Merely the Groom (Free Fellows League 2)

“Touch me,” he said. “Please.”

“Where?” she whispered. “How?”

Colin took her hand and guided it between their bodies to the place he wanted it most. “Here.”

She gripped him, and the feel of his flesh beneath her hand surprised her. He was hard, yet velvety soft, and the contrast intrigued her. She stroked him experimentally. Colin quivered with pleasure and came very close to spilling himself in her hand as Gillian stroked him without shyness but with a tender touch that brought a lump to Colin’s throat.

“We must stop.” He reached between them and grabbed hold of her wrist to stop the exquisite torture before he spilled himself in her hand.

“Have I done something wrong?”

“Not at all,” he groaned. “But I’m incredibly aroused, and I don’t want to rob you of your pleasure by reaching satisfaction too soon.”

“My pleasure?” Gillian repeated the question as if she didn’t understand, the concept. “This is the most pleasure I’ve ever felt.”

“Oh, my sweet, someone has been very remiss in your education.” Colin’s focus automatically shifted from reaching his satisfaction to making certain Gillian found hers. “I’ve always believed most men are fools when it comes to pleasing their lovers,” Colin told her. “And it seems your Colin Fox was no exception. What the bloody hell did he do?”

He meant it as a rhetorical question, but to his surprise, Gillian took a deep breath and answered. “He left me alone at an inn in Scotland. I had never been away from my parents before. I was afraid. So I stood watch at the window.”

“When?”

“After he left.” She wouldn’t say his name. “I watched and waited for his return day after day at the window of the inn where he’d left me. Even after I knew in my heart that he wasn’t coming back.”

Colin reached over and covered her hand with his. “I’m sorry.”

Gillian shrugged her shoulders. “You’ve no reason to be sorry,” she said. “You had nothing to do with it.”

“I’m sorry because he hurt you. And I’m sorry he used my name to do it.”

“Your name isn’t Colin Fox.” She spoke the name aloud for the first time in days. And she realized that it was just a name. A name that no longer had the power to hurt her. A name that no longer had the power to tie her insides into knots or to cause her shame or haunt her memories.

Colin chuckled. “You would be surprised at the number of people who only know me as Colin Fox.”

“It’s a shame I wasn’t one of them,” Gillian replied jokingly. “I was already Mrs. Colin Fox. We could have forgone the embarrassing interview with my father, the contract negotiations, and the wedding ceremony, and just got on with the honeymoon.” Gillian blushed when she recognized the look in his eyes and realized what she’d said. “I...um...”

“There is that,” he said. “But if we had forgone the ceremony, you might have had to forgo the betrothal ring you like so much.”

Gillian stared down at her precious pink sapphire. “I would have hated having to forgo this.”

“The ring or the lovemaking?” He leaned down and kissed her gently.

“Well,” she teased, “until a few minutes ago, I had more reason to appreciate my betrothal ring than I did lovemaking.”

Colin shrugged his shoulders and gave her a boyish smile. “I hope we’ve managed to challenge that point of view.” He caressed her breasts, massaging first one and then the other.

“I didn’t like it,” she murmured so softly Colin couldn’t be sure he heard her correctly.

Colin stopped caressing her and leaned closer. “What didn’t you like?”

“It,” she reiterated. “Lovemaking.”

Of all the things she could have said, that was the one thing Colin never expected. “You don’t like lovemaking?”

“No.”

Colin raised his eyebrow. “Normally, that wouldn’t bode well for our marriage,” he told her. “But fortunately, we both have a natural aptitude for lovemaking, and your opinion is about to change.”

Gillian glanced at him from beneath the cover of her eyelashes. “Is it?”