The Winter Wife
“Come to me, my husband.”
Chapter Four
ALICIA STUDIED THE expressions that crossed Sebastian’s striking face. Somewhere in the last years, perhaps only since they’d entered this room and laid down their weapons against each other, she’d learned to read him. When they’d first married, she hadn’t known how
to pierce his shell of physical perfection to reach the man beneath. He’d seemed a godlike creature, too far above lowly mortals for her to feel worthy of being his wife.
But the man who stood before her, superb in his nakedness, was heartbreakingly human.
For all his strength and beauty, he was vulnerable. Even more, he was vulnerable to her. She’d always felt powerless in this marriage. Now she recognized his overwhelming longing for her. And with a shock, realized that he’d longed for her when they’d first married, too. How had she never seen that before?
Tonight she’d also learned that he blamed himself for their difficulties. How odd, when finally she admitted that she’d been at least as much at fault as he. She’d been over-indulged, demanding, headstrong, quick to take umbrage, slow to offer understanding or tolerance.
Tonight she surveyed her husband’s powerful body and rejoiced in a woman’s desire. And a woman’s ability to forgive. She’d finally cast away the chains of hatred and prejudice. Sensual need raged in her blood, made her heart pump with eagerness to know this man’s possession. Fear lurked as well, but she refused to succumb to it. Fear had crippled her for far too long.
She saw also that he was still unsure of her, unaware how much
she’d changed. He didn’t know that, after a long and difficult road,
she’d discovered exactly where she ought to be.
In Kinvarra’s arms. Forever.
How had she ever imagined that weak, inadequate Harold Fenton could compare with the wonderful man she’d married?
“Sebastian, I want you,”
she said softly, surprised at how easily the words emerged. “Don’t make me wait.”
Something in her voice or her smile must have convinced him she’d grown beyond the skittish girl who had fled his passion. Determination lit his face, hardened his jaw, set his eyes glinting in a way that, for all her arousal, made her pulse race with trepidation.
And excitement.
How had she never understood what an exciting man she’d married? The seventeen-year-old Alicia must have been blind. And insane.
This was no time for regrets. Not when her tall, handsome, overwhelmingly virile husband prowled toward her with such purpose. There was none of his earlier reticence in the way he drew her into his arms and tugged her under him. There was just hunger and a masculine strength that made her feel both delicate as a lily and stronger than steel.
She thought she’d measured his passion in his kisses. But now he was insatiable. He touched her everywhere, kissing her as if he couldn’t get enough of her mouth, whispering praise until she trembled with delight.
He touched her between her legs, stroking the sleek folds. She shuddered against him as frenzied response flared. New, strange, astonishing pleasure. She cried out his name and jerked her hips up to meet him. She wanted him to take her, to fill the lonely reaches of her soul, to feed her starving senses. Her arms closed hard around him, feeling the coil and release of the muscles in his back as he moved over her.
He rose above her, caging her between his arms, and she caught the turbulent emotion in his face as he stared down at her. The moment spun into eternity, then shattered when with a single commanding thrust, he joined his body to hers.
Her muscles tightened in instinctive protest at his powerful possession. After the years without him, the invasion felt unfamiliar,
uncomfortable. He was a large man and she’d been chaste for so long. She dragged in a shuddering breath, struggling to adjust to his size and vigor.
Another breath, heavy with Sebastian’s musky, male essence. She shifted, angled her hips, felt him slide further inside her. Then magically all awkwardness flowed away, and with perfect naturalness, she arched up to join him in a union as much of soul as body.
And recognized with despairing clarity that she’d never stopped loving him.
Her fingers curled into the hot, bare skin of his shoulders as the inexorable truth rolled over her like a huge wave. Then she closed her eyes and gave herself up to Sebastian.
Right now he was hers. She refused to let the old, unsure Alicia ruin this ultimate closeness. She clenched around him in a silent plea to stay with her, never to leave.
She felt his tension as he held himself still, then with hard, purposeful strokes that built her arousal to an inferno, he began to move. The dance wasn’t new to her, although this moment’s radiant intimacy was.
She soared higher and higher until she touched the burning sky. She shook and sighed and clung to him, blind to everything but the rising tension inside her. This was beyond anything she’d ever felt. Beyond anything she’d even imagined.