“North, please,” she said, not knowing what to do but knowing that something very wonderful and special was going to happen.

“Just hang on, Caroline.” His voice was hoarse and deep and then his hot breath was touching her flesh and she arched upward, moaning, letting his hands lift her higher to his mouth, and soon, so very soon after that, she was crying, sobbing, twisting on the sheets, her hands fisted, hitting his shoulders, then clutching at him, wanting what was coming so badly she didn’t think she could bear it, and then suddenly, heat spread through her, drawing her inward, and melded with the heat of his mouth and she yelled.

He held her there until he felt the complete giving of everything that was in her, and he knew that all her feeling had come to him and to herself and he wasted no more time. He came into her fully in the next instant, barred only a moment by her maidenhead, then he was through it, thrusting himself to her womb. He knew he was hurting her, that the haze of pleasure was falling away from her because of the pain of rending her maidenhead. He held himself still and pulled himself up on his elbows, a remarkable feat really, one he was pleased he’d managed to do.

“Hello,” he said, looking down into her dazed eyes. “No, don’t move. Let yourself get used to me, then I’ll move, but not sooner, else it will hurt you some more. The book said I was to apologize abjectly at least ten times when I tore through your maidenhead. It’s your badge of innocence and it’s important to you and thus I must act appropriately sorry to be the one to rob you of it.”

“All right,” she said. “What you’re saying is nonsense, but it’s all right. This is all very strange, North, this business about you being inside me. I mean you’re really inside me, not just your tongue in my mouth, but this part of you that’s just for me and now you’re doing what you’re supposed to be doing, isn’t that right?”

He grinned painfully. “I sure the hell hope so. I can’t wait now, Caroline.” He moved and it wasn’t too bad. She clasped her arms around him and kissed him, letting his breath flow into her mouth, feeling his frenzy, his growing urgency, until he was arching up, his eyes closed, his head thrown back, and he moved and she felt his seed inside her.

He came down over her, panting hard, to rest his face beside hers on the pillow.

She whispered in his ear, “I don’t think you missed any steps, North.”

22

FOR SEVERAL MOMENTS, he didn’t know what she was talking about, his brain was too dead. He said then, “I should take my pleasure before giving you yours. Then I can twit you when you haven’t any more of a functioning brain than a gnat. No, I didn’t miss any steps. On the other hand, I could have made those steps much, much steeper and thus taken a much longer time to reach the summit. What do you think?”

“I think,” she said, kissing his throat, “that you are entirely capable of finding us steps that are on side trails, very interesting, rarely stepped-upon steps. Surely your book didn’t cover every possibility. You’re incredible, North. You’re probably also very inventive.”

“I am,” he said, kissed her, then rolled over, pulling her against him. “Side trails, huh? I’ll have one by tomorrow morning, all right?”

“I’ll think about it too. I’m so glad I didn’t have to marry Owen or Bennett,” she said, then in the next moment she was asleep.

He kissed her hair, managed to lean over far enough to snuff the candles on the table beside the bed, then closed himself about her again. He hadn’t slept with a woman in a very long time.

He’d never before slept with a wife. And that’s what she was now, his bloody wife, and he’d given her a woman’s pleasure. That was quite nice and well done of him. The male fraternity would approve. He was a damned fine man and a generous one. He hadn’t been a clod, though it had been close.

Side trails with lots of individual steps. He only had time to smile about it before he too was deeply asleep.

North awoke the following morning to find himself alone. He thought of that monster’s face she’d seen in the window the night before, jerked up in bed, and yelled, “Caroline!”

There was no answer. He turned to see the adjoining door open. He called her name again, but still no answer. He frowned and looked at the clock beside his bed. It wasn’t even eight o’clock in the morning.

Damnation, he’d wanted to wake up, then kiss her awake and love her again until she was silly with it. He tossed off the covers and stood up to stretch.

He was in mid-stretch when the door opened and there was Tregeagle standing there, as stiff as a board, looking as horrified as a vicar in a den of iniquity.

North frowned at him. “What the hell do you want, Tregeagle? Where is my wife?”

“Your wife is with them, my lord, and they are here, all three of them, and it is unacceptable; it is not what we’re used to. This is the Nightingale household, a household for men only, not some sort of inn for Mary Magdalenes.”

North blinked through this bitter speech, then grinned. “Oh, I see, our three pregnant ladies are here. Caroline is with them?”

“Yes, my lord. She insisted that Mr. Polgrain prepare them a very generous breakfast because, she said, they had to keep their strength up. My lord, we allowed them to be present at your wedding ceremony, allowed them even to remain for the magnificent repast Mr. Polgrain prepared, but then, of course, they left to return where they belonged.” Tregeagle drew a very audible breath. “My lord, what are the three pregnant ladies doing here at Mount Hawke, at a man’s residence, at seven forty-five o’clock in the morning?”

“Why, Tregeagle, they’re moving in. Didn’t I tell you that yesterday?”

He thought Tregeagle would faint. He turned white, his limbs began to shake as if he were suffering from palsy. “Have Timmy the maid bring me bathwater, Tregeagle, and get a grip on yourself, man. It won’t be so bad. I think t

he three of you will enjoy hearing feminine conversation and laughter, don’t you?”

“No, my lord.”

North laughed and laughed. He stopped, realizing what he was doing. This laughter business was becoming more natural. It had quite sneaked up on him and now he was doing it. It made him feel quite nice, when it didn’t scare him to death.

When North strode into the small breakfast parlor a short time later, he drew up on the threshold, and just stared. There was Caroline seated unknowingly in his high-backed chair. To her left, right, and center were her three pregnant ladies all seated at the table, chatting gaily, all seemingly in very fine spirits. Well, Caroline should be in the best spirits possible, given how very wonderful he’d been to her on their wedding night. He wondered if in the near future he would have four pregnant ladies at the breakfast table. That made him smile. Then it made him frown, for oddly, it brought odd images to his mind of two very big people who were screaming at each other, then one of those big people was sobbing and cursing, and it was long ago in the past, he did realize that, but those terrifying scenes should have been long forgotten. He knew deep down it was his parents. He hated remembering. He firmly closed the door on those memories and walked forward.

Tags: Catherine Coulter Legacy Historical
Source: readsnovelonline.net