“What time does Mary bring you your breakfast chocolate?” Justin sounded groggy, as well he might having expended such efforts lately on Cressida’s pleasure.
Without opening his eyes he took her left nipple into his mouth while he gently stroked her belly and hips.
Cressida drew in her breath at the familiar surge of sensation to her groin, closing her eyes and twisting in his arms in order to offer Justin her other breast. With difficulty, she managed to croak, “My very discreet lady’s maid will know by the dancing slippers I placed outside my bedchamber door that this is one morning she is not to bring me my customary hot chocolate.”
Justin regarded her with feigned shock through one opened eye. “I should be surprised at nothing concocted by my wife, ever again,” he murmured. “Certainly, I have learned that a well-planned seduction is not only the preserve of the gentleman. Now, my dear, did you not say we had a wedding to attend today?” His look was enquiring as he drew his finger through the slick wetness between her legs. “Should we perhaps concentra
te on the happiness of the very fortunate Miss Hardwicke, rather than our own?”
How quickly he could whip her into a state of desperate desire. Cressida, though, was equally conscious of his erection jabbing into her thigh as he continued his languorous pleasuring of her.
“I think we should certainly make a plan to be out of bed in…” She stopped on a pause which became a squeak. “Ten minutes, Justin, if Mary is to make anything passable out of my hair, which rather resembles a bird’s nest after the activities of last night.”
“I envy the lucky bird who makes it its home, then,” Justin said, playfully. “In either of your little nests,” he added, tickling her between the legs.
Cressida squealed as Justin threw himself on top of her and captured her mouth with his.
Lord, but her husband knew how to kiss. She knew now the heavy roiling sensation she felt in her womb was not attributable to the possibility of a living creature growing inside her but to the primal need to be joined as one with this man who was the axis of her life.
As his tongue thrust inside her mouth, the ache at the juncture of her legs became unbearable but he seemed insensible to her wriggling for he refrained from entering her. Did he not know what she wanted?
Finally he dragged his mouth away long enough to rasp, “Cressy, darling, the hour is growing advanced. We should be mindful of our responsibilities, both to Miss Hardwicke and to ourselves. You know I love you too much to burden you with another little angel so soon.”
“We took precautions twice last night,” she reminded him, archly, “and of course we’ll do so again. Justin?”
He shook his head, sadly, as he rolled off her. “Our precautions are working overtime and there are none that can be used right now, if you understand my meaning.”
“Please, Justin,” she begged hoarsely, “I want to feel you inside me. I want to make up for all that I’ve missed these long months.”
“We’ll spend a lifetime making up for that,” he murmured, kissing her lingeringly on the mouth. “We’ll enjoy every moment we have together, because our splendid union has been blessed in a way few others are, my darling.”
She caressed his smooth cheek with her fingertip, which she then laid gently upon his lip. “We conquered what kept us apart by bringing it into the open.”
“And we learned it was nothing more than fear. So insubstantial—”
“When words and this can heal all the hurt.” Cressida finished her sentence with energy before she scuttled down the bed beneath her husband, clearly catching him by surprise judging by his response as she took him in her mouth.
“You do like it, don’t you?” she demanded, coming up for breath, and was more than reassured by his groan, though before too long he was once more on top of her, grinding out through clenched teeth, “You don’t know what you do to me, Cressy, my darling. Right now I could refuse you nothing.”
Raised above her, his expression was grave and deeply reverential as he gazed down at her and in the brief silence she felt her brain and body swirl with love, lust and longing before craving for the physical held sway and she arched her pelvis up to meet his.
“Then come to me, Justin,” she whispered, closing her eyes. “I want to feel you inside me. I want to revel in you as you revel in me. I’m not afraid like I was before. I know so much more and you can withdraw. Oh—”
For without further preliminaries he had taken her at her word and in an instant her body was filled with him as her world was once again dominated by the man who’d stolen her heart so many years before.
It was a more gentle possession than the passionate couplings of the previous nights. Gentle, thorough, intense and deeply erotic as he thrust into her, his movements in tandem with his tongue, leaving her gasping, exulting in the exhaustion that came from the energy expended in loving him.
Every nerve ending quivered at the contact and once again she thrilled at the now familiar but so deeply missed feeling that began at her toes and spread its all-encompassing wave of sensation up throughout her body before engulfing her in ecstasy. Only her husband had this power over her and she gladly offered him everything she had to give.
Her climax was deep and intense, racking her with shudders as he withdrew upon a groan to spill his seed beside her.
No, there would be no little angels joining their siblings in the nursery for a while, yet, should it happen by chance, Cressida felt strong enough to embrace a timely addition. The control and responsibility Justin shared with her and the reinforcement of his love were her reward for the pain that had gone before.
* * * *
Justin was waiting at the foot of the stairs when Cressida emerged wearing a fashionable gown of primrose lustring beneath a white fur-edged pelisse.
“Good morning, king of husbands,” she said, softly.