Chapter Seventeen #2
Essien shrugged, rolling onto his back as he still held her hand.
“I was given the title Lord Binchester when Addax married and was made the Earl of Deira,” he said.
“In fact, that makes you Lady Binchester. The title came with a castle and other properties attached to it, but the fortress is called Vinovia Castle, named after the old Roman fort nearby. It is smaller, very agricultural, but there is also some limited mining. It supports itself quite well. Raisbeck is a little more challenging in that it is larger, and the land seems to be more fickle than the land I own, so I have been helping Addax with it. But I should like to make Vinovia our home. Just for us and our children.”
Catalina liked the sound of that. “Vinovia,” she repeated. “That is a lovely name.”
“And you will make a lovely Lady of the manor,” he said, watching her grin. “Your daughters will have plenty of room to run and play and keep pets. I shall buy them ponies and they can ride them as much as they wish. It will be their home, too, and I want them to be happy.”
Catalina’s smile faded and she shook her head in wonder. “How remarkable,” she said.
“What?”
“You,” she said simply. “You are remarkable. That you should be so considerate toward little girls that are not your own, but your wife’s children from another man, is remarkable to me. How very kind you are to think of them.”
He shrugged. “And why not?” he said. “Do not forget that I, too, was treated well by a man who was not my father. He did not marry my mother, of course, but Hereford has set an example of how a man should treat people—friends, family, and allies alike. He never made me feel as if I was not part of his family. I would hope that your daughters feel the same way about me, someday.”
“They will be grateful,” she murmured. “As will I.”
He could see the utter appreciation in her face. “I will be grateful also,” he said. “I shall be very proud to tell people that you are my wife, a lady of substance and breeding. Even after knowing you only a day, I feel very fortunate.”
It was a sweet thing to say. More and more, Catalina’s guard was coming down whether or not she wanted it to.
She had been so starved for affection her entire life that now, when a door to the future was cracked open, she wanted to throw it wide open and dash through.
There was hope there, something shiny and bright and alluring.
She’d heard from others that Essien was a good man, so it was quite possible this was simply Essien being himself.
Not an act. Not something to lull her into a false sense of security.
She very much wanted to believe it.
But it also made her want to kiss him.
In her mind, there was nothing more attractive than a kind, handsome man—and in her opinion, she’d just married one.
He’d told her that they didn’t have to consummate the marriage tonight if she was uncomfortable with it, but that wasn’t the case at all.
Truth be told, she wanted to consummate it.
She wanted him to touch her. He’d done something to her with his sweet words and she wanted to reciprocate the only way she knew how.
By physically demonstrating that appreciation.
Essien was still looking at her when, abruptly, she stood up from her chair and put her hands on his face, planting her lips over his.
She kissed him, perhaps a little heavy-handedly and awkwardly because she’d never done that kind of thing before, but Essien quickly got over his surprise.
She kissed him once, and then twice, the second time being a little longer and a little more passionate.
When she pulled back, looking into his wide eyes, she smiled.
“There,” she murmured. “We have kissed on the mouth.”
He licked his lips where hers had touched his, as if he could still feel her. “We have.”
“May I kiss you again?”
His answer was to put his arms around her, his mouth fusing to hers. The second kiss was far lustier because the moment Essien touched her, all of his restraint seemed to vanish. He was running purely on instinct at this point, much as she was, and they feasted upon one another.
The magic ignited.
Before he realized what he was doing, Essien was stripping off his tunic, his clothing.
He had to pull away from her to remove his tunic, but Catalina boldly grabbed the sleeves and yanked it over his head, tossing it onto the floor.
He put his arms around her once more, kissing her, touching her, listening to her sigh with pleasure.
But she was only getting started.
Catalina was existing in a haze, one where Essien was the only thing in her world.
The smell of him, the feel of him, sparked a fire that was quickly consuming her.
Alfred might have been an apathetic husband at times, but he had made sure to teach his wife what she needed to know in order to please a man.
Catalina had always hated doing what Alfred wanted her to do, putting her mouth in places that smelled awful and had an odd texture, but he had insisted.
Those weren’t good memories for her, but there was so much desire at this moment to make new memories with a husband she was very quickly coming to appreciate.
Better memories and more pleasurable moments.
For both of them.
Catalina tore her mouth away from Essien’s seeking lips and unfastened his breeches, sliding them down to his knees.
Whereas Alfred had been feebly hung, Essien’s manhood was magnificent.
It was already massive and he wasn’t even fully erect yet.
Gently, she grasped his erection and stroked it, and Essien’s eyes rolled back in his head at the sheer pleasure of it.
She fondled him for a moment before rolling him onto his back, pulling his boots and breeches completely off, and then climbing between his legs and taking his erection into her mouth.
Essien thought his loins were going to explode. She manipulated him with a surprisingly expert mouth until he was absolute mush in her hands, but it began to occur to him that she’d learned this somewhere. With someone. Reaching down, he grasped her by the hair and pulled her head up.
“Wait,” he said hoarsely. “Where did you learn to do this?”
She looked at him, her cheeks flushed with passion. “Alfred,” she said. “He taught me. If you do not like this, then I will never do it again. But I thought… mayhap you would like for me to demonstrate what I knew. Are you pleased?”
Essien wanted to say no. What she was doing was a whore’s trick.
Noble-born women didn’t lick their man’s cock.
Not usually, anyway. But he couldn’t quite stop her because, by damn, if it didn’t feel like a little piece of heaven.
His indecisiveness meant enough of a pause that Catalina assumed he wanted her to continue, so she did.
Her tongue did deliciously wicked things to him as her fingers probed the split of his buttocks, fingering his anus and his testicles, and that very nearly sent him over the edge.
He’d never experienced anything like it.
But he didn’t want her to pleasure him to the point of release.
He wanted to pleasure her, too, to acquaint himself with her beautiful body, so he forced himself to sit up, gently pulling her into a sitting position.
Then he pulled the loose-fitting garment she’d borrowed from Christin over her head.
When that was on the floor, he took hold of the shift underneath and pulled that off, too, leaving her nude in the dim light of the chamber.
Essien took a moment to simply look her over, her big breasts, slender waist, and very round hips.
Those were hips that had birthed children, generous and round in all of the right places. This was no skinny, bony lass.
This was a woman.
He’d never seen anything so arousing.
Catalina ended up on her back when he grasped her by the arms and flipped her over, assuming the dominant position.
His mouth fixed on her neck, kissing a blazing trail down to her right breast, where he took a nipple in his mouth.
She gasped when he suckled her, gently at first, and then with more force.
Bolts of excitement ran throughout her body and she couldn’t help the gasps of joy.
But her unsteady breathing told Essien how much she liked what he was doing to her.
Her fingers were in his hair as she held him to her breasts, forcing him to suckle her in the most tender of places.
He answered her command.
Catalina was lost in her pleasure, feeling Essien’s heated hands on her flesh, his mouth drawing in tender places.
When he began to kiss her belly, it tickled, but she put a hand in her mouth to keep from crying out in sheer delight.
Alfred had done this before, but only when they were first married.
After that, he didn’t put any effort into it, but she still had to pretend that she liked it.
But this time, she wasn’t feigning pleasure.
The pleasure was real.
Essien moved lower, his mouth now on the mound of dark curls between her legs.
Catalina parted her thighs for him, an instinctive move, and he settled his big body in between them, his tongue manipulating her sensitive woman’s center.
Catalina was quickly reaching her climax and her body was beginning to twitch.
Essien could feel it. Not wanting to miss the moment, he lifted himself up and drove deep into her quivering folds.