smiling down at her, seeing the anticipation, the banked excitement in her incredible blue eyes—Sherbrooke blue eyes he’d heard them called in London. But he also saw the wariness there; her eyes were following his every move. He shrugged out of his shirt, then sat down to pull off his boots. He didn’t turn around when he stripped down his britches; indeed, he never looked away from her. He straightened when he was naked and smiled at her, his arms at his sides. “Look your fill, my dear.”

Sinjun looked and she kept looking. Then she shook her head as she said, clearly appalled, “This will never work, Colin. It can’t.”

“What can’t work?” He followed her eyes and looked down at himself. He was fully aroused, something of a surprise since he hadn’t really gotten things started yet; he was also a large man, and although in his experience women usually grew quite excited at the sight of him, he imagined that a virgin wouldn’t be quite so enthusiastic, at least not at first.

“That,” Sinjun said, pointing unnecessarily at him.

“It will be all right, you will see. Could you try to trust me?”

Her throat worked. She couldn’t seem to get the words out. She just kept staring at him. “All right,” she whispered, pulled the covers to her chin, and slid over to the far side of the bed. “But I don’t think trust has much to do with it.”

He waited a moment, then said, “Do you have any idea of how all this will work?”

“Oh yes, certainly. I’m not stupid or ignorant, but what I thought can’t be right. You’re too big and even though I trust you it can’t be the way I thought it would be. It’s utterly impossible. Surely you can see that.”

“Well, no, I can’t,” he said, and, still smiling at her, he walked to the bed.

CHAPTER

7

SHE’D BEEN SUCH a tease, so certain of herself, utterly outrageous in her speech, trying to get him to bed her, yet in truth she was terrified. It amused him, this virginal fear of hers, given all the invitations she’d forced down his throat. He looked down at her, aware that she was trying to shift away from him.

He lifted the covers and climbed in beside her. He came down over her, and her breasts pressed against his chest. She sucked in her breath at the same moment he sucked in his. “This is very nice, Joan,” he said, and kissed her even as he rubbed himself against her breasts.

“You feel furry, and it sort of tickles. It’s very strange, Colin.”

“And you feel soft and warm, like silk slowly rubbing against one’s flesh.”

His tongue entered her mouth at the same time his hand moved flat and smooth over her belly to curve around her.

His fingers rested there, not moving, just touching her to feel the heat of her and for her to feel the heat of him. Then he merely pressed down, giving her the weight of his hand against her flesh. She quivered, he felt it, and it pleased him. He was also harder than a stone; it was unnerving, nearly painful, and it was also driving him witless.