And found herself in his arms. Panic flared, only to be submerged by an even more frightening anticipation as he drew her closer. Lenore strove to distract them both. “That hurt!” She tried to glare but, finding his eyes coming closer and closer, she had difficulty focusing.
“Perhaps I should soothe it with a kiss?” Jason murmured, his lips curving as they gently touched hers.
Lenore froze, her wide-eyed stare telling him more clearly than words how scandalous she found his suggestion.
Jason raised a brow. “No?” He sighed dramatically, then bent to feather another kiss across her lips. “Perhaps later.”
Later? Regardless of his prowess, Lenore did not think so. She tried to shake her head to deny it all—her feelings, his words, the excitement she could feel rising inside her—but one of his hands framed her jaw. He surged up, leaning over her. Then his lips settled firmly on hers.
Lenore’s lids fluttered shut, all thought suspended.
She had not known quite what to expect—more of the magic she had felt in the Lester Hall library, certainly—but was there anything that could surpass that for sheer delight?
In the long moments of her wedding-night, she learned that, indeed, there was.
To Jason, those same long moments were the culmination of an unusually long courtship—he had never waited for a woman so long. Nor, to his secret amazement, had he ever wanted a woman so much. Introducing his wife to the pleasures of the flesh was a prize he had promised himself, a prize he had actively sought, a prize he had every intention of savouring. To the full. He did not rush her, seeking instead her active participation at every stage along the course he had charted—the longest route he could find to fulfilment. When he slipped her nightgown from her, dropping it over the side of the bed, he was conscious of a sense of wonder, of awe, that all he saw was now his—not conquered but given—a prize beyond price.
She moved sensuously on the sheets, as if savouring the feel of the silk against her smooth skin. He reached his hands into her hair, spreading his fingers and drawing them free, letting the long tresses fall like spun gold across the pillows.
From under heavy lids, Lenore studied his face, recognising the desire and need etched in his shimmering eyes. The realisation fed the flame that burned steadily inside her. She arched lightly, pressing her breast to his wandering hand. He smiled and bent his head. Pleasure streaked through her, leaving her gasping. She heard him chuckle. Lacing her fingers into his hair, she tugged gently, until he looked up, then drew his lips to hers.
He taught her the ways of kissing, how to meet him halfway. He taught her to feel no shame in her wild response to his most explicit caress. His hands were like a conjuror’s, roaming her fevered skin, seeking out each secret spot and stroking it to life. His kisses reassured and excited, beckoning her forever onwards, down the path of her desire. She clung to him, seduced by the feel of hard muscle shifting beneath her small hands. And when, after what seemed like an eternity of travelling through a landscape of pleasure, he joined with her to climb the last passionate heights, she learned what it was to soar freer than air, to blaze brighter than the sun before, consumed in the starburst of heightened pleasure, she became selfless, only aware of his heartbeat and hers, mingled, the essence of life.
Slowly, like a vessel refilling, her overloaded senses returned. Sated, sleepy, she returned his soft kisses, barely aware of his murmured praises. When he drew her against him, Lenore smiled to herself, an unconscious self-satisfied smile, then settled, fulfilled and content, by his side.
* * *
A CREAK WOKE Lenore. Puzzled, she blinked and tried to sit up, only to find a heavy weight across her waist. Struggling around, she gasped as her eyes met her husband’s sleepy grey gaze—and she remembered, simultaneously, where she was, who she was with, how she came to be there and what had happened. A strangled sound, half surprise, half embarrassment, escaped her.
“Hush!”
One large hand came to cradle her head, gently pressing her back to the pillows.
“Moggs—get out.”
For an instant, stunned silence greeted this order. Then Lenore heard the bedroom door click quietly shut.
Jason caught his wife’s gaze, and tried to keep his lips straight as he explained. “You’ll have to excuse Moggs. Doubtless he thought I was alone.”
“Oh.” That was all Lenore could manage. She did not have her nightgown on. And he did not have a nightshirt on either.
The effect of her discovery was written in her large eyes, palest peridot, bright and clear. Jason read the message, his lips curved in anticipation.
Some vague idea that this was not how things should be—that she should, by rights, have been in her own bed and he in his by dawn—drifted into Lenore’s mind. And then out, as his lips claimed hers and the memory of the night’s shared pleasures drew her into the sweet vortex again.
It was hours before she rang for Trencher.
* * *
THE WEEKS that followed were an idyllic time for Lenore, a period lifted from her deepest dreams—those she had never acknowledged. Her days were filled with laughter and happy enterprise as Jason introduced her to his home. He was never far from her side as the summer days followed each other, sunshine and fair weather mirroring their interaction. The nights brought pleasures of a different sort, an enthralling web of sensation that wrapped them together with its silken strands. And through it all, like a swelling tide, ran a deepening, burgeoning realisation of what she had sensed was possible, what she had feared. But, in that halcyon time, it seemed that no dark cloud could intrude.
* * *
AS HE SAT UP and swung his legs over the edge of his wife’s bed, Jason aimed a playful smack at her bottom, naked beneath the silk sheet.
“Ow!” Lenore turned to frown direfully at him, rubbing her abused posterior. As he stood and drew on his grey silk robe, her expression turned sulky. Her lips pouted, but her eyes teased. “Didn’t I please you, my lord?”