Seducing the Groom Read online

  Nibbling a path down her neck, he rooted and nuzzled at her cleavage. She smelled good, like soap and sleep and the rose-scented oil that had been added to her bath. He inhaled sharply, wanting to implant the aromas into his memory so he’d never forget.

  Her breasts were so fine, and he massaged them, playing and shaping. Then he tugged at the straps of her nightgown, yanking them down so her bosom was exposed, so the creamy flesh was offered up for his enjoyment and delectation.

  For a long while, he stared, his gaze potent and intense, making her writhe uncomfortably, then he dipped down and kissed her nipple, laving it, then sucking it into his mouth. Like a babe, he nursed, soothed by the precious motion, but his hunger for her was too fierce, and the subdued indulgence fleetly augmented so he was using her roughly, pinching and biting with enough pressure to make her squirm.

  Merciless, he kept on to where her pulse was hammering at the base of her throat, her respiration labored and difficult, then he moved to the other nipple, giving it the same turbulent manipulation.

  “I want you naked,” he said, as he abandoned her inflamed bust and kissed down her stomach.

  “Yes. Oh, yes,” she moaned as he nipped at her navel.

  Pulling at her nightgown, he drew it down inch by inch, to her waist, her hips, her thighs, and over her toes, then he pitched it onto the floor. Poised over her abdomen, he positioned himself between her legs as he burrowed across her belly and the silky tuft of her womanly hair.

  “I’m going to kiss you here.”

  “Whatever you wish.” She gulped, reminding him that, though she was game to try what he initiated, she was still an innocent.

  With two fingers, he touched her, finding her saturated and slippery, and he delved inside, caressing her, preparing her for what was to come. She was tight and wet, and his cock inflated to an embarrassing length, hurling him to a frightening level of desire. To maintain his languid pace, he had to muster all his fortitude, and he fought against a savage impulse to pin her to the mattress and take her, brutally and crudely, while totally ignoring her virginal condition.

  “You’re so ready for me,” he said.

  Unable to delay, he tasted her, and her erotic tang was an ambrosia that called to his wicked instincts. The aphrodisiacal fragrance was one he recognized. It tempted him in a primal fashion that went far beyond rhyme or reason.

  Flinging her thighs over his shoulders, he settled in, savoring her, then he chased after her sexual nub. It was taut and enlarged, and he grazed over it, brushing it with fast strokes. She panted and fidgeted as he held her down and inflicted thrilling punishment.

  At the edge, she battled the rising tide even as her body propelled her toward the climactic end. She grappled against the onslaught, but he wouldn’t let her evade the torrent. Straining, her hips worked against his mouth. She was so close. So close.

  “Let go darling,” he said.

  “I can’t.” Delicious noises of want and need were emanating from the back of her throat. “It’s too much. Too soon.”

  “Do it for me, Ellen. Let go.” He reached up and grabbed for her nipples, squeezing them as he wrapped his lips around the tender morsel that would bring her the ultimate rapture.

  “Stephen...oh...”

  His lusty wife trusted him enough to leap into a powerful orgasm. As she bucked and thrashed, he rode the wave with her, embracing her and cherishing her as she spiraled up, up, then fell to earth and he was there to catch her.

  Lingering over her stomach, her bosom, her ruby lips, he let her sample the sex on his tongue, but he couldn’t wait for one more second to have her, and he loosened the belt on his robe, wrenched the lapels aside. Stimulation rocked him as his naked torso connected with hers.

  “Stephen...that was...was...spectacular.”

  “Yes.”

  He kissed her forehead, her nose. Her cheeks were flushed from their exertions, and she was smiling at him with profound affection.

  Near to love, he thought.

  Could she grow to love him? What a marvelous notion! How he hoped she would. He’d spent his entire life avoiding attachment to any woman, but now, with his wife peering up at him, glowing from her inaugural experience toward intercourse, he couldn’t imagine why he’d eschewed the situation.

  “It’s time, Ellen.” Kissing her again, he clasped his cock, establishing himself at her very center.

  Her virginal trepidation apparent, she beseeched, “Take me gently.”

  “Always,” he vowed.

  He eased himself in, the blunt crown stretching her, then he pushed in a tad more. Her eyes widened at his invasion, and he stopped, letting her acclimate, then he advanced until he was wedged inside, pressing against the maidenly barrier that blocked her passage.

  “You’re so big.” A frown wrinkled her brow, and she twisted her hips from side to side, her innate response to flee from the incursion. “It hurts.”

  “The pain is normal.” He was barely able to hold himself in check. “Lie still. Try to relax.”

  “Please...I...”

  With a typical fear of the unknown, she was panicking, and he understood he should pause, perhaps retreat to let her adapt more fully, but he was beyond the point of logic or restraint. He had to be inside her.

  “Don’t be afraid.”

  Clutching her hips, he steadied himself, but she was wrestling with him, frantic to escape the inevitable. He knew it was wrong to be titillated by her struggles, but her alarm ratcheted his ardor a notch higher, and he braced her and plunged inside in a single, smooth thrust.

  He was her first! Her very first! His pride and arrogance soared.

  No matter what happened between them in the future, this one extraordinary fact could never be changed. A dangerous vigilance flooded through him, and he swore to himself, then and there, that she’d never intimately know another man. That he would care for her, would make her happy, so she would remain his and his alone.

  She arched up off the bed, crying with dismay, and he captured her wail with an ardent kiss.

  “Ssh,” he calmed, “that’s the worst of it.”

  “I didn’t believe you’d fit.”

  He quashed an insolent smirk. He was a strapping man, and hers was a narrow, slick haven that would cradle him through years of divine excess.

  Her inner muscles contracted round his staff, her virgin’s blood and sexual juice a steamy cauldron, urging him to the culmination, but he gritted his teeth, tamping down on his vehement need for satiation.

  Eventually, she mellowed, the tension reducing, and he reposed with her, dropping down to rest on top of her, to feel her everywhere. Tentatively, her arms went around him and tremulously, she smiled and hugged him. He placed a kiss of reassurance at her nape.

  “Better?” he inquired.

  “Much.”

  He raised up, balancing himself on his palms, and studied the carnal scene displayed below.

  She was a prurient fantasy come true. Her blond hair was spread across his pillows, her body sundered and welcoming him. He glanced down to her breasts, to the peach-colored nipples that were erect and aroused. The golden hairs of her mound tickled and massaged his turgid cock. He was buried to the hilt, her anatomy having accepted every inch he had to bestow.

  His gaze traveled up to meet her own, and she was looking at him with such fondness that his heart lurched in his chest.

  I could love this woman, he realized, and the splendid prospect made him smile too.

  “Let me show you how it ends.”

  Overflowing with unbridled joy and devotion, he began to move.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Ellen was jubilant.

  She was a woman now. Stephen had made her so, and she was ecstatic. Both from the loss of her much-lamented virginity, and because he had been the one to relieve her of it.

  To her enormous delight, he’d awakened her—with kisses and apologies and more—and she couldn’t stop conjecturing as to whether she was in the middle
of a blissful, erotic dream. She arched her pelvis, just so she could detect the pain between her legs.

  His phallus was fully implanted. He’d taken her! He really had!

  He lingered above her, his palms flattened on either side of her head. With each insertion, he probed exhaustively, her untried body shifting and adjusting to the novel sensations created by his entry.

  The anticipation was over, her maidenhead obliterated, and she’d succeeded in bumbling through it without making a fool of herself. She was starting to adapt to his presence. Actually, his flexing was beginning to feel rather pleasant. A tingle ignited low in her belly and radiated from her womanly core to her nipples. She was becoming aroused, and considering how fervently she’d found release the first time, the second occasion—with him inside her—would be even more dynamic.

  He was still clad in his robe, though it was open at the front. His arms were covered, his thighs and legs too, and she wanted him as naked as she, yearned to feast her eyes on his smooth flesh, to observe the mysteries of his delicious male torso.

  “I want this thing off of you,” she told him.

  “Never let it be said”—he ceased his calculated penetration—“that Lord Banbury denied a lady’s request.”

  Urgent, she yanked at the garment, and he moved about, assisting her in undressing him. Shortly, the robe was dislodged, and he hovered over her, delaying, letting her look her fill.

  He was magnificent. His shoulders were broad, his arms toned, his waist thin. His chest was coated with a thick matting of dark hair that dusted his nipples, then descended to his navel and downward to nest around his male parts.

  Tentatively, she reached out and rested her hands on him, running across ridge and valley, sinew and muscle. The cushion of hair tickled, and she sifted through the intriguing pile, rubbed her nose in it. He laughed, a rumbling baritone that reverberated to her very pores.

  He liked her handling—she could tell by his reactions—so she grew more bold, dipping down to fondle the spot where they were united, roving behind to cup his rounded, taut bottom.

  Perched above her, tense and agile, he managed to suffer through her virginal journey of discovery until she decided to explore his nipples. When she took the tiny nubs between finger and thumb, she sent him over the edge upon which he’d been precariously poised.

  Impatiently, he slapped her hands away. “I’ve got to come,” he said. “Now! I can’t wait.”

  “What should I do?”

  “Hold me tight. Don’t let go.”

  “I won’t.”

  She snuggled him to her bosom as he settled himself down, kissing her and trifling with her breasts. Meticulously, rhythmically, he bore into her, each encroachment spurring him nearer and nearer to the precipice.

  His rise of lust fueled her own, and without warning, another stupendous orgasm swept her away.

  As she’d suspected, with him inside her, it was incredibly potent, and she grasped at him, needing him as her stable point as she flew across the universe. Even in his overly incited condition, he was cognizant of her drastic plight. He enfolded her in his arms, cradling her through the tumult.

  “Stephen...” she wailed, the only word that appeared to matter in the torrid location to which she’d traveled.

  “You’re mine, Ellen,” he intently maintained, bewitching her with his possessiveness. “All mine.”

  She discerned a voice crying out his name once more, and she vaguely recognized it as her own. Never seeming to attain the peak, she glided higher and higher, and he continued to plunge into her throughout the spiral.

  He too approached the pinnacle, working himself into a frenetic dither. With no regard to her inexperienced circumstance, he’d taken her raucously. He couldn’t get enough of her, couldn’t propel forcefully enough or delve deeply enough. Sweat pooled on his brow and chest; his anatomy was rigid with strain.

  Pushing into her once, twice, thrice, he froze, his body stiff and unyielding. He tarried just there, his rod lusciously embedded. His climax commenced, and he twined an arm around her and clutched her to him, clenching her so fiercely that she worried he might crack one of her slender bones.

  A haunting moan echoed out, and he shuddered. Far inside, his phallus was throbbing as his hot seed surged from the tip and spewed across her womb. The fiery emission gushed out again and again, his pleasure interminable, as though he couldn’t find his way to the end.

  Instinctively, she wrapped her legs around him, her fingers clasping his buttocks, and she pulled him in, hugging him to her as he emptied himself.

  At last, with a jolting, violent quiver raking him, he was replete. He went slack and fell onto her, crushing her into the mattress, but he didn’t feel heavy. He felt welcome, and she relished their connection and the opportunity to share such an intimate, private moment with him.

  He’d held nothing back, had bared his soul, had shown her the most secret territory in his heart. The encounter had been stunning, remarkable, beyond her wildest dreams—and they had been quite tempestuous. He’d given her all that she’d pined for and more, and she was thrilled by how the assignation had progressed.

  Alice had insisted that the marital act improved with repetition, that their sexual engagements would increase in satisfaction and enjoyment. If it could be this exciting, this unrestrained and exhilarating after their initial attempt, what lay in their future?

  She saw years—nay, decades!—of stormy, impetuous love play as their destiny.

  He’d been brutally distressed by his carnal spree. His forehead was buried in the pillow beside her; his lungs grappled for air. His heart hammered, bashing behind his ribs.

  She massaged his shoulders and back and arms, easing him, helping him to regain his equilibrium. Ultimately, he heaved out a labored sigh, and his physical perturbation waned. He remained where he was, sprawled on top of her, his cherished masculine form pinning her down. The size of the unduly-large member had dwindled a bit, but as though he was already contemplating another go-round, the stiffness hadn’t totally abated.

  Shutting her eyes, she let her senses soak it in, wanting to remember every detail so she’d always vividly recall every aspect of the fabulous event.

  But as she dawdled, a disturbing notion occurred to her. What if he hadn’t perceived their copulation to be extraordinary? What if it had been typical of his dalliances with his numerous other paramours?

  How could she learn his answer? It wasn’t as if she could simply blurt out her query. If he characterized it as exceedingly normal, she would expire from humiliation.

  He stirred and kissed her cheek. She could feel him smiling, and the insight brought a smile to her own lips. He rolled onto his side, turning her with him so they were facing one another. His cock was still firmly entrenched, scarcely softened, and his hand lay on her hip, making lazy circles up and down her flank.

  For a long while, they stared, and Ellen was too flustered to speak. What was a woman to say after such a miraculous meeting of body and spirit? She studied him, trying to glean a clue to his mental state, but though she’d been thoroughly apprised about him on paper from the research her father’s men had done before the wedding, she didn’t know much about him personally, and she couldn’t decipher his thoughts.

  He seemed happy. Content. And intensely appeased. Yet how could she be sure?

  “When you’re overwhelmed by passion, you call me Stephen.” He traced a finger across her lips. “I like that.”

  She chuckled. As she’d been absurdly yearning for declarations of fondness and affection, his comment was notably diverse from what she’d been hoping to hear, but she shouldn’t have been surprised. He was conceited, pompous, haughty, impossible. And he was hers.

  She was so glad!

  “You’re proud that you can so easily goad me beyond my limits?” she asked.

  “Absolutely.”

  “Vain beast.”

  He laughed again, and it was a joyous sound that made her stomach r
ipple with butterflies.

  “You’re going to be very good for my ego, Lady Banbury.”

  During the arduous day, she hadn’t spent much time considering her title, and he was inordinately insolent as he tossed it at her.

  “Bounder,” she scolded. “I’m aware of your imperious tendencies, milord husband, and I don’t think it will hurt for you to be put in your place every so often.”

  “No. I don’t think it will.”

  The banter trailed off, and he persisted with assessing her, which had her acutely unnerved. She couldn’t fathom why he would. Did he wish to confide in her? To unburden himself? On what topic?

  Instead, he closed the distance between them and kissed her, a sweet, chaste brush of his lips to hers. The precious gesture was so dear that tears welled into her eyes, and she hated that she would be inundated by emotion. Alice had counseled that Ellen would be affected in ways she’d never imagined, but just as he was a proud man, so was she a proud woman. She didn’t want him to see how moved she’d been by what they’d accomplished.

  As he drew away, he gently probed, “Are you all right?”

  “Definitely,” she contended but more tears threatened. She valiantly fought to keep them from toppling over, but one or two slipped onto her cheeks.

  He rubbed them away with his thumb and kissed where they’d been. “Was I too rough?”

  “No.”

  He blushed, appearing as naive and unsophisticated as a young lad. “Are you positive? I am so enamored of you that I was carried away. I should have been more disciplined...I should have reined myself in...I should have...”

  She cut off his litany of remonstrance. “It was marvelous, but a trifle disconcerting.”

  “It can be. Especially in the beginning.”

  She mustered her courage, then ventured, “Is it always like this?”

  “No, my darling, Ellen. It never is.”

  “Then why...?”

  She couldn’t verbalize what had transpired between them. She had no terms in her vocabulary that fit, and he came to her rescue, finishing the interrogatory for her.

  “Then why was it so powerful?”